OUR HORTICULTURAL SOCIETIES. 



457 



Sanitary and storm sewage systems. 



Street, road and river-side planting-. 



Street and road sign-posts. 



Traveling libraries. 



Vacation schools. 



Vacant lot cultivation. 



Together with other local needs of home 

 and community. 



Miss Jessie M. Good, of Springfield, O., 

 has written a pamphlet on 



"the how of improvement work," 

 from which we extract a few paragraphs. 

 She says : — 



If your town is bleak and unshaded, plant 

 trees, but give a thought to what and how 



Fig 



The Road Passing Fair Grounds, 

 Before it Was Improved. 



you plant. Because you love elms you 

 certainly show a selfish affection when you 

 plant them twenty feet apart upon a paved 

 street sixty feet wide, knowing, as you must 

 if you love them, that the elm is one of the 

 trees that needs great space and moisture 

 for its full development. Few shade trees 

 should be planted closer together than from 

 twenty-five to thirty-five feet. Why not in- 

 tersperse them with some ornamental flower- 

 ing trees — red-buds, dogwoods, crab-apples, 

 catalpas, etc.? Why always plant forest 

 trees for city shade ? Why not plant fruit 

 trees ? 1 see you smiling, but in Erie, 

 Pennsylvania, I know that years ago Parade 



street was shaded for many squares by 

 cherry trees that were a perennial delight, 

 beautiful in their neat, compact growth and 

 glossy foliage, and a joy when in blossom 

 and fruitage. But did not the boys s eal the 

 fruit, you ask ? The loss was net material. 

 Boys who have all the ripe cherries they 

 want at home, will not steal cherries away 

 from home. They will hunt for green 

 apples. 



If it is sidewalks you most need, create 

 such a strong public sentiment in their favor 

 that those reticent old taxpayers who always 

 protest against everything but a reduction 

 of taxes will not dare fight against the im- 

 provement. But do not think when you 

 have laid new sidewalks and planted your 

 trees that your work is finished. It is but 

 begun. 



What is the condition of your back yard 

 and alley ? Is the latter an impassable 

 mire in winter and a weedy lane in summer, 

 or is it a well-graded, rolled and drained 

 passage-way ? Is your back yard green 

 with grass and gay with flowers, making it 

 a beautiful and wholesome place in which 

 your children may play ? Or, is it a death- 

 trap, adorned with a fragrant swill barrel, 

 heaps of ashes and garbage, piles of old 

 boards, an untidy fence, while the bare 

 ground is soaked with greasy dishwater, 

 making it a place abhorrent to your children 

 as a playground, and as unsafe from a 

 sanitary point of view as a sewer ? If you 

 have such a back yard, let me tell you the 

 day is nearly over when educated people 

 keep what some one has wittily called 

 " Queen Anne fronts and Mary Ann backs." 

 Can you wonder why Johnny and Willie 

 prefer to play in the street instead of the 

 yard ? I think their preference for the street 

 shows a proper instinct and good judgment. 



Does your grocer and fruiterer expose the 

 foods he expects you to eat to the dusty 

 contagion of the street ? If so, you should 

 teach that you never off"er such contaminated 



