Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1899-04-08
TREES IN CITY STREETS.
with Proper Cnrc They Can BE Made
to Grow and Thrive.

y
to Grow and Thrive.
That intelligent and well directed
effort can overcome the various obstacles
to the growth of trees i'll the streets of
great cities has been Conclusively dem
onstrated not only in Washington, but
in London, Paris, Vienna and other
Cities where the immediate surround
ingS have been as unfavOrable to the
life and development of trees as occur in
the avenues and streets of New York,
says correspondent of the New York
Tribune. The beautiful effect produced
by the lines of oriental planes plan
tanus orientalis) on the Thames en-
bankment, London, is case in point.
The poor soil, pavements, gases and
artificial heat incident to city streets
are all deleterious and detrimental con
ditiOns for normal tree development,
but there are few locations where these
difficulties cannot be sufficiently over
come to insure successful growth. The
wonderful success of the TO- street
trees i'll Washington, planted in almost
every conceivable location as to soil and
exposure, is a practical demonstration
of this statement.
1t is true that owing to lack of legis-
latlve authority no comprehensive plan
of street planting improvements such as
have been so successful in Washington,
Minneapolis and other cities can be as
yet inaugurated in New York, but the
commendable efforts of the Tree Plant
ing association mark step in the right
direction. Individual effort and public
agitation in this, as i'll other matters,
must be the initiative of better things
and improved conditions to follow. The
hapha2ard way in which much of mu-
nicipal Improvement is undertaken
grows out of IA lack of attention to i'm
portant conditions when the plans are
made and executed. There is apparently
no good reason why the residential
streets in this city and every other city
should not have been properly planted,
or should not now be planted concur
rently with the carrying out of other
improvements.
When street or any public thorough
fare is laid out, appropriate trees should
become part of the improvement I'M
dertaken, the same as provision is made
for water, gas, sewer, pavement and
curb. In this way we should have per-
feet streets, ornate as we'll as useful,
and the contrast with the present tree
less condition of most of our city streets
would be so great as to cause wonder
why so simple and inexpensive a method
of treatment had not been inaugurated
from the first. Like the improved sani-
tary conditions of our modern cities
compared with some of the cities of the
old world and i'll the tropics, such i'm
prOvements are better appreciated by
as better understood.
LII some OF the states the desired re-
suit of better street planting conditions
have been sought by appropriate legis-
latlOn. In some cases, as i'll Minnesota,
authority is vested in the municipal
park commission to plant trees on any
street and assess the cost of the same on
abutting property owners. In New Jer-
sey law has been enacted comforting
upon "a commission to be appointed by
the local authorities the power to plant
and care for street trees. IN New York
no attempt to regulate these important
matters by Legislative enactment ap-
pears TO have yet been made. That some
plan for the proper planting and intel
hgent care of the streets of the greater
city would be of inestimable benefit and
advantage to the whole city can hardly
be open to question.