596 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



but its door yards as well as the windows and porches of each and every 

 home contribute a wealth of beauty in their floral and shrubbery offerings. 



I will not go further into the details of what has been done there, but 

 would say that great good can be accomplished by the influential and lead- 

 ing men of every small city, if they would first set the example and then 

 call together certain portions of the city at a time and unfold to them 

 plans whereby their homes and grounds might be beautified, furnishing 

 them if necessary with the seed for this purpose, and also instructing them 

 in the planting of it and the cultivation of the resultant flowers or shrubs. 

 Lantern slides can be used advantageously in showing them how door 

 yards, walks, and porches have been treated in a tasteful yet inexpensive 

 way by those who know how. They further prove suggestive and will bear 

 fruit if the efforts of these leading spirits are persistent instead of sporadic. 



Now a word about the vacant building lot. It is familiar to us all for, 

 "like a stranger from a strange land," it stamps itself indelibly upon our 

 minds. With our mind's eye we can now see many of them, covered with 

 weeds three to four feet in height; a "For Sale" sign strug- 

 gling as hard to make itself seen as a four and one-half 

 foot man in a crowd of six-footers; broken bottles, empty oyster 

 cans, and many other such suggestions of rubbish peering out 

 at the base of the stalks — the whole lot presenting such a sight 

 that the buyer hesitates before purchasing it. These conditions lower the 

 market value of these lots as well as the city's standard of beauty. Would 

 they not look better neatly sodded or even being utilized as truck patches 

 by the poor? Most assuredly, and city councils ought to take action rem- 

 edying such esthetic defects. Further, the citizens should bring a not-to- 

 be denied pressure upon their councils for the removal of bill boards. They 

 are unsightly, never possessing a semblance to beauty, but on the other 

 hand are often plastered with posters which are vicious in their nature and 

 which tend to lower the moral standard of the young especially. 



Our business streets may be paved with brick, asphalt, or macadam, 

 and bordered with the best of cement sidewalks, yet these same sidewalks 

 and streets are often worse than the farmer's barnyard for our wives and 

 daughters to go wading through. It would be well if every city followed 

 the example of St. Paul and Minneapolis by passing iron-clad ordinances 

 forbidding the expectorating of tobacco, etc., upon the sidewalks, street 

 cars and nublic building floors. Such movements result in not only im- 

 proved appearances, but sanitary benefits of no small proportion, as well. 



Further, we are aware that in almost every city the streets of its 

 humbler parts are often littered with rubbish while its trees would never 

 prove to be an inspiration to one passing either the most exalted or the 

 most crude ideas of beauty. At a comparatively small expense every 

 city may be made a park. Line its streets with broad elms or some hardy 

 tree. If the streets are but little used for business traffic, narrow the paved 

 portion and alongside each side in addition to a row of trees, there may 

 be plots of green or, if the property owners prefer them, strips may be used 

 as flower beds or in such way that beauty will be created. It is well also 

 to remove all fences when park-like effects are desired, and if the privacy 



