Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-09-28
Street Trees for Texas.

the charms of q city as line snade anu
ornamental trees growing along the
streets. We cannot get too many trees,
particularly in the residence portion of
the city, and for best effect they cannot
be too large; provided, always, that
they are trees Of spreading habit, more
or less. A street bordered with Callfor-
MIA redwood trees, or cypress trees, or
long-leaf pine trees, might not be re-
garded with favor, but regular shade
trees are accepted with favor every time.
Especially is this desire for street trees
a prominent thing so far as relates to
Southern cities, vet their great old elms,
etc. make many Northeastern towns take
position as very paradises tn at without
them would appear among the most IN
attractive places to be pointed out on the
map.
AS rule the lower South is famous for
her cities embowered in shade trees.
Northern people at home, who have read
much of our section, picture to them
selves our towns as q collection of stately
residences peepiug out through openings
in evergreen foliage, and in many of our
regions it is a good deal that way. Take
the older towns or cities of the Gulf
states east OF the Mississippi river, for
instance. The residence portions of
Mobile. Ala, are literally groves of
great, spreading shade trees, and the
same may be said of Montgomery, in the
same state, of Jacksonville, Ocala, Pa
latkG aud st. Augustine in Florida; of
Savannah, in Georgia, of Charleston in
South Carolina, and so on. Take the
shade trees from these cities and towns
and fully three fourths of their attrac-
tiveness to strangers would be gone.
Many OF their great hotels that now
flourish so extensively through the WIN
ter season on account of winter patron
age would be forced to close up; IN a
word, they would not fill the Northern
idea of d real Southern city, and the
winter resorter, abroad to dodge the
Billiards of his own region, would pass
them bv and 60 on IN search of some
other stopping place more in accord with
what his fancy had painted him South
ern city should be.
For best effect it is absolutely neoes-
sary to make the South appear pecu-
liarly Southern to the greatest possible
extent. The more we can shape it unlike
any other section the better it will get in
!ts own advertising. If we enjoy rapid
development the people largely aiding us
in bringing it about must come from the
Northern section of our common country.
II they come our Southern climate is the
chief stimulus that brings them, as
rule, and therefore the more we can
take on the Southern appearance the
better chance we shall have of attracting
their attention.
Florida has found this thing out in
fun, consequently when the Florida peo-
pie lay off a new town the first thing they
make in order, after surveying the
streets, is to border them with rapidly
growing trees of strictly Southern species;
that is, trees not seen in the Northern
countries ut all, and consequently trees
better calculated to impress the Northern
stranger with the feeling that he has,
indeed, reached q strange land. Many
of the ordinary Northern trees abound in
the woods Of Florida, but the Florida
town people have no use for any of them.
They want something rigidly Southern
and not to be met with in any other
cline.
For some cause OF other the Texas
towns are neglectlng shade trees more
than are most of the towns in the lower
Southern states further east. OF course
the new towns and cities of Northern
Texas are not yet old enough TO have
made any very great development in the
shade tree line, still the neglect is strik-
jngly apparent; even in many of the very
old places further south, as Galveston,
San Antonio aud so on.
True our young cities of Northern
Texas ars putting out many street aud
yard trees, but unfortunately, in our
opinion, they are working too much
against the Florida rule for their own
good. In their selection of species they
are, we fear, making decided mistake;
that is, we believe It would be decidedly
better If they would plant only such
species as are strictly confined, in their
range, to the Southern states. Take
Fort Worth as fair example of the whole.
Here you will find in the very large ma
FORTY species of trees common enough in
most of the Northern states. One of our
most popular street trees is the sycamore
or buttonwood of the northeastern
states-the Platanus occldentalis of
botanist- No tree in all North America
has a wider range than this-it
simply grows everywhere. Another
very popular tree with US is the box
elder CNegundo aoeroides), which is
tree OF the widest range. blackberry,
(oeltis occidentales) is another; elm,
(ulmus Americana) is another; honey
LOCUST Is III
other; cottonwood (populus monilifera)
Is another; tree of heaven (ailanthus
Elandulosus) is another, etc., etc. All
these save the last are indigenous to
Texas and all are likewise indigenous TO
most of the northern states. There are
really but two strictly southern trees
claiming any particular attention In Fort
Worth as street or yard trees, one of
these being the well known China tree
(mella azedavaoh) in its two varieties,
and the other bois d are, or Usage
orange (maclura aurantiacs). And
even this last has been carried SO far
North as a hedge plant that It can
scarcely be regarded as strange tree
by very large per cent. eff Northern
people.
All the trees named are deoiduous; that
is, they shed their leaves in the fall and
remain bare until the next spring has
put in an appearance. This evidently
makes their selection another mistake,
for nothing so gives a southern air TO
city as streets lined with broad-leaf ever
green trees, carrying their rich foliage
OF living green throughout the winter.
Il may be stated that this selection of
deciduous street trees has not been, with
the towns of Northern Texas, SO much a
matter of choice as q matter af con-