CLEARING OF FRONTAGES

Taupo Times, Volume I, Issue 4, 6 February 1952, Page 1

CLEARING OF FRONTAGES

Sir, — In a recent issue you exhorted ratepayers to clear their frontages in good time for the electric power reticulation, in order not to slow up the putting in of the poles and wiring. May I counsel discretion ? The Taupo streets need shade trees too; already many 'of them have telephone lines run up one side; as soon as the power lines run up the other side the chance of planting shade trees in the street, without havihg to lop the wretched tkings annually, is gone for good. Inland towns must have summer shade if the advantage of the hot dry summer is to be properly enjoyed. In many North American communities a Shade Tree Committee advises the town council on this subject, and presumably arranges for the planting and the management of the trees. Such trees are never pollarded in the ugly N.Z. fashion; summer shade is regarded as an amenity equally as desirable as electricity and telephones. In favoured communities, of course, the trees were planted long before the advent of poles and wires. and the wires have had to dodge them; no exhausting public fore thought has been necessary. One N.Z. town that owes much to a similar happy historical accident is Cambridge, in the Waikato, "bosom'd high in tufted trees." Rotorua, on the other hand, is a horrible reminder that such happy accidents occur no longer. It will be too bad if Taupo, also, makes the mistake of grasping at the substance ancl losing the shadow. — I am etc., J. M. Miller, Field Economist, Dept of Agriculture. [Our correspondent has raised an interesting question which might be discussed by the Horticultural Society with a view to co-operation with the Town Board. — Editor.]