RAILROAD-GARDENING 



RAILROAD-GARDENING 2899 



gardening features. In small cities, of say 10,000 

 inhabitants more or less, the station buildings become 

 relatively more dominant and the planting falls into a 

 subordinate place, and the gardening may take on the 

 features of ornament; the approaches and the general 

 layout begin to assume a civic character. In large 

 cities, the architecture, arrangement, and formal 

 approaches necessarily dominate, the plant materials 

 are reduced to a very minor feature or disappear 

 altogether, and the landscape architect approaches the 

 work as a problem in city-planning and design. There 

 remains the small country station in the farming coun- 

 try, which usually has been wholly neglected in respect 

 to its landscape features and which has little expanse 

 beyond the mere right-of-way; this is a problem quite 

 by itself and which has not yet been studied to any 



3334. A good rural station, with well-directed approaches, sward, trees, 

 shrub-planting, and vines on the building. 



extent. This application of the landscape art to real 

 rural conditions will develop when the whole subject of 

 country-planning begins to appeal to the public mind. 



Historical sketch. 



The railroad-gardening movement is best under- 

 stood by a consideration of its historical development, 

 and this is here attempted, although the treatment is not 

 complete nor does it pretend to bring the subject 

 down to date. 



The movement in England. Planting has been prac- 

 tised on the station grounds of some English railways 

 for many years, but it is almost exclusively limited to 

 purely ornamental gardening. The corporations do lit- 

 tle beyond offering prizes to station-masters and their 

 assistants. This system was put in operation about 

 forty years ago on the Great Eastern, in about 1885 on 

 the Midland, and at a more recent time on the Great 

 Western Railway. The prizes range from 5s. to 5, 

 and in 1900 aggregated 300 on the Midland Railway. 

 The little planting that is done by the railway com- 

 panies themselves is confined to a few trees of low 

 growth near stations, to a background of shrubs for 

 some of the so-called "platform gardens," and to sow- 

 ing broom and gorse on certain slopes of the permanent 

 way between stations. The "allotment gardens" that 

 attract attention on English roads are small tracts 

 near stations rented to employees of the roads, who use 

 them as vegetable-, fruit-, and, to some extent, as flower- 

 gardens. The Railway Banks Floral Association was an 

 interesting factor in the improvement of English rail- 

 way rights of way. Earl Grey was the originator of the 

 novel and excellent scheme. The society was an organi- 



zation for interesting owners of adjacent property, and 

 for collecting money and materials for sowing and 

 planting railway "banks" (downward slopes) and "cut- 

 tings" (upward slopes) of the permanent way, to the 

 end of making them more attractive. The results have 

 been eminently satisfactory. 



Denmark. In Denmark the railways belong almost 

 without exception to the government, and improve- 

 ments are begun when the roads are constructed. These 

 consist of five classes of work: (1) planting of station 

 grounds; (2) hedges as a substitute for fences; (3) snow- 

 shelters; (4) vegetation on embankments as a protec- 

 tion against erosion ; (5) allotment gardens near block 

 signal stations. Planting on station grounds is purely 

 for esthetic purposes; the other features, while possess- 

 ing some attractions, are maintained chiefly for their 

 economic advantages. The materials for planting are 

 obtained from nurseries ("planteskoler") owned by 

 the roads and consist for the most part of shrubs, 

 largely coniferous. These nurseries, as well as the 

 entire planting, are under the supervision of a 

 "plantoer," i. e., a chief botanical instructor. The 

 allotment gardens, like their English namesakes, are 

 tracts near the block signal 

 stations where railway em- 

 ployees conduct vegetable- 

 and fruit-gardens for their 

 own use, and sometimes care 

 for a few flowering plants. 



Sweden. Ornamental 

 planting has been universal 

 on government railways, as 

 well as on most private rail- 

 ways in Sweden, since 1862. 

 According to the Royal Ad- 

 ministration of the Swedish 

 State Railways, the following 

 distinctions are made: (1) 

 decorative and fire protective 

 plantings on station grounds ; 

 (2) mixed plantings (decora- 

 tive and economic) on 

 "habitation grounds;" (3) 



plantings along the railway lines as hedges or for 

 protection against snow. Station planting consists of 

 trees selected to suit the climate of various parts of the 

 country, of shrubs, and of perennials and annuals 

 (flowering as well as bedding plants). At the largest 

 stations (only about seventy-five) annuals are exclu- 

 sively used for "modern or elegant combinations." 

 The planting at habitation grounds consists of fruit- 

 trees, small-fruits, a few ornamental shrubs, some 

 flowering plants, and a small kitchen-garden. The 

 state railways yearly plant out about 40,000 hard- 

 wooded plants (trees and shrubs), and 400,000 soft- 

 wooded plants (perennials and annuals), which are 

 nearly all grown at five greenhouses, hotbeds, and 

 nurseries situated in different parts of the country. On 

 private railways the same plan is followed on a smaller 

 scale. 



In various other countries there are scattered exam- 

 ples of ornamental, economic, and protective planting 

 on railways, including the cultivation of fruits along the 

 rights of way of certain railways of Germany and 

 of France. 



The Canadian Pacific Railway Company has planted 

 a considerable part of its right of way to tamarack and 

 other suitable trees to supply the tie material of the 

 future. 



The director of the association called Het National 

 Belang, at Utrecht, says that the association has con- 

 tracts with the State Railway Company and the Hol- 

 land Railway to plant the dykes of their roads. Differ- 

 ent kinds of willows, low apple and pear trees (half- 

 stam appel en peeren-bloomen) and wild prune trees 

 are used, the fruit of the last being "used for jams." 



