Evening Star Newspaper, January 22, 1928, Page 85

THE SUNDAY STAR. WASHINGTON, D. ¢ 1928~ PART 7. Shepherd, Tree Planter of Capital, Had Vision of Today’s Needs BY THOMAS R. HENRY, f LANT trees! Damn it, T tell| vou to plant trees and krep\ on planting them!" Ep big, imperious-looking | speaker pounded his huge fist | on his desk to emphasize his words. | He puffed furiously on his cigar. Two nervous highway officials stood lwforf’ him. TReir interview was at an end They turned on their heels and left the | Nobody knew just what to expect from “Boss” Shepherd. Strange fancies | sprouted in the brain of this practical. \ impulsive visionary. Sometimes he was radical and recklessly extravagant. | Sometimes he lashed backs of his subordinates with fundamental, con- scrvative common sense The man had grandiose dreams. He ught in four dimensions. He had n a muddy little eity, where pigs !an loose in junk-strewn streets, and projected it with his mind's eye into some distant. fantastic future. He had endowed this city of his dreams with something of the grandeur of St. John's New Jerusalem. It floated in the skies set city, whose tinted cloud towers continually were tumbling and rebuilding themselves Dream pictures are well enough for & poet or a musician. But this house der and rraywur developer was th not a practitionsf of any of the fine arts. He was a fublic official, with his big hands in the collective pocketbook of the city of Washington. He was not content-—as a Shelley or Turner would have been—to let his dream city remain | & structure of clouds and light. He was tryving to copy it in stone. at the ex- pense of the taxpayers. citizens of Washington 50 years Ago were reasonably progressive. But they had been pressed to the limit of endurance for public improvements to which, ther felt. the Capital of the United States. with its extremelv lim- fted commercial and manufacturing in- terests. would not grow for ganerations Such thinzs. for mstance, as extending for a couple of miles through es north of Florida avenue her too Utopian for those foot the bilis. g Rood roads for pigs.” they e Boss Sheph scomed to have the idea that some time. folks 1ld houses in these cow-pa: come into the citv every day Possibly he thought this ex- pansion would extend even for five miles or more over the Maryland line the estimable taxpavers “And the day may come when run without horses and actua Ing them wages. o plant trees along the sides of these country roads that people mizht using l f"\l hundred years in the future istrict The commen sense pro- s 82t rid of them instead of ldd!“' new on*s. If the folks who were 1o live in this visionary city of Shepheré's wanted tro out in the country. s THE men enzaged in the plants ese trees alonz ro; that was hrard grum- n every hand. Two l'ld Saunders, were in cha; In the faze of the ince hey were begin: erhaps th THE WESTERN The fel a misunderstood Shepherd that they could not go on without more definitely expressed authority The “boss” listened to them Impa- tientiy and pounded his fist on the des wees!” he shouted at them 1 tell you 1o plant trees and planting them' revwrned to the job with re- eonfidence. The autocrat of knew now. had not g his worés f'u\‘ % of trees-in order th me P jons of the vialon T 1t would have-—s0 long as he could keep hus hands in the purse of the reluctant pubiis Pern Iaxed suboréinstes b pt Alexander R. Shepherd te- O & u'n»-r mood when his two d 1t the office Who knows what sres formed In tlhe enlis of the mans cigar smoke when he var zlope and the Lnperious executive v.ar in the imagination of the ew lovers in7g nights I}nwuln of Columbla mmple-shaded s 1.4.r ! spreading wnows e wes a noa ey b He enulant make about b | onk ay terior of s someches o . areams B he nge , s lbe bare hrick . w0 makes ber & y #ino .. .1 Beunde, and | incident thelr v Jopierd v David | ’ hru‘: ! Ui Plant 1o Al Diviem of e Deparunent of o noed exploter and nstu Mr Fauchilo rewells 1L u 8 Laue of the oflcal publication i Forestry Aseoclation « pies L1 a more trece i cities and throughout (e United oems o silven. greer afterward releed e of My ¥elchild oung. and sho e hope chest Many others seme philosophy of tor young cities, (o save Ui { ol | 4 be | with Great Personality of an Earlier Day in Washington Startled Taxpayers, but Laid Foundations of City Whose Beauty Is Recognized by Whole World—His Agents Planted While Others Were Cutting Down—Finer Country Roads. THE COLORADO BLUE SPRUCE, from the fate of so many centers of population which in their cld age have found themselves divorced by nature. Mr. Fairchild points to the examble of other lands. He returned recently from a world cruise, during which he had an opportunity to observe some of the art with which the French are eveloping thir new empire in North | Africa. With the pioneer goes the forester. Whoraver a village springs up. there is reproduced a bit of the ancient. enchanted French country- side, with