244 
TREES AS GOOD CITIZENS 
appeal to the highest officer of the town or city, followed 
by an appeal to the courts if the objector considers it of 
enough importance. This feature has been found well 
worth while. 
Study of the various laws and observation of their 
workings suggest that an ideal arrangement would be a 
combination of the best features of the laws of New Jersey, 
Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. This could be achieved 
through an enactment requiring that every city or town 
appoint a shade tree commission, and that this body 
employ a trained expert to give attention to the interests 
of the trees. Provision should be made, of course, for 
revenue for carrying on the work. The plan might well 
be extended to provide that towns too small for an arrange¬ 
ment of this kind might combine with other towns and 
organize a joint council to handle shade tree matters for 
all of the towns involved. One expert could thus serve 
several towns with slight cost to each of them. Division 
of the expense would be easily determined on a basis of 
property valuation, population and area. A plan of this 
kind has large possibilities in the way of inviting interest 
in shade trees in communities which might otherwise con¬ 
sider themselves too small to undertake the proper hand¬ 
ling of the question. 
A good state law should have the support of good local 
laws in the communities throughout the state. Important 
cities in the three states named have followed up the pass¬ 
age of general laws by the passage of local ordinances and 
special laws. Some of these municipal governments have 
been working under such legislation for a number of years, 
and in many of them the results have been highly satis¬ 
factory. Examples of carefully framed and extremely 
practical regulations are the ordinances in effect in New¬ 
ark, New Jersey; Philadelphia and Johnstown, Pennsyl- 
