SEPTEMBER 45 



arc mainly soft inai)lc's and olins. Wooden benches 

 are scattered over the areas, while a wooden, 

 gaily-painted bandstand, with a miniature dome, 

 has served for the minstrels of summer evening 

 concerts. On one side of the park there is a me- 

 morial to the local Civil War soldiers — an iron- 

 gray monument some twenty-five feet high, with 

 the figure of an infantry-man at the summit and 

 names of individual soldiers with the roll of their 

 battles inscribed on the sides. Flanking the mon- 

 ument are small cannons, mounted on brick and 

 stone masonry. The supreme marvel of that other 

 village park where we boys once played pom-pom- 

 pullaway, crack the whip, one-two-three-one, and 

 ate ice-cream and strawberries on a May evening, 

 is missing here. It was a ^'liberty-pole," nearly 

 or quite a hundred feet tall, mast-style, with a 

 ' 'landing," erected and cherished by an old man- 

 o '-war's man, stranded in some manner out here 

 on the prairies, midway from sea to sea. On the 

 Fourth a nol)le flag floated from the tip from the 

 cannon salute at dawn, through the reading of the 

 Declaration, passing of parade, merriment of af- 

 ternoon sports, till the last farmer's team started 

 homeward, and the last rocket had flared against 

 the night sky. 



Landscape gardening and its allied arts are ap- 

 parently making excellent progress in Iowa. The 

 parks of Des Moines are dignified, even noble, in 



