THIRTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT. 119 



your consent. This has been thrashed out in the courts many times and is 

 beyond dispute. More than once the companies have been compelled to 

 pay several hundred dollars for mutilating a single valuable tree. 



OTHER IMPORTANT WORK. 



I have spoken in some detail concerning shade trees, bill-boards and 

 overhead wires, because these are of paramount importance in so many cases. 

 Each community has its own problems, different perhaps from those of any 

 other place; it will be enough to merely mention some of the other lines of 

 work that civic improvement society workers are carrying on everywhere. 

 School grounds are being improved. The time will come when no school 

 in city or country will be considered well equipped unless it has plenty of 

 room for ornamental planting in front, with a playground on each side 

 and ample room for school gardens in the rear. The school of the future 

 will occupy an acre, two acres, or more, instead of the few square feet that 

 we begrudge it now, for the children will be taught out of doors, as well as 

 out of book. Thousands of packets of flower seeds are distributed to school 

 children in many cities, either free or at a penny or two apiece; flower shows 

 are held. Prizes are offered for the best kept back yards, the most artistic 

 lawn planting, the most beautiful effect with vines, the best bed of annual 

 flowers, etc. Campaigns are made against public dumps, and against the 

 degradation of vacant city lots. These are ' being utilized for children's 

 gardens. In 1906 Washington had 80 vacant lot gardens, averaging one- 

 eighth of an acre. They cost the association an average of $6.16 each, and 

 were the pride of the neighborhoods, especially of the children who worked 

 in them. In some places war has been declared against the smoke 

 nuisance which disfigures the exterior of buildings, injures household furnish- 

 ings and vegetation, casts a gloomy pall over the vicinity and is a menace 

 to health. A committee reports that smoke is causing St. Louis to lose 

 4.05 per cent of her trees every year. A practical remedy in many cases is 

 the installation of smokeless gas producers, and internal combustion engines. 



Cleanliness, both of city streets and private grounds, is the focus of 

 much effort on the part of many civic improvement societies. A city is 

 known by the cleanliness of its streets as a man is known by the condition of 

 his linen. Rubbish cans are furnished, ordinances are secured prohibiting 

 the scattering of refuse, paper, and the distribution of flyers at doors. 

 Uniformed street cleaners are secured. A municipal "cleaning day," one 

 in the fall, and one in the spring, is incorporated in the city law and emphasized 

 by the mayor's proclamation. Norfolk, Va., sets aside April 1 for this 

 purpose. In Lincoln, Neb., the schools are dismissed on city cleaning day so 

 the children can help. The board of health furnished free wagons for rubbish 

 and garbage. Back yards, alleys and vacant lots are cleaned. As a result 

 the health officers report a great improvement in the sanitary condition of 

 the city, as well as in its appearance. A Seattle daily paper has published 

 daily photographs of eyesores, with incisive editorials; these made the people 

 mad, but sooner or later they cleaned up the objectionable places. Attention 

 has been directed to factory grounds, which are almost universally hideous 

 to behold. The cemetery, often the most desolate of places, has not been 

 forgotten. A Michigan state law requires the governor to appoint a Memory 

 Day, when the cemetery will be cleaned and adorned, so that it may be 

 beautiful to the living, as well as restful to the dead. Prizes are offered 



