Aware of the interest you take in the subject of ornamental shade trees, I wish to call attention, or rather to draw out from yourself or your corre-spondents, some information in regard to the best means of preserving them in a sound, healthy condition. I have noticed here, and in other places, a commendable zeal in planting shade trees in the streets; but unfortunately, in many cases, the zeal seems to abate with the mere planting and protecting with some sort of rough box. The trees grow perhaps for a year or two, until they throw out considerable foliage, and then the winds swaying the tops, the trunks are so rubbed against the tops of the boxes that the bark, and sometimes a part of the wood, is worn off, leaving a wound which, though it does not immediately kill the tree, leaves a permanent defect, at which in a few years some unusual wind or storm twists it off. Now can not some remedy be found for this evil? That it is a very serious evil, must be apparent to every lover of trees in our towns and villages. In this city we have, I suppose, four thousand shade trees, and I doubt very much if there are five hundred that are not more or less damaged by abrasion, and most of them fatally for any considerable age.

And what is true here my observation leads me to believe is true in other places. Hence I think it is an important question, What can be done to save the trees? I think the great desideratum is the right kind of a box; one that is cheap, durable, and as ornamental as may be, with some arrangement attached to prevent injury to the tree from rubbing of the trunk, and so made also as to give free admission of air and light. Could not one of iron be made to fill these conditions? Wrought iron would, I think, be best. Let us have the subject discussed, and I have no doubt the genius of our mechanics will suggest the remedy. Designs for a good cheap box, and also for one more costly and ornamental, are wanted.

[The chief object of a box is to protect, and not to support a tree; the support it affords a tree while young is of little moment. We think a box made in two pieces, connected with an elastic hinge or cord, with a series of rollers at top and bottom, would answer the purpose. Such a box would not, of course, be inserted in the ground, but would be held to the body of the tree by the elastic cords, which would yield with the growth of the tree. Protection would thus be afforded and abrasion avoided. We will explain this more fully hereafter with a drawing. In the mean time, some of our readers may have something to suggest. The evil complained of is quite as great as H. represents it. - Ed].