COUNTRY LIFE
Roadside Trees
Those who concern themselves with the na charm of England, rudely disturbed of late by new means of access, would do well to impress on local councils a point recorded in one of the latest pamphlets of the C.P.R.E.—on " The use of trees on the sides of public roads." It is surely right when it comes down on the side of the clump, or at any rate against the avenue of evenly spaced trees. The French example is often quoted in favour of the avenue. To my view some of the most glorious of the admirable French roads are made hideous by these avenues. To travel in a fast car past closely planted trunks is a nightmare experience. The trunks are an added danger and, in my eyes, a real disfigurement. Such avenues are more or less an urban idea ; and the urban point of view is apt to prevail on Councils of most sorts. London, of course, as some jester said, is a plane tale ; and the plane is actually and in botanical fact, a London tree ; but it has the disadvantage of a large leaf and perhaps an unwholesome seed-case dust to set against the self-cleaning bark and the scabbarded bud. Local Councils should com- pletely scrap all urban ideas in their adornment of any rural road.
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