356 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



in most cases, but often, especially in a hilly countr}', there may 

 be reasons for different methods, and if the establishment of a new 

 town or extensive additions to an old one are contemplated it will 

 be well to study the matter in all its bearing's. 



Is it a place that from its location promises to be an important 

 business point? Then let the principal streets leading- out into the 

 country be first located, radiating from the business center in such 

 a way as to best accommodate the expected traffic, and the rest of 

 the plat be made to fit them. The real estate speculator will per- 

 hap.s be horrified at the havoc this may make with corner lots, but 

 the careful exainination of the map of any city, from Minneapolis 

 and St. Paul to Washington and Paris, will prove these diagonal 

 streets to be the most important of all; the two latter cities are con- 

 ceeded to be the most beautiful in their respective continents and, 

 though in Paris military considerations were probably of great 

 weight, still the plan gives most striking artistic results. 



But we are getting a long ways from the country, so we will turn 

 again to our village improvements. 



How rarely is the topography of the proposed village considered 

 at all, but the streets are located on paper and future generations 

 left to struggle with the questions of grades, drainage, etc., when 

 they come to be located on the ground. 



It is said that some zealous temperance advocates were wont to 

 take around with them on their travels some "awful example," 

 which to point a moral they held up to the reprobation of their 

 audiences. On this principle I will cite a case, which shall other- 

 wise be nameless, lest I should hurt some one's feelings. I have 

 in mind a thrifty village on the shores of a beautiful lake; on one 

 side of the town, public buildings occupy an attractive site of sev- 

 eral acres, sloping towards the water; but through the heart of the 

 place is a ravine, formerly wooded, with a little brook rippling 

 through it, which was ignored in the platting; therefore, each trans- 

 verse street requires heavy grading and a culvert, and the valley 

 being at present, at least,valueless, is a dumping ground, and refuse 

 from adjacent stables and houses rolls down the banks, to be in 

 heavy storms carried out into the lake, and spread bj- the waves 

 along the beach; and if in course of time disease results, it will be 

 altnost profanely called "a mysterious dispensation of Providence." 

 Let our imaginations now consider the scene as "it might have 

 been," those "saddest of words." Var^'ing from our checker board 

 plat when this ravine is reached, let us locate a roadway on either 

 side from the shore of the lake with its present waterside street to 

 the head of the ravine, where, joining in one, it curves away to the 

 railroad station. The ravine has now become a park, and if neces- 

 sary to carry one street across it let it be on a light iron bridge; a 

 foot path is led down the gorge under the old trees and beside the 

 brook with its occasional pool and tiny cascade, and we have a spot 

 of beauty and health instead of a disease-breeding nuisance. The 

 surrounding houses now face it instead of turning their backs con- 

 temptuously upon it, and it has become the residence center of the 

 village. 