its long. dark rows of pop- lars cuttinz the skyline. “To forcigners visiting America.” says Mr. Fairchild in American Forests nd Forest Life, “Washington always is spoken of as one of the most beautiful capitals in the world. TMis is true, more because of the trees which frame buildings than for the beauty of the buildings thmselves. Cut down 2ll the shade trees in Washington, and then taie a look at the result, and our mind would be preparsd to con- ider what you owe to somebody for planting trees. ~Before my first visit to France, I YELLOW PINE. often wondered if 1, the city of Washington, which he laid out at the request of George Wash- ington, included the planting of street trees. After seeing the shaded road- vays of Prance, and later the newly planted avenues which the French are bullding in North Africa, 1 am con- vineed that they must have been con- THE BLACK LOCUN sidered by L'Enfant, and probably by Washington, who was also a lover of trees. That the carrying out of this program should have been left o the insisience of a plumber, and that for doing the thing without which Wash- ington would have remained. perhaps for all time, an utteriy commonplace city. this man should have hacome the hated ‘Boss' Shepherd, is & thought worthy of the consideration of every citizen of our country “What a pity some one did not keep on planting trees, not only in Wash- ington but around it! There would now be shaded avenues to Baltimore, a shaded roadway to Richmond, beautiful avenue of trees to Annapolis When I traveled for hours under the shaded roadways of France, and saw what the French are doing in Mo- 1occo, 1 was conscious of profound chagrin—for avenu-s several miles long are not_confined to the cities in France and French Africa. but stretch away over the hills, regardiess of the presence of towns “I have motored over at least a thousand miles of shady avenues in Furope and I have seen in the French THE JAPANESE VINE, protectorate of Morocco more newly planted shade trees along the high- ways than I ever have seen in all my travels in North America. Why? 1 refuse to take as the answer that it is because Americans do not like tree along their highways, for I have talked with too many of them who have found the shady avenues of trees all over France delightful. And I do not be- lieve it can be on account of the ex- pense, for Americans do not stop At expense when there is something they really want, CRCIE UST before salling for Europe I motored from Washington to Montreal up the famous highway along the Hudson, and when I compare the impression of that highway with those of my drives in France, I shudder, for 10t only I8 It an unkempt and littered- up highway—littered with those pene- trating and ever-recurring signs which command you to eat, drink, wear or buy something which you don't need but it shows nowhere, not even wh it passes the estates of millionaires least sign of any re he care having becn THE REDBUD TREE. THE WHITE POPLAR. given to anything outside the roadbed itself. “Even the edges of the concrete or asphalt are almost never trued up— and as for the spacs between the street and the fence. that is still. with it weeds and rubbish, in the original state of ugliness left by the road builders. “1 could not help comparing this fashionable high , with its hot-dog stands and piles of rubbish, with the well-cared-for highways of the Pro- tectorate of Morocco, lined with care- fully tended young trees, regularly watered, and protected with spiny dead branches of the wild jujube of (he desert: that I was passing through eontinug es of avenues which were far from city, T took to snapping my camera them and measuring their length When which were three miles long 1 tried to tecall the Jongest avenues I had seen in America and, outside of city streets, 1 was unable to recall ever seeing one that was n mile in length. “From Oudjda to Magador, and from Rabat to Marrakesh there are stretches of tree planting along the THE TULIP TREE. and as it began to dawn on me | I had ridden through avenues | highway that tota! in all Y several hundred miles a country where there a inches of rainfall in & yea the wrees have to be watsred to keep them from drying out. and protected with tree guards to keep the goats trom destroying them. “I recognize the fact that in Mo- rocco labor is cheap. For the price I pay a colored man to care for my Florida garden I could. in Moroceo, hire a dozen men. as able bodied and quite as conscientious to take ca | the trees along the r other hand, this is comparison. as the cost to the Prench is not in this proportion. and to that Marechal Lyautey was pl the highways of Morocco with tr which, in the vears to come, wouk shade the weary Berbers who for 2 centuries have traversed these deserts without any more thought of shade than we Americans have on our Great Plains, filled me with wonder "I have wondered at the hundreds of miles of shade trees in France 1 have appreciated