273 
PARK AND CEMETERY . 
DETROIT REPORT ON CITY TREE PLANTING 
The Detroit City Plan and Improve- 
ment Commission has inaugurated a plan 
of having a series of reports on various 
aspects of civic betterment, instead of 
one general and comprehensive plan em- 
bracing all the activities that make for 
better city conditions. Each of these 
is to be prepared by some expert on 
the particular work involved, and the 
whole series is expected to form a 
complete civic guide Tor the city’s 
future growth along many lines. 
The first of these reports is a very 
thorough and careful study of “City 
Tree Planting,” by T. Glenn Phillips, 
landscape architect of Detroit. ^ The re- 
port goes into a detailed consideration 
of the practical aspects of the Selection, 
planting and care of street trees, and 
with the aid of special drawings, the 
advice is made graphically plain and 
useful. 
In introducing his subject, Mr. Phil- 
lips says : 
“The only original type of street plant- 
ing which we seem' to have worked out 
with any degree of success in America 
is the planting of native elms along our 
village streets. This was more the re- 
sult of chance than of design. Being 
familiar with the elm as a street tree in 
the older country, our forefathers in 
New England planted these trees along 
their wide streets and village greens. 
The American elm, which is a larger 
and more beautifully picturesque tree 
than its English brother, was used, and 
these streets, in the course of a centur}^ 
or so, presented a truly magnificent sight 
The result has been that ever since we 
have sought to reproduce these elm- 
lined New England streets, and even as 
our towns have grown to cities, we have 
followed this custom blindly, never paus- 
ing to think that conditions became 
rapidly and radically different. Today, 
although we have many beautiful elm- 
shaded streets, we have many more 
whereon the tree planting consists of 
but broken lines of dead or dying elms, 
since the elm does not take kindly to 
city conditions of pavement, smoke, gas, 
etc. 
Besides the elm, other kinds of trees, 
likewise successful on village or country 
roads, have been experimented with in 
a more or less hap-hazard way without 
any great success. However, on our 
boulevards and parkways, the trees gen- 
erally have done well ; and yet, with this 
very evident lesson, that different situa- 
tions demand different types of tree 
planting, it is only our professional city- 
builders, and landscape architects, who 
W/rcs 
have given given the subject serious con- 
sideration." 
The three general t 3 -pes of street plant- 
ing are then taken up in detail : 
(1) The overarching type where trees, 
such as the American elm, are used to 
form a canopy over a street. 
(2) The avenue type, where straight 
or formal trees, are used, producing vis- 
tas. 
(3) The decorative type where small 
trees are used, forming decorative lines 
along the facades of the buildings. 
The different kinds of streets to which 
these various forms of planting may be 
applied, are classified roughly into five 
general classes : 
(1) Business streets. 
(2) Streets in business districts, but 
of a special esthetic value in the city 
plan, generally formal avenues. 
(3) Residential streets. 
(4) Parkways and boulevards. 
(5) Outlying roads of approach. Su- 
burban or country roads. 
In each of these classes, the tree 
planting should be influenced by the 
nature of the street,’ the effect desired 
and the possibilities of trees under the 
existing conditions. 
First. Business Streets. In streets of 
this class space is limited and traffic 
large, and as a result the whole sur- 
face of the street is paved. The build- 
ings are high and continuous. Adverse 
conditions in the shape of dust, smoke, 
gas and wires abound over head, while 
sewers, foundations, gas mains and sub- 
ways encroach upon the natural soil 
conditions under ground. Hence, trees 
which must have a large space for root- 
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