68 NEBRASIvA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



the publication of ordinances of the city and laws of the state pertaining 

 to beauty, health and cleanliness. The United States has issued a publi- 

 cation, No. 218, in which the author advises the cultivation of individual 

 gardens by the pupils of schools. 



He advises that all of the work of cultivation shall be done by the 

 children. The mayor of Kansas City, Kansas, recently requested the 

 owners of vacant lots in that city to allow them to be used as play- 

 grounds for the children. In the United Mine Worker's Journal, an 

 article appears in which it is said: 



"Civic Improvement wants to make cities, towns and villages clean, 

 healthful, and attractive places in which to live. It wants to extend 

 the system of public parks in cities and villages. It wants to promote 

 the work of public playgrounds for the children and recreation places 

 for the grown up. It wants to abate nuisances, such as sign boards, 

 curb signs. And it wants to make more beautiful surroundings at 

 depots. To encourage tree planting in a systematic way. It wants to 

 do just what all of us would like to have done and would like to help 

 do if we should only stop to think about the matter." 



And John Mitchell recently recommended improvement work of this 

 kind in a very high manner. 



Bryce, in his "America Revisited," recently written by him after 

 visiting this country, says: "The desire to have a beautiful land about 

 one, to adorn the house within and the ground without, is not new. 

 It has developed apace since 1870. In one respect it is ^luch more active 

 in the United States than in most parts of Europe. We have in England, 

 so far as I know, none of those village improvement societies which 

 have arisen in the northern states and especially in New England. 

 Neither has the New England city surrounded itself with such a superb 

 ring of parks and open spaces, some hilly and rocky, some covered with 

 wood, and some covered with lakes, as Boston now possesses." 



America used to be pointed out by England as a country where 

 utility was everything and beauty was nothing. No one could make such 

 a criticism now. 



Space, as I have said, will not permit a full statement of what is 

 being done in the various cities, villages and country places. Marvels 

 are being wrought. Why are not we ahead? I will pick out just a few 

 more of the many. 



In Iowa a great deal of time is devoted to preserving places of his- 

 torical and scenic interest. In one village in Texas the improvement 

 club took up the rescue of the old Bell at La Bahia which is 150 years 

 old and was used by the first settlers. Of course work of the city im- 

 provement clubs covers generally all civic progress, but there are cer- 

 tain particular leading features of work taken up by various clubs as 

 the needs present. 



In Carlisle, Pa., the ciub has charge of the street cleaning and 



