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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



by actually destroying the tissues, render leaf-action impossible, 

 were likewise merely mentioned incidentally, as they also are, for 

 the most part, beyond the power of the gardener, as such, to 

 prevent or improve. 



Nor was it considered necessary on this occasion to allude 

 to the decoration of streets, squares, or parks by means of 

 plants in tubs or pots, or by the aid of shrubs removed when 

 rendered unsightly, to be replaced by others in the following 

 spring. 



Turning to the kind of assistance which gardeners are able to 

 render in the purification and adornment of our crowded cities 

 and thoroughfares, the speaker first of all alluded to the question 

 of soil. In most cases, when streets were originally planned 

 and buildings erected, no provision at all was made for the 

 planting of trees and shrubs in their immediate vicinity, and, 

 even now, in the formation of streets and gardens attached to 

 houses in suburban districts, the first care of the builder is to 

 remove the good soil, if there be any, to sell it, if possible, and 

 to supply the deficiency by brickbats, mortar-rubbish, broken 

 bottles, tin cans, and similar refuse, by means of which the 

 levels can be raised to the desired height, without a thought of 

 the nurseries for disease-germs which are thus established. In 

 streets of older date the conditions are even worse, from the 

 infiltration of gas, the scanty provision for the access of air and 

 water to the roots, or even the positive exclusion of those neces- 

 sary compounds by asphalteor other impermeable road- coverings. 

 The first thing, therefore, for the street-planter to do, when once 

 the area at his disposal is decided on, is to ascertain the nature 

 of the soil, and, in case of need, to remove that which is 

 unsuitable, and replace it with that which is fit for the growth 

 of plants. So far as circumstances will allow, he will also take 

 measures to avoid or to remedy the other evils alluded to. 



It is but rarely, in street-planting in old towns, that any 

 special provision for drainage is necessary, one of the com- 

 monest evils in such instances arising from over-drainage. In 

 the case of squares and gardens formed in areas not previously 

 built over, of course the first thing the planter will do will be to 

 secure adequate drainage by the ordinary methods. In street- 

 planting a hole not less than five or six feet across, and three or 

 four feet in depth, should be dug, the unsuitable soil removed 



