It was in pursuance of this object that he built the famous Iranistan; and when he did so he felt confident that this superb place would so increase the value of surrounding property that none but first-class residences would be erected in the vicinity. He, however, went on to improve the surrounding property as much as possible. He opened numerous fine avenues through land purchased by himself, and freely gave them to the city. In this way he opened miles of new streets and planted them with thousands of shade trees. The planting of trees was almost a mania with him, in pursuit of the doctrine laid down in Scott's "Heart of Mid-Lothian": "When ye hae naething else to do, ye may be aye sticking in a tree; it will be growing when ye're sleeping." Barnum was always for enterprise and progress. "Conservatism," he said, "may be a good thing in the State, or in the Church, but it is fatal to the growth of cities, and the conservative notions of old fogies make them indifferent to the requirements which a very few years in the future will compel, and blind to their own best interests. Such men never look beyond the length of their noses, and consider every investment a dead loss unless they can get the sixpence profit into their pockets before they go to bed. My own long training and experience as a manager impelled me to carry into such private enterprises as the purchase of real estate that best and most essential managerial quality of instantly deciding, not only whether a venture was worth undertaking, but what, all things considered, that venture would result in. Almost any man can see how a thing will begin, but not every man is gifted with the foresight to see how it will end, or how, with the proper effort, it may be made to end. In East Bridgeport where we had no 'conservatives' to contend with, we were only a few years in turning almost tenantless farms into a populous and prosperous city. On the other side of the river, while the opening of new avenues, the planting of shade trees, and the building of many houses, have afforded me the highest pleasures of my life, I confess that not a few of my greatest annoyance's have been occasioned by the opposition of those who seem to be content to simply vegetate through their existence, and who looked upon me as a restless, reckless innovator, because I was trying to remove the moss from everything around them, and even from their own eyes."