PARKS IN VILLAGES. 49 



PARKS IN VILLAGES AND SMALL TOWNS. 



A. D. M'CANDLESS^ WYMOIIE. 



Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen : 



I am very glad that I am here tonight. I see that you have 

 been unfortunate in that some of the people who Avere to 

 have been here with you could not come, but I want you to 

 witness that I am here and also to know that I am intensely 

 interested in the grand work in Avhicli your Society is engaged. 



On this subject of Parks in Villages and Small Towns I 

 have nothing to offer except my experience. My subject 

 does not require exact or scientific knowledge, as many of 

 your more technical subjects do, and as the audience is small 

 and as those who are here are all interested in this work, I 

 shall give you a little back history tonight and suggest one 

 or two places for the extension of park work among small 

 towns and villages in Nebraska. My park work has all been 

 done in the little city of Wymore, — a place of three thousand 

 people, in the southwest corner of this county, and while it 

 is a place of only about three thousand people, let me tell 

 you that it has more parks — more acreage in parks — than 

 any other city of its size in the whole country. We can show 

 you more growing trees in park areas than can be found in 

 any other town or city in the state of Nebraska today. We 

 can show you a town that is thoroughly a railroad town and 

 for twenty-five years was a saloon town, and yet it is a 

 town more interested in park work than can be found else- 

 where in the state. 



My own home in Wymore is built on a half block of gTound. 

 When I built on that half block of ground it was all covered 

 with cockle burs and sunflowers and surrounded by that 

 kind of vegetation. I graded the streets around my place and 

 sowed a few handfuls of red clover in the streets outside 

 of the lawn space, and soon after that I noticed that the 

 people would bring their cows half a mile to let them eat in 

 front of my place. I asked them why they did not do as I 



