PARK AND 
CEMETERY . 
194 
of a Shade Tree Commission. The fine 
results obtained in East Orange and 
elsewhere . . . could never have 
been obtained by individual effort at 
any outlay of money. But it has been 
demonstrated in East Orange that it is 
less expensive to get and maintain a 
splendid, harmonious and beautiful sys- 
tem of shade trees than it is to have 
a haphazard arrangement as prevails 
in most cities, where great possibilities 
are ruined sometimes through indiffer- 
ence and inattention, but more often 
through ignorance.” 
During the past year I have been 
called to a number of cities to help in 
their campaigns for tree protection and 
the placing of trees under municipal 
control. Usually such movements are 
inaugurated by public spirited men and 
women and clubs who recognize the ad- 
vantages of an orderly system of tree 
planting. Of the cities visited I will 
speak of Chicago and New Orleans as 
examples by which every city in the 
country might profit. 
I was called to Chicago by the Chi- 
cago Women’s Club to speak at a meet- 
ing for the discussion of tree planting 
which was held in Franklin Hall on 
Sunday afternoon, January 31, 1909. 
Mr. Franklin MacVeagh presided. The 
other speakers were Dr. Stephen A. 
Forbes, the State' Entomologist of Illi- 
nois, who spoke of the “Insect Ene- 
mies of Trees,” and Mr. John O’Con- 
nor, who spoke of “Legislative Pro- 
vision in Illinois.” The outcome of the 
meeting was the appointment of the 
Chicago Tree Committee, consisting of 
thirty prominent men and women. Mr. 
Franklin MacVeagh was made chair-- 
man of the committee. 
While in Chicago I had the oppor- 
tunity of making a survey of the street 
trees, and all those familiar with Chi- 
cago will realize that the soil, the cli- 
mate and the smoke combine to make 
the most adverse natural conditions for 
tree growth. Still it was recognized 
that in order to get the best possible 
results, even with conditions as they 
were, it was necessary to have some 
public official or body with the duty of 
properly caring for and protecting the 
trees now existing or hereafter to be 
planted on the street of t’lat city- The 
efforts of the Chicago Tree Committee 
were directed with that end in view, 
and as a result of their labors the Chi- 
cago City Council passed an ordinance 
on March 22, 1909, placing the street 
trees under the control of tfe Special 
Park Commission of that city and cre- 
ated the office of City Forester, which 
was filled in May. Chicago should be 
an example to every city in the coun- 
try ; for if with unfavorable natural 
conditions it is expected to accomplish 
great results through systematic effort, 
then surely places where trees will 
readily grow cannot afford to be back- 
ward in this form of municipal improve- 
ment. 
After Chicago, the visit to New Or- 
leans was a revelation. The conditions 
for tree growth there are unrivaled in 
the land. The layout of the streets is 
splendid. Most of them are a hundred 
feet or more wide, have parking strips 
si.x feet or more in width, and many of 
them have a central strip about twenty 
feet wide for the planting of trees and 
shrubs. But what do we find? Owing 
to the fact that the planting of trees 
had been left to the individual property 
owner, there is the same lack of har- 
mony and uniformity as in all other cit- 
ies where the street planting is the task 
of each citizen. There are long 
stretches of street not planted at all, 
there is a mixture of species on the 
same street, some trees are pruned too 
high, and the branches of others are 
left too low. The trees have been left 
unprotected from injury and there is 
evidence that they had been injured by 
insect pests. 
The New Orleans Tree Society recog- 
nized that it was necessary for the city 
to assume control over streets, from 
property line to property line, and allow 
no planting or trimming except by spe- 
cial permission. Under the auspices of 
the New Orleans Tree Society I had 
the honor of speaking at a meeting 
held in that city on February 4, 1909. 
The result of the meeting was an an- 
nouncement that the Mayor would call 
a conference of the park officials and 
others interested in tree planting. 
The efforts of the New Orleans Tree 
Society bore satisfactory results. On 
May 5, 1909, the City Council of New 
Orleans passed an ordinance creating a 
Parking Commission that would have 
exclusive control of the planting and 
care of shade trees. The sections of 
the ordinance of Chicago and New Or- 
leans creating the tree departments 
were drawn largely after the statutes 
of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. 
In a prospectus issued since its or- 
ganization, the New Orleans Parking 
Commission beautifully defines its func- 
tion and its mission as follows : “If 
this Commission diligently searches out 
its true relationships in the beautiful or 
fine arts, where it rightfully belongs, and 
studiously possesses itself of that large- 
ness of thought and trained facility of 
imagination, inspiring within itself the 
idealizing faculty, whereby the true 
architect and painter project visually the 
creations of genius before work is laid 
on drawing board or brush on canvas, 
then, of very necessity, as like begets 
like, there will begin throughout this 
city a development in pure art; digni- 
fied in orderly elegance and grace ; beau- 
tiful in unity, becoming more apparent 
and impressive with each succeeding 
year, just as the Washington city of 
to-day was visually projected as a liv- 
ing painting by I’Enfant a hundred years 
ago, and the city of Cleveland, with its 
newly projected grandeur, by the Chap- 
ter of the American Institute of Archi- 
tects. 
“To initiate this is the work we are 
called upon to do — a work that must 
be carefully mapped according to speci- 
fications in the general plan, in which 
every tree planted and dollar spent shall 
count just that much toward the end in 
view ; which is the real and practical 
uplifting and betterment of the whole 
community, physically, mentally, moral- 
ly, in the actual comfort and pleasure 
of living and in a growing sense of self- 
regard and civic pride. It is a home 
mission work in a strictly rational, busi- 
ness way, with certainty of returns far 
exceeding expenditure ; an enterprise rich 
in utility; not of a mechanical or di- 
rectly commercial kind ; for the city 
does not propose to open a wood yard 
or grow trees for lumber ; but it does 
contemplate something far more useful 
in a beautifully environed, clean, whole- 
some, contented citizenship ; for as the 
environment so are the people. If the 
one is slovenly and degraded, so is the 
other; and the contrary is true, as 
proved in every community ; particularly 
in large manufacturing centers where 
the extremes of comparison are so dis- 
tressingly in contrast.” 
As this convention is held in Little 
Rock, I may take the opportunity to 
say to the people of the South that on 
account of the climate and great variety 
of native flora, no section of the land 
offers greater opportunities for the em- 
bellishment of the home and the street 
than the Southern States. With such 
material at hand as the live oak, the 
laurel oak, the Magnolia grandiflora, 
the pecan, the hackberry, the cypress, 
the sweet gum, the tulip, the camphor 
tree, the crepe myrtle, the Japanese 
privet, the “Gloria Mundi” or wild 
peach and the palms, it is possible to 
obtain results that would not only be 
particularly Southern, but such as could 
not be surpassed in splendor elsewhere. 
It must be recognized, however, that no 
matter how favorable conditions are, 
the realization of the ideal street is pos- 
sible only after careful planning and 
systematic improvement. 
