PARK AND CEMETERY 
and Landscape Gardening. 
VOL. XIII CHICAGO, MAY, 1903 No. 3 
A Report on the Street Trees of Hartford, Conn. 
The Hartford Florist Club, of Hartford, Conn., 
recently appointed a committee composed of Messrs. 
Theodore Wirth, G. A. Parker, Robert Karlstrom, 
Hans J. Koehler and J. Wesson Phelps, to report on 
the conditions of street trees in that city, and to offer 
suggestions for additional treatment. While the report 
was for local use, the following extracts embody many 
recommendations that will be of value to tree-planters 
anywhere : 
Undesirable conditions will always exist as long as street 
trees, although standing within the limit of the highway, are 
considered and treated as the property of the owners of the 
adjoining grounds. The property owner looks upon the street 
trees principally in their relation to his own house and grounds 
and loses sight of their importance as an ornament to the 
street. 
That municipal ownership alone can remedy such conditions 
is obvious and the more the value of street trees, as being 
beneficial and helpful to the general public and ornamental 
and useful to the community at large, becomes recognized 
the more will the public become convinced that city authorities 
should control the shade-giving street trees and that they are 
as essential to the welfare and attractiveness of the city as 
the roadways and sidewalks are important to its traffic and 
safety. 
Let us see what has been accomplished elsewhere in this 
line of municipal development. Every one has heard of the 
Queen of Cities, Paris, and those who have seen the city will 
admit that of all the special features of attractiveness, artistic 
and natural beauty, which other European or American cities 
may offer, Paris as a whole is “the city,” yet with all its 
architectural attraction of public and private buildings, of its 
many wide avenues and streets alive with the restless, fasci- 
nating throng of a busy and a pleasure loving people, of its 
quays along the river Seine with its numberless fine bridges, 
of its many historical palaces and grounds, yet the city would 
lose as a whole a great part of their combined attraction if the 
systematically planned and uniformly well kept trees were 
removed. Paris has over 120,000 trees on its public streets 
and they are maintained by the city at a cost of less than a 
half million francs which is less than a dollar a tree per year. 
This is a small amount considering the perfect manner in 
which the trees are cared for. They are protected by wire 
guards from horses and a neat-looking cast iron grating on a 
level with the surrounding sidewalk protects the circular space 
about eight feet in diameter which is left open at the base of 
each tree. These grates can be removed for loosening the 
soil, and during the dry season the tree is watered. At in- 
tervals of time the soil around the tree is renewed with fresh 
soil from the open country, or with composted soil. Sickly 
trees are removed and replaced by healthy ones of the same 
size, so there is no missing link in the tree linfcd avenues. They 
are pruned symmetrically to the same shape and height, which 
gives them somewhat an artificial stiff appearance which does 
not seem out of place with the formal architectural appearance 
of unbroken lines of buildings. 
It seems impossible that all the trees of Paris can be so well 
taken care of for so small an outlay, but that is explained by 
the fact that a specially equipped department, not molested nor 
misused by politics, but managed on sound, practical and eco- 
nomical and business principles, a department furnished with 
all modern implements, having its own nurseries where the 
trees are grown to different sizes and expert foresters are em- 
ployed, and by these means, in Paris, the tax payers receive the 
full value of their money spent for trees. 
Washington, our capital city, will become the Paris of 
America as far as tree lined and arched avenues and streets 
are concerned when the plans are fully developed. 
The movement in favor of the planting of trees along high- 
ways and on public grounds is steadily gaining all over this 
country. In some states, among which are Massachusetts, New 
York, New Jersey, New Hampshire and Ohio, cities which 
have the power have passed ordinances placing trees under the 
authority and jurisdiction of the city government, and in other 
states cities have acquired similar authority through special 
acts, or amendments to their charter by the legislature. 
In Lawrence, Mass., and Pittsburg, Pa., the Park Commis- 
sioners have the entire care of the trees and the expense is 
paid from the general park fund. 
The state law of New York is that all cities shall have 
entire control of street trees, but they are not always cared for 
by the same department. In the city of New York and Buffalo 
the Park Commissioners set and care for all trees on park- 
ways and boulevards. In Philadelphia the city takes care of 
the trees on its streets and school grounds. In Springfield 
and Worcester, Mass., the street trees are under the care of 
the City Forester. In Worcester the City Forester is under 
the direction of the Park Commission. In New Bedford the 
street trees are under the care of the Board of Public Works, 
but the expense of the same are paid by the abuttors. The 
Minnesota state law gives Park Commissioners the right to set 
street trees and to collect from abuttors the cost of setting. 
In Baltimore an abuttor can petition the Park Commission to 
set trees when they must do so ; the cost being paid by the 
abuttor to the amount of $5 per tree, which is the maximum 
price the city can collect, and it is further provided that if the 
tree dies within three years the Park Commissioners must re- 
set without additional expense to the abuttor. In Essex 
County, N. J., and in several other cities Park Commissioners 
may set and maintain trees along sidewalks near or leading to 
their different parks. In Hartford the official care of the 
street trees is with the Board of Street Commissioners. 
In Brooklyn and Manhattan, and other cities, tree planting 
associations have been organized and they have planted thou- 
sands of street trees in the last few years. All this shows that 
