OUE HOETICULTUEAL SOCIETIES 



MR. C. H. HALE'S PLAN FOR INAUGURATING A 

 MOVEMENT TO BEAUTIFY THE TOWN OF ORILLIA. 



1 THINK the Horticultural Society de- 

 serves every encouragement in its ef- 

 forts to faster amongst our citizens 

 a feeling of civic pride in the beauty of the 

 town generally, and, therefore, in the pro- 

 per care of their own premises in particu- 

 lar ; and also in promoting a healthy rivalry 

 between individuals, and better still, be- 

 tween sections of the town, in contributing 

 to that beauty, this civic pride and rivalry 

 constituting the best means towards the 'end 

 which you have in view. While, however, 

 I quite agree with you as to the wisdom of 

 laying down some general principles for the 

 beautifying of the streets and private 

 grounds, which will serve as a guide to the 

 citizens, and help in securing uniformity, I 

 have long been of the opinion that so far as 

 practical work in local improvement is con- 

 cerned it would be better to concentrate the 

 efforts of the society on one street or section 

 •which might serve as a model, rather than 

 to scatter your energies over the whole 

 town, which is so large a field that the re- 

 sults obtainable would not be so plain, and 

 would not appeal so strongly to the public 

 imagination. 



These preliminary remarks, which I trust 

 you will pardon, as necessary to defining 

 my point of view, bring me to the plan I 

 suggested, which, briefly stated, is that the 

 Horticultural Society should arrange for 

 the organized beautifying and care of one 

 or two streets which might be made to serve 

 as object lessons to the townspeople gener- 

 ally. My idea is that the residents along 

 the streets chosen should be induced to form 

 what might be termed Local Improvement 

 Guilds, and to combine in keeping the 

 streets free from litter, the sidewalks clean. 



the boulevards cut and the trees trimmed. 

 At a small cost to each resident, each guild 

 could keep a man employed for several days 

 a week in cutting the grass and generally 

 keeping things in order. By all acting to- 

 gether uniformity would be obtained, and 

 the appearance of the street would not be 

 marred by its untidy condition in front of 

 one or two places; moreover, the grass 

 would always be the same height instead of 

 being patchy from being cut at different 

 times. 



The streets which I would suggest for in- 

 augurating such a movement are Neywash 

 and Tecumseh. I choose these, (i) be- 

 cause they are short, and can be worked for 

 their entire length; (2) because the resi- 

 dents on them are public spirited citizens 

 who would be likely to take up such a plan ; 

 (3) because they are central; (4) because 

 they are already very pretty, and could be 

 made perfect with very little trouble. 



There are about twenty-five houses along 

 each of these streets. If from each of these 

 a contribution of ten cents a week, or fifty 

 cents a month, could be secured, a man 

 could be kept employed on boulevards for 

 a day and a half or two days a week. At 

 this small outlay, by joint action, the street 

 could be very much improved in appear- 

 ance. 



The Town Council might reasonably be 

 asked to lend assistance in inaugurating e 

 movement by putting these two streets in a 

 good condition to begin with. In particu- 

 lar they might be expected to improve the 

 appearance of the approaches to Couchi- 

 ching Beach Park, and to keep them neat, 

 instead of allowing the ground outside the 

 gates to be a dumping ground for rubbish 



