RAILROAD GARDENING 



wires and poles be interfered with, nor the view of the 

 line obstructed. The danger to planting from fire can 

 never be entirely eliminated until some non-spark-pro- 

 ducing fuel is substituted for coal. 



Can the horticultural department of a railroad be 

 made partly self-supporting ? There seems little doubt 

 that by one means or another this department might be 

 made at least partly self-supporting, but the consensus 



2070. Railroad yard in southern California. 



of opinion among railroad men is distinctly against the 

 advisability of making it so, except indirectly. 



It is conceivable that railroad nurseries and green- 

 houses might supply planting stock to individuals to 

 their advantage; and possibly railway rights of way 

 aggregating immense areas might be planted to crops, 

 perhaps to fruit trees as is done to some extent in Eu- 

 ropean countries (a project which has also been recently 

 suggested for the roads of India), but the opinion is 

 general that legitimate railroad business is limited to 

 the transportation of people and of freight. Even if 

 this is true, it is still certain that the department may 

 legitimately be made to yield substantial financial re- 

 turns. This feature of the department work is as yet in 

 a preliminary stage that makes definite conclusions as 

 to the extent of its benefits impossible, but enough has 

 already been done to demonstrate the usefulness of a 

 well-conceived and correctly developed policy of protec- 

 tive and economic planting. 



Planting for Protection. Planting for protection, as 

 practiced so far, includes: (1) covering banks with 

 vegetation to prevent erosion, and (2) planting for pro- 

 tection from wind and snow, and from landslides. All 

 this has been successfully done in various parts of the 

 world. Snow hedges are comparatively common at home 

 and abroad. A notable example of confidence in the 

 advantage of belts of trees for this purpose is seen in 

 the groves planted recently by the Northern Pacific 

 Railway Company. About 600,000 trees were set out in 

 1900, and the chief engineer of the road says: "This ex- 

 periment has been undertaken to determine the possi- 

 bility of substituting groves for snow fences. It is 

 necessary to protect all railway cuts in these prairie 

 regions in some manner, as the strong winds across the 

 treeless prairies cause the snow to drift badly. A strip 

 100 feet wide is cultivated to keep down weeds and over- 

 come danger from fire, and through the middle of it 

 runs a grove 60 feet wide, the inner edge being 125 feet 

 from the center line and parallel with the tracks through 

 cuts. The trees are planted in parallel rows spaced 

 6 feet apart at right angles with and 3 feet apart par- 

 allel with the track. The two outer rows on each side 

 are golden Russian and laurel - leaved willows ; the 

 third row from the outer margins, box elder and ash; 

 and the five central rows, cottonwood. This arrange- 

 ment is expected to produce a dense grove, increasing 

 in height from both sides to the center, which will fur- 

 nish an effective wind-break." 



The feasibility of planting for protection against the 



RAILROAD GARDENING 



encroachment of shifting sand on the seacoast, along 

 rivers and on so-called desert lands, has been demon- 

 strated by the researches and experiments of the Divi- 

 sion of Agrostology of the United States Department of 

 Agriculture. The advantages of such plantings are sure 

 to be eventually recognized and utilized by railway com- 

 panies whose lines are exposed to this danger. 



Planting for Economic Purposes. Possibilities are 

 considered great in the direction of producing 

 timber for furnishing cross-ties, poles and posts. 

 It is asserted that under competent supervision 

 this branch can be made not only to pay the en- 

 tire expenses of the department but to become a 

 source of revenue. This branch of the work ap- 

 peals to practical railway men as perhaps no 

 other phase can be expected to, and to what ex- 

 tent the fortunes of various groves of locust, 

 catalpa and tamarack influence the happiness of 

 dignified chief engineers it would be difficult to 

 learn, but that numbers of them are turning 

 otherwise unoccupied railway lands to this use 

 is certain. In the state of Indiana some railway 

 companies have planted a part of their holdings 

 with trees for the double purpose of growing 

 timber for economic uses and to secure the re- 

 sulting reduction in taxes, which is a feature of 

 the state forestry law. 



Protection of Natural Scenery. Notwithstand- 

 ing the prominence given in railway advertising 

 to fine natural scenery, little credit seems due 

 to railway companies in general for protecting 

 such scenery. That they might wield a mighty 

 influence for their own and the public good is 

 proved by a few instances. It is learned that the 

 unofficial work of representatives of the New York Cen- 

 tral and the Michigan Central roads did much to create 

 the public sentiment that led to the formation of gov- 

 ernment parks on each side of Niagara Falls, and that 

 the same roads should be credited with comprehensive 

 and extended efforts to secure legislation looking to the 

 prevention of further defacement of the palisades of the 

 Hudson. 



Disagreeable Features and their Suppression. There 

 are two important classes of disfigurement: defacement 

 by signs and defacement by abused and neglected 

 grounds adjoining railway rights of way. The more 

 noticeable of these is the display of hideous sign-boards 

 that disfigure railway rights of way and, indeed, seem 

 to have the right of way on highways of every descrip- 

 tion. These amount to a public nuisance that should be 

 legally controlled, but as they are placed on adjacent 

 land or buildings instead of on railway property, their 

 direct suppression by railway officials is out of the 

 question. These eyesores, however, furnish an added 

 and cogent reason for massing plantations of small 

 trees, shrubs and vines at certain points along rights of 

 way where the topography of adjacent land invites such 

 disfigurement. These gaudy signs not only blot out or 

 mar most fine landscape views (being adroitly placed to 

 that direct end), but are allowed to distort otherwise 

 unobjectionable farm buildings, while the approach to 

 villages and towns is announced in screaming colors by 

 the crowding together of these frightful adjuncts of 

 civilization. 



While railway companies are not strictly responsible 

 for these conditions, it is certain that they might sway 

 public opinion and effect a much needed reform by con- 

 tinuous, systematic work in the way of "planting out" 

 the disfigurements, and by establishing attractive plan- 

 tations wherever possible. This policy is likely to 

 result in a reformation in the direction of the second 

 source of unpleasant views from trains; viz., the un- 

 kempt, sordid and often wretchedly squalid appearance 

 of grounds adjoining rights of way through villages, 

 towns and small cities. If a park is maintained on the 

 station-grounds, near-by residents are likely to catch 

 the good spirit and improve the looks of neighboring 

 back yards. To this end, a rule against dumping on 

 railway ground should be strictly enforced. The objec- 

 tionable features that obtain in large cities must prob- 

 ably be endured until mitigated by the efforts of 

 municipal art and social service leagues. 



Attainable Ideals. Railway companies can do no 



