COUNTRY LIFE
Oxford Trees
If any one wants advice as to the best trees or bushes or hedge to plant he might do worse than apply to the Oxford Preservation Trust which becomes in this regard a rival to the Royal Horticultural Society. On one occasion I felt it to be an obligation to pick a small bone with the Trust on the question of its use of barbed wire ; but in general no Trust has done better work, and the annual report just issued is a model. One of the maps is a valuable historical document and a number of records in the pamphlet are of general and particular interest—not least the appendix on trees and shrubs. A committee of the Trust, consisting of specialists in this department of botany, issued a leaflet which is sent free to " developers " or builders, private or professional. It gives admirable and suggestive advice on the treatment of trees— when to destroy and especially when not to destroy—and on the species and varieties that are most suitable to various situations and purposes. The contents of the leaflet are printed in the annual report (Oxford Preservation Trust : Eleventh Report, Oxford University Press). The committee have acted as well as advised. They made a present of seventy trees of an unusual sort for use along the new by-pass. The trees are fastigiate hornbeams or hornbeams with the habit of the Lombardy Poplar. They are admirably suited to their position.
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