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TREE PLANTING FOR SHADE AND ORNAMENT IN NEW SOUTH WALES, 
WITH ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO MUNICIPAL REQUIREMENTS. 
THE subject is a vast one, and naturally falls into two divisions : 
1 . How to plant and tend a tree. 
2. The kind of trees to plant. 
The second division just as naturally falls into two sections : 
(a) Native Trees. 
(6) Exotic Trees. 
How to Plant and Tend a Tree. 
There is an old joke that the mustard manufacturer lives not by the condiment 
people eat, but by what they leave on their plates. To parody this, the nurseryman 
lives by the plants that people kill, and far less by those they succeed in growing. 
Plants are killed by drought, floods, heat, cold and accidents of all kinds, but the 
primary causes of the deaths of the vast majority of those planted are avoidable, and 
spring from ignorance and neglect. Where a man raises his own plants the probability 
is that he has studied the conditions of plant-life, and he usually succeeds with them 
as they grow older. 
The loss of young plant-life is appalling, and let us see if we can do something to 
reduce it. Let me take a number of suggestions seriatim : 
1. Employ a skilled tree-planter. I am primarily addressing those who have the 
Control of the planting of trees in streets and parks. I am quite aware that some 
amateurs can arrive at a considerable degree of excellence in gardening operations, but 
public bodies have not exceptional and gifted amateurs at their disposal, and they 
should go into the market and secure the best skilled labour available. I have been 
often shocked to learn of the unskilled and careless men to whom local authorities 
have entrusted tree-planting. If a man's watch gets out of repair he does not take it 
to a handy-man. I am quite aware that some local authorities have not work (or rather 
in these enlightened days I ought to say will not see that there is work) for a skilled 
gardener the whole year round. In the age of enlightenment it will be found that 
the gardener of the municipality has more to show for a certain expenditure of money 
in the adornment of a district than any other kind of workman. But, until wiser 
counsels prevail, at least let the planting be done by a gardener, and let him have 
a retaining fee to do any necessary work to the trees, at least during their period of 
youth. If we neglect some symptom of our own health, that the ignorant may de?m 
trifling, it may become serious and may even result in death. The wise citizen seeks 
skilled advice in time, and, what is more, he follows it. So, in regard to a tree, a 
