EATON! SHADE TREES IN NEW HAVEN 
11 
needed, being short on many ordinarily less used items as pin, red and 
scarlet oak, linden, tulip, hackberry, etc. (We like the red oak and hack- 
berry for our streets near the seashore). 
It would have worked out better for us if this hurricane had blown in 
five or six years hence, for by that time we would have had available 
an enormous wealth of new material, now only in large seedling, whip, 
or small sapling stage. We are now growing a variety of linden that 
won’t shed leaves in a hot mid-summer, nor become unsightly from red 
spider; we are propagating more hardy planes that we hope won’t frost 
crack or winter-kill as have many of those purchased as London planes 
5 to 10 years ago. We have a far better Asiatic elm than that commonly 
sold as U. pumila. Our variety has dense, deep green foliage of tough 
almost coriaceous leaves (that don’t get buggy with aphid and aren’t 
so attractive to elm leaf beetle), a well-shaped crown, leafs out early 
and is evergreen to Thanksgiving time or later much better than the 
“Siberian Elm” variety so unfortunately introduced via Ft. Worth and 
Toppenish and now widespread over the United States. We have high 
hopes for one of the Chinese hackberries, of several lesser known oaks, 
for our grafted (fruitless, double flowering) horse chestnuts, a new 
phellodendron, etc. 
For two years past we have been making our own soil for transplanting 
street trees, from pond-bottom material, New Haven being ‘ all sand and 
gravel”. We can’t get loam or top-soil any more, so we have skimmed 
off old ponds or swamps, and we mix the fine material so obtained with 
the poor soil of the street locality. 
We have been collecting leaves for many years, both from the cleaner 
streets after autumn rains, and from old dumping places and gullies. 
This material is now a high grade mulch and is available for use where 
needed. 
So, you see, our problems are practical—involving costs and the ques¬ 
tion: “How much can we do this spring?”—rather than theoretical or in 
asking “What should we do?”. We have had our systematic planting 
plan for thirty years, constantly improving it with added knowledge 
and changing conditions; we have grown or are growing the trees needed; 
we have the soil and the mulch; all we need is the time, or a little money 
to do the same job quicker. We will not compromise by planting unsuited 
species of trees, or too small individuals; nor do we care to discredit 
what we have considered a carefully planned replacement program and 
scheme, by changing to another variety of tree just because the latter 
may be more readily available today than the really desired one. 
