it will soon be, I
understand, established on the map as one hundred feet wide or probably
one hundred and twenty feet. That primarily is to stop the encroachment
of the buildings near Philadelphia so that when the question of opening
this road to its new width comes up damages will not be excessive. Some
of us living along there take great pride in that road and want to see
it developed but it is going to be some time before this is opened to
its full width and it is needless to plant trees until it is. I don't
know how you have things in Michigan but a great many of our
Pennsylvania roads are old highways that have worn down with banks ten
or fifteen feet high, and it is oftentimes a question where to put the
trees.

PRESIDENT LINTON: Our highways in Michigan are, ninety per cent
of them perhaps, four rods in width. That you will know is a good ample
width, sixty-six feet wide. The basis of the planting as adopted by our
state highway department, as I understand it, is thirteen feet from each
line fence, making trees forty feet apart on opposite sides of the
roadways. The main portion of the planting will be forty feet apart but
that is simply a detail and the entire matter is left with the state
highway commissioner and those who assist him. And, as stated by Senator
Penney, they are very competent men in that department. Of course some
trees would be placed further apart than others. There is no absolutely
fixed distance. I don't know of any movement that will more quickly
cause the planting of more trees than the one we are outlining at the
present time in undertaking to cover the highways of this country.
Michigan alone has six thousand miles of state trunk line highway. That
is only a small portion of the highways in our state. These are the
important roadways connecting our largest cities and business points.
Just as an estimate I would say that we have ten times as many miles of
roadway in Michigan as we have trunk line highways. If that average
should be maintained throughout the country in each one of the states,
and I imagine our state is an average one as to the number of miles of
roadway, you would see that there would be three hundred thousand miles
of trunk line highways alone, saying nothing about all the other
highways and by-ways. So that I believe within the next five or ten
years this roadside planting will cause more trees to be planted, and
useful and valuable trees too, than all the efforts made