The times., 1899-03-26
shade in Our cities.

recent article in the Popular Science
Monthly" gives some excellent hygienic
| arguments for the planting of trees along
city streets. Anyone can see that there is
great advantage in the presence OF the
trees from an esthetic point of view, and
| also for reasons of temporary comfort in
summer; but it is not generally known
that an abundance of trees actually reduces
the death rate.
For one thing, the tree shields the bricks
and asphalt of the street from the direct
and discomfort of those who are obliged
to be abroad in the middle of the day, and
protecting children from the extreme heat
of noon. Besides this. the tree actually
absorbs and renders latent a part Of the
heat, utilizing 1t in the various functions
of plant life, and in the height Of summer
even a difference of one or two degrees
makes sensible change in the death rate
When one comes to think of it, the idea of
sacrificing the lives of scores of infants
every summer simply for want of ordinary
comfort seems rather barbarous. but that
is what is done in every large city. If all
reasonable precautions were taken 10 make
the intense heat of the summer season in
the city as endurable as possible there is
there than in the country.
Washington, having been laid ont with
scientific precaution and built up according
to plan. is richer in shade trees than most
other cities of its size, but there is room
for improvement even here in the poorer
quarters of the city, and there. if any
where, the shade trees are needed. If this
city were huddled into masses of brick ana
stone, unshaded and traversed by steam
railways, after the manner of New York.
life here during July and August would be
absolutely unbearable. AS it is, there have
been found people who consider it superior
to many famous summer resorts, simply
because there is shade almost everywhere,
plenty of room for breezes TO sweep down
the streets in any direction, and habit of
life which discourages unnecessary rush
ing about. One is not forced. as in Boston
and New York. to keep step with a crowd
of nervous and excited people on the side
walks.
Washington is. therefore, qualified to
speak with authority on the benefits of
shade trees and proper space in streets and
avenues. There is one thing which can be
prophesied with tolerable certainty-that
if some of the big cities of this continent
continue to pile buildings on top of one an
other, as they have been doing in the last
generation, there will come time when
all this laboriously heaped up architecture
will have TO be torn down for sanitary and
economic reasons and big breathing spaces
opened in the very middle of the city Lon
don has already done something like this
in one or two districts, and she would have
had TO do more of it if she had grown to her
present size with the abnormal swiftness
of an American city. Some of the older
continental towns have streets in which il
is hard for two horsemen to pass one an
other. but it is a great mistake to think
that American builders can successfully
initiate any such arrangement. In Italy
and Southern France the people can live
out of doors if they cannot breathe in their
houses. In Chicago they cannot do that
without catching pneumonia and frostbtc,
and the man who sleeps out of doors in
Washington is in danger of being awak-
ened by the police. American municipal
governments will very soon be obliged to
pay attention officially to the question of
a rational, esthetic, and sanitary way of
building cities.
In regard to shade trees. there is one
more thing which should be said: place
in which a healthy plant cannot live is not
fit for a human being.