176 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
TREE PLANTING ON PUBLIC STREETS.* 
Any city or village, however inexpensive its build- 
ings, can be made attractive by planting trees and 
otherwise embellishing the public streets with borders 
of grass and beds of shrubs and flowers, thereby giving 
them a park-like appearance, which is very pleasing to 
the eye, and refining in influence. 
The pioneers of oui New England cities and vil- 
lages appreciated the value and beauty of shade trees ; 
and as a result, we have such attractive cities as Bangor 
and Portland in Maine, New Haven and Plartford in 
Connecticut, Springfield, Salem, and nearly all of the 
villages of New England, whose grand old elms spread 
their sheltering arms over the modest houses of the de- 
scendants of the men whose love for nature induced 
them to plant trees wherever they became the owners of 
land on which to build homes. 
Why are those old cities called beautiful? What 
makes (hem so attractive to the tourist and the seeker 
of rest ? It is not the architecture of their residences, 
as the majority of them are very plain and but few have 
architectural features worthy of attention. Their great 
attraction is the trees which border their streets. There 
are cities dear to the recollection of all tons of New 
England where certain thoroughfares have a wide repu- 
tation for their attractiveness, on which there are no 
large estates, and very fe>v fine houses, nearly all of the 
residences being veiy plain, built on the street line and 
near together, but the noble elms which form arenes over 
the streets, and screen the imperfections of the houses, 
which, from an elevated point of view, seem half hidden 
in a border of waving foliage, form a picture which 
is photographed upon the mind of all who see it, and 
they exclaim, “ What a beautiful city !” I was born and 
reared under those grand old elms, and much of the 
happiness of my life has been derived through my love 
and reverence for them. 
“ A pleasant argument of the lurking instinct for 
arboreal life might be found in the fact that we like to 
give the name of roof- tree to our domicile, although the 
roof tree may be brick or stone.” 
Thousands upon thousands of the sons and daugh- 
ters of New England left their homes with the love of 
the old roof-tree in their hearts, and this love carried 
its influence wherever they made new homes, and the 
memories of the old, with the longing for the trees, re- 
sulted in the planting of streets and roadways which ar e 
the pride of many cities and towns in our middle and 
western states. One of these daughters writes: “In 
memory’s chart of the little world of childhood, does 
not some best beloved tree mark the center thereof, and 
is not the tree’s morning or evening shadow the 
radius of the golden day’s round ?” 
Most children are born with a love for flowers and 
* Paper read before the American Park and Out-door Association, 
Minneapolis, Minn., June, 1893, by Charles M. Loring, President. 
trees, and all that is beautiful in nature, and even when 
reared under the depressing influences of the tenement 
houses of our large cities, the oyster cans and old bottles 
on the window ledges filled with the growing plants tes- 
tify that this love is difficult to crush out of the hearts 
of the unfortunate tenants. But, alas ! too many chil- 
dren grow up without the refining influences of nature’s 
floral gifts, and as a consequence their natures are 
dwarfed and their lives blasted. 
“ God help the boy who does not know 
Where all the woodland berries grow, 
Who does not see the forests glow 
When leaves are red and yellow. 
Whose childish feet can never stray 
Where nature does her charms display — 
For such a helpless boy, I say 
God help the little fellow.” 
Trees are not only for ornament and shade, but for 
purifying and cooling the air in summer. The exhaling 
power of leaves has been most carefully investigated, 
and the most careless observer has noticed its effect in 
cooling the air when passing through a wooded road on 
a warm day in summer. 
It is also a well known fact that trees radiate heat 
in winter, and that the more there are in a neighborhood 
the more equitable is the climate. 
It is as much the duty of city and town authorities 
to plant trees as it is to build sewers, for both are sani- 
tary measures, and it ought to be a matter of pride to 
the citizen to see that his street is not only healthful but 
beautiful. 
Trees, as a rule, have been planted too thickly in 
most of our older cities. Large elms and maples are 
frequently seen crowded together, ten and twelve feet 
apart, and as a consequence they are misshapen and 
sickly, and they form a shade so dense that neither sun 
nor air can reach the houses. Experience has proven 
that it is a mistake to plant four rows of trees on any 
street that is less than one hundred feet in width. 
Next to the folly of not planting at all, is that of 
over planting. Human beings require sunshine and air 
but in many streets in cur older cities these are excluded 
through the over-planting of trees, or the failure to re- 
move them when they have grown so large that their top 
branches intertwine. 
The American elm is the most beautiful tree for street 
planting, but in some localities it is so infected with in- 
sect pests that we should encourage the selection of 
other varieties when practicable. In Central New York 
the white maple is extensively used, and if it be given 
the proper care when young, it makes a noble tree at 
maturity. In many localities the sycamore is a great 
favorite, but it will not grow in the Northwest. The 
Linden, Hackberry, Norway Maple, and the White Ash 
are fine street trees, especially for narrow streets. 
There should be a definite plan for all municipal 
improvements, and in the department of tree planting 
