December 21, 1907 



HORTICULTURE 



837 



PARK WORK IN A LARGE CITY. 



The Uses of Public Grounds. 



Perhaps one of the most imporUint 

 departments of civic administration, 

 especially as related to the larger 

 municipalities, is the department of 

 parks and recreation centres. Parks 

 have been the natural adjunct to the 

 estates of nobility and of the wealthy 

 classes since the time of Nero, but It 

 has only been within the last century 

 that the great value of public grounds 

 has been felt to such an extent as to 

 cause legislative bodies to take action 

 in voting monies in large amounts for 

 the acquisition and improvement of 

 land for public purposes. The aes- 

 thetic value of artificially designed and 

 ■well kept grounds has long been 

 realized. Landscape gardening has for 

 years been considered an art, and the 

 profession of landscape architecture 

 has long been recognized. 



Public grounds were at first laid out 

 merely for the benefit of the onlooker 

 — an out-of-door picture, as it were — 

 depicted on a canvas of nature, with 

 tree?, grass, water and slopes covered 

 with verdant shrubbery as color mat- 

 ter, and all blended and arranged by 

 a master-hand to best suit the require- 

 ments of the pre-acknowledged rules 

 of art. 



In landscape designing, there have 

 been masters as in poetry and music. 

 Kemp, Andre, Downing, Olmsted and 

 Scott held similar positions in their 

 professions as did Goldsmith, Tenny- 

 son a"d BMrns. or Bach, Mendelssohn 

 and Chopin In theirs. Central Park 

 In New York or Prospect Park in 

 Brooklyn bear the same marks of 

 study and thought and masterly por- 

 trayal of nature, as do the celebrated 

 landscape paintings in the galleries. 

 of Paris or Berlin. Today, however, 

 the park movement has advanced in 

 its requireiients bevond the stage of 

 mere artistic depiction, while In the 

 larger naturalistic parks the same 

 rules of landscape architecture are held 

 to, and while the various schools of 

 landscape design have their cham- 

 pions, all have tended to develop a 

 more utiliarian, a more vital object 

 The great meadows of the city parks 

 are flooded in winter, and the ice swept 

 clear of snow at great expense that 

 children and grown people may dis- 

 port themselves. Toboggan slides are 

 erected, and provision is made for 

 popular sports in all seasons in such 

 a way that the natural beauty 

 of the ground is not sacrificed. 

 Speedways are kept open, football, 

 baseball, hocky. skating, tennis, horse- 

 back riding, golf, canoeing, boat racing 

 — all are given their respective facili- 

 ties. The use of the lawns is becoming 

 in most cities unrestricted. Swings, 

 merry-go-rounds and ponies are fur- 

 nished tor children, band concerts are 

 fostered, and the whole machinery of 

 the d°pf>rrnient is put in motion to 

 give the public the most possible help- 

 ful pleasure. 



What Chicago Is Doing. 



In Chicago during the past few years 



nearly $7,000,000 have been spent in 



neighborhood playgrounds. These 



playgrounds are from two to seventy 



acres in extent, and contain a full 

 equipment of buildings suitable for 

 neighborhood recreation, besides lakes 

 and expanses of lawn or grove which 

 may appeal to the more quietly dis- 

 posed. Full equipped gymnasiums are 

 provided for each sex, both for out- 

 door and indoor work, shower baths, 

 locker rooms, indoor and outdoor 

 plunges and swimming pools, all have 

 their corps of attendants and necessary 

 accessories. In each park connected 

 with the gymnasium is a building con- 

 taining a library, reading room, res- 

 taurant, assembly hall and club room, 

 all free of charge with the exception 

 of the restaurant. The assembly hall 

 is decorated from the park gi'een- 

 houses twice a week, and is equipped 

 with a piano, stage and all the things 

 necessary to provide hospitality for 

 clubs and social organizations. The 

 assembly hall and club rooms may 

 be obtained on application. In the 

 restaurant, only wholesome foods are 

 sold, and as near the cost price as 

 possible. Pasteurized milk is furnished 

 to families at a nominal sum, and the 

 good result from this item alone is 

 almost without estimate. 



