cities and within the cities, that almost invariably the young trees 
which were set out were Planes. 
From Strassburg to Paris our route led us through the now fright- 
fully devastated zone of northern France. I have shuddered to think 
of the destruction of the beautiful trees we saw then. Frederick 
Courtlandt Penfield, our Ambassador to Austria-Hungary, after the 
severance of diplomatic relations with that country, and before his 
return to America,passed through this region lately evacuated by 
the German vandals. He writes: 
"The most ruthless and revolting thing that a visitor to the evacu- 
ated area perceives is the total destruction of all trees, fruit-bearing 
and ornamental. Nearly every tree in the Aisne department has 
been felled. Men and money can rebuild the homes and factories 
in a year or two, but to restore the orchards and other useful trees 
will call for a half-century. What the Germans did to tree life in north- 
ern France was the systematic murdering of Nature, nothing less." 
At Bologne we crossed to Folkestone. We had left the inter- 
minable miles of highways on the Continent, and from there to 
London saw only lovely English lanes, hedges, and parklike landscapes. 
In London, the trimmed Plane has the sanction of royalty. From 
St. James Palace down Constitution Hill to the Victoria Memorial 
Fountain are shapely, pyramidal trees, six rows of them on Pall Mall; 
and on the Green Park side there are five rows of these trees. 
In New York, many symmetrical young trees are planted on River- 
side Drive and in Central Park, and from there along the center of 
Seventh Avenue. Mr. Frick had Horse-chestnuts planted before 
his house at first, but they were a failure, and he now has the Planes. 
Two wind-swept treeless acres had come into our possession, not 
three minutes away from the Atlantic Ocean, with only low sand 
dunes intervening. It was said by those who thought they knew, 
that we were beyond the tree limit, and as a proof of this assertion 
they pointed to the few trees in the neighborhood, all of which had 
succumbed to stress of storm and salt spray, and were barely more 
than tall shrubs, with tops that bent wearily away from the pre- 
vailing winds. And I had had visions ! Visions, of shrubberies with a 
broken skyline framing green lawns ; of groups of evergreens for winter 
cheer, of beautiful specimen trees, and these as the setting of an en- 
closed garden with flowers blooming around the central gem — a 
Grecian fountain! Decidedly, the tree line must be changed; and it 
was, by means of close planting and the protection given by the build- 
ings on the place. Now I could carry out my cherished plan of an 
avenue of Plane trees similar to those I had seen in Switzerland. 
