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the greater usefulness of the Garden in the community is the ap- 
plication of expert knowledge toward the solution of certain prob- 
lems connected with the diseases of park and city trees and shrubs. 
The Garden has been much interested in the prevalence and in 
the economic importance of plant diseases found in the vicinity, 
and has freely given advice on these matters whenever called upon. 
We are now engaged in carrying out a plan whereby we hope 
soon to be in a much better position to give expert advice along 
these important lines. We have been fortunate in having during 
the past summer the services of Prof. George M. Reed, of the 
University of Missouri, who has been studying the diseases found 
in Prospect Park and the Garden. A continuation of this highly 
practical and important work will in time give us a fund of in- 
formation which will be invaluable to the Park authorities as well 
as to other citizens. I would therefore suggest the making of 
some sort of arrangement whereby a member of the Garden staff 
could, as consulting plant pathologist, give expert opinion as 
needed on the spraying of the trees of city Parks and streets and 
on the general treatment of plant diseases. 
The Block Park Garden.*—“ One cannot do home visiting in 
the crowded tenement districts of Williamsburg, and other sec- 
tions, without noticing how much space which might be available 
for gardens, is unused. Looking out of a rear window one sees 
two rows of tiny back yards each with a high board fence around 
it. Sometimes there are as many as 30 or 40 yards, a quarter of 
an acre or more of unused space to a square block!—space un- 
used except as a catch-all with a few weeds struggling for exist- 
ence. And this waste in an overcrowded district, where the chil- 
dren have no playground but the streets! 
“For several years we have tried to help the children turn 
these back yards into gardens. It has been a struggle, and with 
the exception of a few instances not very successful. The diffi- 
culties are too great—the child is willing and anxious to clean 
out the old bricks, tin cans, shoes, etc., but an uninterested real 
estate agent will not have the trash carted off, so the child cleans 
the ground as best he can and leaves the waste in a pile. Another 
* Written by Miss Jean Cross, assistant curator of elementary instruc- 
tion, 
