RAILROAD STATION GROUNDS 241 



roads, have expended increasingly large sums of money, 

 year after year, in building handsome stations, with con- 

 venient roads of approach, and more or less satisfactory 

 plant decoration; but, unfortunately here, as in other 

 cases of park and garden undertakings, the excellence 

 and artistic value of the plant-work seems to lag sadly 

 behind that of the architecture. The best architects in 

 the country have long been accustomed to put forth, 

 under the spur of competition, their best efforts to de- 

 sign the most convenient and beautiful station buildings, 

 while, on the other hand, with very few exceptions, the 

 decoration of the grounds around railroad stations, if 

 attended to at all, has been left to be developed by skill 

 that cannot be said to be either artistic or comprehen- 

 sive in its scope. 



There have been, without doubt, notable improvements 

 in this respect accomplished during the last few years, 

 an excellent illustration of which may be seen on the 

 Boston and Albany road, but it still remains, unfortu- 

 nately, the practice on most roads to set out a few 

 coleuses, geraniums, and cannas, and there f epl that the 

 necessity of the occasion stops ; whereas it must become 

 evident to those who will give due consideration to the 

 subject that in the scheme of such improvements the 

 geranium type of plant should usually take a small, and 

 never a dominant, part. Indeed, it would seem natural, 

 when we come to consider it, to arrange station grounds 

 in the same comprehensive way that we would our small 

 parks or private grounds, for all would concede that home 

 comforts and attractions would prove specially agreeable 

 and solacing, both inside and outside the station. 



In following out, therefore, this idea, we would have, 

 above all, in such grounds, permanent plantations of trees 

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