THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART X. 587 



plain of this; we are always doing it when we go to Japan. But our 

 Japanese brother describes the style of architecture in our villages and 

 towns as absolutely depressing, the buildings generally squatty, hideous 

 looking things, devoid of taste, etc., but the streets, unpaved, dirty with 

 filth of years, dusty and littered with rubbish, a heap of accumulation 

 sloping up in front of each merchant's door. Now we are rapidly pass- 

 ing beyond such reproach. A few years more we shall have entirely 

 passed. Our towns are becoming more beautiful, everyone of them, year 

 by year, and wealth increases, and leisure comes more and more. With 

 more fixed and settled habits of American life we may hope that the 

 proverbial good sense of the American citizen will also make him master 

 of civic and municipal problems in such fashion as at length to show to 

 the world the exemplification of the philanthropist's highest hopes and 

 the architect's fairest dreams. 



REPORT OF LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE. 



Made by the Chairman, Prof. B. SMmek. 



Des Moines, Iowa, Dec. 9, 1902. 



To the Iowa Park and Forestry Association: Your committee on legis- 

 lation beg leave to present the following report: 



In accordance with your instructions your committee took steps to 

 present the question of the encouragement of tree planting by the Twenty- 

 ninth General Assembly. The bill recommended by this association one 

 year ago was taken in charge by Hon. Eugene Secor, who offered it in the 

 house. 



The Iowa Academy of Sciences in its December meeting in 1901, con- 

 curred in the approval of the Forestry bill, and likewise appointed a 

 committee on legislation, consisting of Profs. L. H. Pammel, B. Shimek 

 and M. F. Arey. 



The chairman of these committees, with Mr. C. A. Mosier and Capt. 

 C. L. Watrous, appeared before the house committee on horticulture, and, 

 after consultation and a discussion of the details of the bill, the committee 

 on horticulture, of which Mr. Secor was chairman, recommended the bill 

 in the modified form in which it is appended to this report, and in which 

 it has already been published in the proceedings, and it was passed by 

 the house without a dissenting vote. In the senate, under Hon. J. J. Cross- 

 ley's direction, with whom the chairman of your committee consulted, 

 the bill was favorably reported by the committee on horticulture, and 

 also finally on the last day of the session by the sifting committee, but 

 failed of passage on the final vote. 



Considering the fact that the question was brought up by this as- 

 sociation so late that there was not time for public sentiment to crystalize, 

 and in view of the further fact that any suggestion of exemption from taxa- 



