August, 1911.] 



129 



Plant Sanitation. 



as couid be looked after and kept up in 

 years to come. To plant a row or avenue 

 of trees, and then leave it to take its 

 chance, usually an extremely poor one, 

 of reaching maturity, is to throw away 

 good money. Similarly, to plant areas 

 of gtass and leave them to become refuse 

 and rubbish heaps or mud flats is merely 

 to add to the squalor and untidiness of a 

 neighbourhood. For the dwellings of 

 the wealthier inhabitants, advice would 

 be offered when demanded or sugges- 

 tions made when it was desired to 

 obtain uniformity of treatment in a 

 particular locality or neighbourhood, or 

 when the planting of a group of trees in 

 a garden would afford a pleasing 

 amenity for a neighbouring poorer 

 locality. In the public streets the sub- 

 committee should be given a free hand 

 so far as tree planting and the form- 

 ation of grass plots went. I have men- 

 tioned above how a street, such as 

 George Street, for instance, which has 

 great breadth, could be beautified by 

 an avenue of trees such as black 

 poplars, or sycamores, or elms. In 

 other parts of the city horticulturists 

 are of opinion that thorns and the 

 service tree might be used, whilst 

 in sheltered situations I should like 

 to try the plane, lime, and even the 

 horse-chestnut. I should like to go into 

 greater detail on what might be attempt- 

 ed in Edinburgh on this head, but for 

 one thing time will not permit of it, 

 and for the other I should require to 

 make a closer survey of the city in this 

 respect than I have yet had opportunity 

 to do. 



There is one other point, however, 

 in connection with tree planting in 

 towns which applies alike to Edinburgh 

 and all growing cities and towns. It is 

 concerned not with tree planting but 

 with tree felling. It is difficult to speak 

 too strongly in disapprobation of the 

 indiscriminate and pernicious felling of 

 trees which usually takes place when a 

 new block of houses is to be built or 

 a new road laid down. No effort is 



made to first mark out the foundations 

 or alignment to ascertain whether the 

 trees must come down or can be left to 

 afford a pleasing amenity to the district. 

 Perhaps for the gain of a few shillings 

 or through ignorance or gross stupidity 

 they are ruthlessly hacked down, a few 

 hours destroying the work of a century, 

 and the stumps remain a lasting source 

 of regret to those inhabiting the district, 

 for they can never hope in their time 

 to replace the trees so mercilessly 

 destroyed. 



The first rule for a town planning 

 committee to lay down should be that 

 no trees on areas in which building ex- 

 tensions are to take place should be 

 felled or killed without a special per- 

 mission being previously obtained. 



In conclusion, I could wish to point 

 one moral with no uncertain note, and 

 that is the great effect on the amenity 

 of a district and on its inhabitants 

 which tree growth exerts. A barren 

 country is depressing, and has a like 

 effect on mankind, resulting in the 

 coarsening of human nature. Can one 

 be surprised at the low scale of morality 

 and the absence of the finer instincts of 

 human nature generally associated with 

 coal-mining districts when one remem- 

 bers that alike above and below the 

 surface of the earth the miner finds 

 everything black and lifeless? To 

 merely travel through such a country 

 is depressing. How much more so to 

 live in it ? And as it is with the Black 

 Country, as it i? called, so is it in the 

 narrow street of the slums, where the 

 blue sky is hidden by the smoke of the 

 great city and plant life of all kinds is 

 absent. 



Give the people better homes to live 

 in — it is a first desideratum — but with 

 the houses give them the companions of 

 their ancestors, the trees, the green 

 grass, and the flowers, for there are 

 species of each which, if properly looked 

 after, will grow even in the murk of 

 the great city. 



PLANT SANITATION. 



CLERUS FORMICARIUS, IN RELA- 

 TION TO ' SHOT-HOLE BORER.' 



By E. E. Green. 



It may be remembered that an attempt 

 was made last year to introduce living 

 beetles of Clerus formtcarius. 



17 



This species is carnivorous (in its 

 larval stages,) feeding upon the larvae 

 of various wood-boring beetles. It had 

 been suggested that it might possibly 

 be of use to us as an enemy of our 

 ' Shot-hole Borer' (Xyleborus fornicatus). 

 A small sum was placed at my disposal 

 by the Planters' Association of Ceylon 



