19 OCTOBER 1929, Page 13

* * * * ILLINOIS DEALS WITH ADVERTISEMENTS.

The State authorities of Illinois have decided to try a novel method of dealing with the unsightly billboards which deface the countryside. The intention is to plant trees between the billboards and the highways in sufficient number to shut the advertisements effectively from view. The planting has already begun, and it is proposed to extend it over the entire system of State highways. The interest which the scheme has aroused suggests that it will be adopted by other States. The idea is admirable so far as it is practicable, but to make an appreciable impression upon all the billboards in the United States in this way would entail the removal of whole forests. The campaign against billboards finds new allies in business firms who have concluded that adver- tising which offends public-taste is not to anybody's advantage.