593 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



We think if the trees are not trimmed at all it adds to their beauty, 

 especially couifers and elms. Even pin oaks are finer when their branches 

 droop almost to the ground. So it follows that the pruning knife should 

 be kept in experienced hands. 



Now as to the shrubbery. It should be selected with an end of hav- 

 ing some of it bloom or fruit all summer. It should be so planted as to 

 have a natural, easp appearance and not look stiff and formal as though 

 made by baud at the carpenter's bench. 



Then, there is the green or lawn. This should be so arranged and kept 

 as to have a dark green appearance! and we would recommend the use 

 of commercial fertilizers instead of manure, on account of weed seeds. 

 We must not forget the playground for athletic sports, or the outdoor 

 kindergarten, or the public bathing and boating places. In fact, the aim 

 should be to afford the maximum of outdoor recreation and enjoyment 

 for those who are so much in need of pure air and sunshine amid flowers 

 and trees. 



The aquatics are also an eminently interesting and instructive fea- 

 ture and should not be omitted. Then as to the flowers, more commonly 

 called greenhouse plants, these should be, as nearly as possible, in one 

 garden or part of the park, and should consist of both subtropical and car- 

 pect bedding. I am aware that some of our best known landscape garden- 

 ers oppose carpet bedding, and with all due respect to these gardeners 

 I will say that cornet bedding will be with us after they are gone. When 

 this kind of planting is not overdone it is fine, is interesting and instruc- 

 tive, and it tends to refresh one's interest in nature and art combined. 



The drives and walks should be as easy as possible, free from short 

 curves and steep hills. At prominent places alongside of them should be 

 pieces of statuary, so placed as to give a pleasing effect. There should also 

 be drinking fountains or springs in abundance to accomodate all visitors. 



We have now come to the management of parks which is by no means 

 of the least importance. First, there should be a park board, which should 

 consist of three or five men, and should be as far eliminated from politics 

 as possible. They should have direct charge of all the finances and all im- 

 provements of the park. Next, under them, and selected by them, 

 should be a superintendent of the entire park system of the city, or a 

 superintendent for each park, as the board may see fit. In either case 

 this suprintendent should be a park man of knowledge and ability, for 

 what five men would think of forming a partnership and starting a flour 

 mill without securing the services of a miller, or of starting a drug store 

 without a pharmacist. So in a park it is just as essential to have a park 

 man for superintendent; and do not put in a man who cannot tell a conifer 

 from a quercus, or a deciduous from an herbaceous plant. Then next in 

 order comes the gardener, who should be a gardener in fact, as well as a 

 man to plant the garden. He should be a propagator as well as a grower, 

 and, indeed, he must be an all-round florist. After him is the foreman, 

 and under the latter the men do the general park work, such as keep- 

 ing the drives and walks edged and rolled, the lawns mowed. All trim- 

 ming of shrubbery and trees should be in the hands of the gardener. 