Chicago has already completed at an 

 average cost of $250,000 each, fourteen 

 parks of this type, while a number of 

 others are now in process of construc- 

 tion. Fifteen playgrounds of the smal- 

 ler type, equipped only with outdoor 

 gymnasiums, together with several 

 municipal bathing beaches are also 

 completed. Altogether Chicago has 96 

 parks and playgrounds, comprising 

 approximately 3500 acres and costing 

 annually $5,000,000 to maintain, while 

 nearly as much more is being spent 

 annually in acquiring and improving 

 new sites; yet with all this, Chicago 

 has a reputation of lagging behind 

 other cities of the country and Europe 

 in its park work 



Plans for Future Extension, 



Statistics show that there is an aver- 

 age of one acre to G017 persons, while 

 park authorities state that the propor- 

 tion should be not less than one acre 

 to every one hundred inhabitants. To 

 correct this, plans are being formu- 

 lated to carry out a work of park ex- 

 tension which will some day cause 

 Chicago to become one of the finest 

 equipped cities in the world. Money 

 has already been provided and work 

 begun on the extension of the shore 

 parks of both the North and South 

 sides. Lincoln park is addng 235 acres 

 to her domain by filling in along the 

 shore of Lake Michigan. Gi-ant Park 

 with an area of 210 acres is nearing 

 completion, and the work of reclaim- 

 ing the shallows along the Hyde Park 

 district from Jackson to Grant Park is 

 being planned. With the completion 

 of this work the city will command, 

 through its park department, the 

 greater portion of the Lake frontage of 

 Chicago, giving to the inhabitants a 

 vast area of protected water for the 

 use of aquatic sports, while the hitherto 

 unestimated scenic features of the Lake 

 will be reclaimed. 



Around the city to the north, west 

 and south stretches a continuous area 

 of picturesque country, taking in the 

 valleys of the Chicago, Desplaines and 

 Sag Rivers, and including the hills and 

 valleys of Palos to the southwest. As 

 was the case of the Blue Hill district 

 in Boston, this beauteous region has 



lain unthought of and unreclaimed 

 while the money-mad city has been 

 paying too little attention to civic 

 beauty. In a report of the Municipal 

 Park Commission presented to the City 

 Council in 1894, recommendations were 

 made to add 37,000 acres of this and 

 other territory to the park system of 

 the city. Although recent legislative 

 action has for a time stopped the pro- 

 gress of the enterprise, yet it seems in 

 a fair way to be carried out in the fu- 

 ture. Although the project calls for 

 the expenditure of millions of dollars, 

 and years of time to complete the 

 work, yet the benefits to be derived 

 by the future inhabitants of the city 

 will cause the effort and the expense to 

 sink into insignificance. 



M. H. WEST. 

 Chicago, November 6th, 1907. 



APPRECIATING THE GARDENER. 



One of the little things about the 

 recent annual chrysanthemum show in 

 the Berkeley Lyceum that doubtless es- 

 caped the notice of many was the pains 

 that some of the rich exhibitors took 

 to give all possible credit to their re- 

 spective gardeners. Thus, after the 

 name of Jlr. Robert W. Paterson, 

 whose exhibits were sent down from 

 "Blantyre." his Lenox country place, 

 you always saw on the card, "Thos. 

 Proctor, gardener." Mr. Paterson, 

 whose wife was Miss Louise Fahys, is 

 one of the leading chrysanthemum fan- 

 ciers among the wealthy. Although he 

 loots the bills for this expensive pas- 

 time he knows full well that for what- 

 ever success he attains to as a prize- 

 winner, and that success is consider- 

 able, his gardener ought to have a 

 proper amount of credit.— Brooklyn 

 Life. 



GREENHOUSES BUILDING OR CON- 

 TEMPLATED. 



Pascoag, R. I.— Wm. Doel. one 

 house. 



Cheshire, Conn.— C. H. Ives, one 

 house. 



Pierre, S. D.— Enoe & Barney, house 

 20 X 90. 



Woburn, Mass. — Adam Foster, two 

 houses. 



Bar Harbor, Me.— Mr. Kennedy, con- 

 servatory. 



Hudson, Mich.— R. Peterson, range 

 ot houses. 



Newport, R. I.— W. D. Leeds, range 

 of houses. 



Henderson, Ky.— J. C. Hoffman, 

 house 16 X 75. 



Fostoria, O. — Fostoria Floral Co., 

 range of houses. 



.lamestown, N. H. — Charles Adams, 

 vegetable house. 



Manguni. Okla.— A. Gardiner, two 

 houses. Ill X 125. 



.lohnstown. Pa.— A. Hostetter, vege- 

 table house. 31 X 143. 



Swansea, Mass.— N. G. Chace, vege- 

 table house. 22 x 50. 



.Monson, Mass.— H. Thiemann, propa- 

 gating house 9 1-2 x 45. 



Krings, Pa. — Mishler Bros., two let- 

 tuce houses, each 32 x 100. 



NEW HEATING APPARATUS. 



H. C. Sturges, Fairfield, Conn., new 

 boiler. 



Enoe & Barney, Pierre, S. D., Kroes- 

 thell boiler. 