the vast ame ot firewood which they always have fur- ! nished to those who live along the high- ways, and' I have admired the foresight which the French have shown in this, as in so, many of the details of their civili- zation. But now I began to wonder if we Americans really have in us any of the Jove for trees which I have seen all over the eontinent of Europe. Or is our faflure to plant them simply the failure to place the responsihility for tree p'anting somewhere officially instead of. as now, leaving it to the women's clubs the vicarious collections or sub- ptions of Rotarians or committees of citizens. T have come face to face with a con. trast that disturbs my point of view in regard to my country. On the wastern has e too poor to plant highways, sts <hade trees on t most distressing want of fnance docs not warrant giving . “The program of almast ever *lub includes ¢ prople from digging up the < and breaking down the flowering trees. b Why is 1t that with all their w power they have never planted a mile of avenue trees along the 8 although there could scarcely | doubt that the planting of avenues would | o more to interest every little chiid | whose home was near the highway. and | make it appreciate trees than all the | hit-or-miss Arbor day plantings can ever expect to do. | " “I know something of the diffieulty of planting street trees, for I have planted | many of them. but when I saw the thor- | ough wav in which the trees were plant- |ed In Moroceo, 1 wished that I could | show them to certain of my American | friends who have the idea that all that | Is necessary is to dig a hole in the ground and throw the tree into it. No carefal orchardigt in the Pledmont peach region plants his peach trees with | more care than the Berber road makers, under French direction, plant to euca- | 1yputs or olive or carob or mulberry or | American black locust or maritime pine or eim or plane trees which are to | shade the highways of Morocen. “Evidently the Prench think that they | cannot live in a country without trees | and, on the other hand, it must strike | a European that the American is de- termined not to have any trees around ! him, for, if he wanted them. would he not take care of them and plant them? |1 cannot forget the ruthlessness witn which <8 road builders slashed the trees that were along the roadside of my place near Washingion, and the utte:ly callous way in which they met my ohjections to the cutting down of the trees. And think of the way the telephone, telegraph and electric light compenies are allowed to slash through the most beautiful old trees rather than move a pole a few feet out of align- | ment! * %% x | 66T strikes me that it is a pretty se- rious cosmic offense to cut down trees and not plant new ones to take their places. If a man could crea trees, if he were capable of making an: thing so perfect in its proportions and its detalls, I would feel differently, b he cannot. Apparently. he can oni make more or less satisfactory building: and even these require plants to prop- erly set them “When I asked my ol nd. Dr. Trabut of Algiers, one of the great tree lovers of the world, how many shade trees he thought were planted in Prance. he said: “Ten thousand miles. perhaps ' Will America ever have 10.000 miles of her highway planted to trees> America has led the world in the establishment of great national parks, where the wild life of great areas is conserved. but how few there are who can enjoy these parks in comparison with the millions who would love the grateful shilde which d would afford! “When Walter Page was busy with the plans for the Federal aid w0 road building which ultimately crystallized into the Office of Public Roads, I was living in his house. I well remember the time when, together, we planted & Japanese maple in his front yard. Ido not think the idea ever occurred to him. and I know it did not to me. to put into the law a clause which would have set aside a certain portion of the funds which were appropriated for roads for the purpose of planting the highways with trees. It is scarcely a forestry problem, although it should be closely a (T!A"d with 8 mum of arboreta. can officials charged with of roads have had the particu in the last na decades. has i this re- carddoard and them taded and tatternt and stages af duapstatan T &.\\l a hranchas of mutilaied Gees lav angind mases akwg the .\mm Laws were passed danning advertiing NS And cartioads of these were .\\‘- levted Allention was given 0 repiacing the trees and 0 reventing futiare wutiae Uons The work still & I pogress. PUBl0 servie QUpOIRERNS were e structed T the Proper Meals of removs g Branches for Ahelr wites without VAo ! destroving the symuameliy of the ,\\yx. i Tl oo and mapies which Yoed SO MARY Marviand roadwars Alwg fthe Washungion - Ralt e Rowlerant toe THE WITUN HAZEL, dav there ate dogivaings of the condis 0 WhRR arsed the enthusiasm of Mr. Faichild @ bis motor tripe threugh Franoe,