The following hints for planting and removing trees may be useful to those persons who have given little attention to the subject.  A tree should not stand so near a house that, if it were to fall, it would fall on the house; or, in other words, the root should be as far from the house as the height of the tree.  Belts of trees may be planted on the north and east aspects of houses, but on the east side the trees should not be so near, nor so high, as to keep the morning sun from the bedroom windows in the shorter days of the year.  On the south and west aspects of houses isolated trees only should be permitted, so that there may be free access of the sunshine and the west winds to the house and grounds.

High walls and palings on these aspects are also objectionable, and should be replaced by fences, or better still open palings, especially about houses which are occupied during the fall of the leaf, and in the winter.  Trees for planting near houses should be chosen in the following order:  Conifers, birch, acacia, beech, oak, elm, lime, and poplar.  Pine trees are the best of all trees for this purpose, as they collect the greatest amount of rainfall and permit the freest evaporation from the ground, while their branchless stems offer the least resistance to the lateral circulation of the air.

Acacias, oaks, and birches are late to burst into leaf, and therefore allow the ground to be warmed by the sun’s rays in the early spring.  The elm, lime, and chestnut are the least desirable kinds of trees to plant near houses, although they are the most common.  They come into leaf early and cast their leaves early, so that they exclude the spring sun and do not afford much shade in the hot autumn months, when it is most required.  The lime and the elm are, however, beautiful trees, and will doubtless on this account often be tolerated nearer houses than is desirable from a purely sanitary point of view.

Trees are often useful guides to the selection of residences.  Numerous trees with rich foliage and a rank undergrowth of ferns or moss indicate a damp, stagnant atmosphere; while abundance of flowers and fruit imply a dry, sunny climate.  Children will be healthiest where most flowers grow, and old people will live longest where our common fruits ripen best, as these conditions of vegetation indicate a climate which is least favorable to bronchitis and rheumatism.  Pines and their companions, the birches, indicate a dry, rocky, sandy, or gravel soil; beeches, a dryish, chalky, or gravel soil; elms and limes, a rich and somewhat damp soil; oaks and ashes, a heavy clay soil; and poplars and willows, a low, damp, or marshy soil.  Many of these are found growing together, and it is only when one species predominates in number and vigor that it is truly characteristic of the soil and that portion of the atmosphere in connection with it.

Curzon Street, Mayfair, W.—­Lancet.

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