IRatuve IRotes : 
Cbe Selbovne Society’s ilDagasine 
No. 56. AUGUST, 1894. VoL. V. 
LONDON TREES AND GARDENS. 
By the Editor. 
HE foreigner who comes to London, and who has formed 
his own ideas as to the city of smoke, is surprised to 
find how many trees grow within its boundaries. Even 
within “the City” itself there is a surprising number 
of healthy trees, a list of which was published some time since in 
a London paper. Much, too, has been done in other ways to 
improve London during the last few years ; and St. Paul’s 
Churchyard now vies in attractiveness with the gardens sur- 
rounding many churches in Paris. Other attempts to beautify 
London are equally successful, notably the rows of planes which 
grace the Embankment between Blackfriars and Westminster ; 
and numerous churchyards have been converted into gardens 
by the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association, the eleventh 
Report of which (for 1893), is before us. It is with no desire to 
ignore or to minimise the various efforts that have been made 
that we propose to draw attention to the urgent need of further 
development in this direction. 
Beginning with our streets, it can scarcely be said that their 
present condition is satisfactory. Shaftesbury Avenue on the 
north side of the river, and various roads — Blackfriars Road, 
St. George’s Road, and London Road — on the south, may be 
taken as illustrations. The three roads last named are under 
the control of the St. George’s Vestry, and afford an admirable 
example of the way in which bodies of this kind neglect their 
trust. 
Any one of the three roads just mentioned affords a series 
of object lessons. Every form of wrong-doing is conspicuously 
manifest. A large number of the trees are dead, others are in 
