Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 273, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 November 1915 — Home Town Helps [ARTICLE]

Home Town Helps

VALUE OF TREES IN STREETS Matter Is Becoming Universally Recognized as Highly Important Part of City Planning. We occasionally find in the public print a news, item that gives especial gratification because it marks some progressive step in one or another direction. Such a note is that from Bridgewater, Mass., wherein the tree warden of that town, in support of claims for the loss of trees by escaping illuminating gas, makes the assertion that the destruction of good healthy shade trees on property decreases its valuation at least 20 per cent That is good doctrine and we hope it will be affirmed in the court should court action be found necessary to collect compensation in this instance. Gas and electric companies will not be so careless regarding injury to trees, public or private, when the public come to a full realization of their rights and a proper estimate of the intrinsic value of growing trees as property and as material assets in computing the worth of a town from a practical as well as an esthetic standpoint. Massachusetts has good tree warden laws and as a rule her towns have been blessed with good earnest officials who have performed the duties of their position in a most able, conscientious and public-spirited manner.