4 
PARK AND CEMETERY 
attractive variety in its surface, very good trees, and 
just about the right amount of open spaces and wood- 
land.” 
Mr. Simonds furnished in 1901 plats of Washing- 
ton Park, showing the design in outline, and locating 
important trees, open spaces, and waterways. The 
work was immediately begun under the direction of 
the hoard’s engineer, Mr. Arthur Hay, and is now so 
far advanced as to be a great source of pleasure to the 
people of the district. 
The total receipts for the past year were $36,632.15 
and the expenditures $34,875.90. The engineer's re- 
port shows the expenditure of $18,581.76 in improve- 
ments, which included the following work : building 
of 6,000 feet of drievway and 12,430 feet of roads; lay- 
ing of 2,100 feet of pipe; grading and cleaning up of 
the grounds ; and building of fences, bridges, culverts, 
catch basins, inlets, etc. The drives are 40 and 24 feet 
wide, and the roadways made of shale, a material 
which could be obtained from neighboring mines at 
a very small cost, and will serve as the lower layer to 
uphold a top dressing of broken stone when the roads 
are finally macadamized. The engineer says that these 
shale roads have been down about six months, have 
passed through a very hard winter and are still in ex- 
cellent condition. 
Preparation and Pruning of Street Trees. 
By John Dunbar. 
The ideal street tree should have one main stem or 
trunk, to which all the branches are subordinated. It 
is true that many deciduous trees do not naturally grow 
in this way. The reason for trees trained to this habit, 
being particularly adapted to street planting is obvious. 
A tree like a Silver Maple, or an American Elm, which 
generally shows a tendency to fork away into a num- 
ber of equally balanced stems, ten or fifteen feet from 
the base, is extremely liable to have some of those large 
main limbs blown down, or smashed in violent sum- 
mer storms. A little observation will show any one, 
in any locality, that the latter kind of forked trees al- 
ways suffer more or less from injury. It is an easy 
matter to train any tree to one main stem, by giving it 
a little pruning attention from time to time in its 
youthful days, and it is surprising how little attention 
it requires to accomplish this result, with an occasional 
judicious pruning given to trees in a young state, and 
maintained for a few years, until their habits are 
formed. 
The late William Saunders, of respected memory, 
for many years Superintendent of the grounds of the 
U. S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, once 
said, that a little timely attention in disbudding or re- 
pressing your growths, asserting themselves on young 
trees, where they are not desired, will avert necessary 
large amputations later, and the balance of growth is 
not disturbed, and the check is not felt. This is sound 
pruning gospel, and the ideal practice to follow ; but 
how little of it is done. Chiefly on account of the rea- 
son that at that particular season of the year every 
energy with most of us is bent in other directions. 
As the general conditions for the health and develop- 
ment of trees in city streets are usually anything but 
favorable, a constant struggle having to be maintained 
against lack of moisture in the soil, dust and soot in 
the atmosphere, gnawing of stems by horses (if not 
protected), carving of trunks by boys, and the removal 
of humus in the adjacent soil through the grading of 
the streets, excepting what has been supplied to the 
tree when planted ; it is obvious that any kind of suit- 
able street tree should have thorough preparation, by 
being supplied with an excellent root system, and 
should have especial attention in pruning, and vigor- 
ous in every way, to contend against those hostile con- 
ditions. 
Some nurserymen, of late years, are planting their 
Red Oak, 10 ft. high, ready to The same, set out, pruned 
transplant, but unpruned. and with iron guard. 
trees farther apart in nursery rows. The crowding of 
trees thickly together in nurseries, so that the stems 
are shielded from sun and air, produces a tender con- 
dition of trunk, liable to be blistered by the hot suns of 
summer, or the cold winds of winter. 
I am confident that many cases of arrested develop- 
ment in trees, otherwise carefully planted, are due to 
this cause. It is true, of course, that the more space 
