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Show SLAUGHTERING TUE SHADE TREES. Bjlt Lake City, Mar. 22, 79. EdUors Herald; This ie a hot country, in the summer sum-mer time, and a dry oountry, and in great part a cloudless country, whiob oobedy can deny, but all which renders ren-ders shade exceeedingly acceptab't daring half the year. This was pro bably one ol the principal reaBons why, from the foundation of this city, shade trees wore planted largely in the streets, and in later years along the sidewalks around many, if no'. moat, of the block3. For there are even yet a number of blank places on tbe sides of blocks where Bhade trees would be very welcome to pedestrians and ought to be planted. It is a wearisome thing to walk about this city of magnificent distances, in July: and August, and often in May, June, and September, without a shade tree to screen one's devoted head from the roasting roys ol the midday sun in a cloudless sky. Even the (earns seek the Bhady side of the street wherever practicable, and with gratitude. Sancho Punza invoked blessings on the man who invented sleep, and we may invoke blessings on the man who inveuted shade trees, ana on the i man who planted them. , In addition to the great blessing of i cool shadow to walk under, trees keep our streets nioister than they would be if they were treeless, Tbe trees also exhale moisture and render the atmosphere lees arid and more; pleasant in hot weather. Tbpyalsoi modify the force of the wind, and its severity, whether hot and dry or cold and frosty. Then, but perhaps I ought not to say lastly, trees are beautiful, and they enhance the attractive at-tractive appearance of the city to an exceedingly high degree. What a bare and bleak and uninviting place this city would be without trees 1 If that man is a public benefactor who makes two blades of grass grow where only one grew befoie, surely he is a benefactor too, who, in a great city in a hot and weary and parched land, oauses scores of trees to grow and spread their umbrageous canopies for the public convenience and pleasure. Shade treeB are a necessity with us. Tbe everlasting glare of our fiery summer sun through our milled atmosphere at-mosphere induces that necessity, which is intensified most of the Bummer Bum-mer by the absence of clouds. Recognizing all this, it is a mystery to me why, after the shade trees have grown to a goodly overspreading size, some of our citizens, with a cruelty of bad taBte which no lover of arborical beauty can witness without a Bhudder, should hack and hew at their trees until, as the Herald aptly stated, they look as if they had just come out ol a disastrous campaign, a campaign iu which the? lost limbs free! v. and barely escaped with their liveB. To cut off the limba of a tree, until it is left little more than an uneighlly smmp, is as unnatural and as abominable abom-inable in its way as would be to cut offa man's head and arms. Those Baw-atump prunersmuit take for their model an Arizona tree cactus, if they have any model at all. Tbe way they slaughter the Bhade trees leads one to think that they, thnt is, the tree slaughterers, imagins that God Almighty Al-mighty does not know how to grow a shade tree suitable to this latitude, and that they are anxious lo enlighten him in that important particular, so that, instead of him knowing only how not to do it, be may know also just how to do it. In the matter of growing shade trees for Salt Lake city, these tree slaughterers must fancy that they can give Deity a new notion or two, which will add materially to his stock of knowledge and wisdom, and which ho might act upon in the construction of future worlds. I do not know exactly how you regard re-gard it, but (o mo this slaughtering policy is mcst rude, most unfeeling, moat uncultivated, most barbarous. It is almost an insult to good taste, certainly a reflection upon the community com-munity to permit it. The trees, when they leave tbe slaughterers' hands, aro a positive, unmitigated eyesore, they look so horridly .unnatural. If they are to he so rudely done for, I wonder what iu the world they ever were begun for, as shade trees. For tho first year after the slaughtering, the trees gire no Bhade to speak of, aud when they do grow it is in the way of a number of weak, epiudJy Bhoots, that never develop into beauty and symmetry, but cause tho trees lo look about us natural and as handeome as a man would do if his arms were cut 00 above the elbowj aud if from the unsightly stumps an inordinate number num-ber of loug, weak, spiudly fiugerB sprouted out. Now it seems to me that there is a far more excellent way in regard to tiiuimiug shade trees than this slaughtering policy. 1 should cay, when your trees are growing fairly, don't trim them at all, except in one or two particulars, such as to beep tho lower branches from knocking boJy's head c or scratching a body's eyes out while walking along underneath. under-neath. It is alio excusable, iu the possible conlinaency of part of a tree taking an unsymruttrical shape, to do a hltle trimming or shortening or even to remove a branch or two. This ib a buut nil the (rimming tli:it is really necessary, as a general thing, and more than ln:s Cometh of evil, while the merciless elaughlering is absolutely abso-lutely cutrageous. It m:ty be said lhat il the trees grow to their natural size, the wind or Bnow may break them dowD. What if it does? When such on accident happens trim your injured tree in a manner to give it a good etart at growing again. A far belter thing than this indiscriminate indis-criminate and senseless slaughtering wcuid be to grow your trees further apart. Then they would be naturally disposed lo a more sturdy growth anJ to epread out widely rattier man iu prow so tall and so contracted in ppread as they do when crowded together. to-gether. Suppose, instead of growing your shade trees a rod or lesJ apart, you wfre tc (.row them two ruJs, or even three, apart and let thpm take thetr natural growth, ft r the rr.O'i part. Two, three, or four ralunl y grown and noble shade tre aiosg a U-n rod front would look Mirr HR ten or a di Zfn grown cbseiy toRi-lntr and then chopped or ewc-J to rrcrr "tumps c-ery two or thrre year?. Two or three lare, wsdf-praJing. natura'ilT grown tree, like a f- w i miht mentnn in this fit?, in frmt of a lot, would t worth j tu to a lover of rural besu!y if he had the money toepire, and would aibrd l.:m a vat amount of pleasure if he had not two nickels to rub together in his' pocket. A large, well grown, nbie, : overarching tree is a thing of beauly, and a thing ol beauty is a joy forever, a joy to many people where the public pub-lic has a sort of vested interest in it. as is the case with shade trees on the publio highway But a dozen, of those slaughtered, slaugh-tered, skeleton-looking scare-crow in a row in front of a house, instead of being attractive and homelike, are perfectly frightful, aud are enough to ive the horrors to any lover Ol the natural and beautiful in trees. Let us hope that we have seen the last ol this ehade tree butchering in our spacious spa-cious streets, for it is a pity, a sin, and a shame to have tho streets disfigured dis-figured by those unsightly stumps. It would be much better every way tc cut half the trees clear down and let the other halt stand and grow acd develop symmetrically in all their beautiful integrity. J. J. |