The Canadian Horticulturist. 



i95 



NOTES FROM THE WORLD'S FAIR.— II. 



April 26th. 

 HE Opening Day is very near, but President 

 Cleveland will see little of the exhibits unless he 

 comes again. The buildings are a mass of packing 

 cases and unfinished courts, and only here and there 

 one is so far completed as to receive its display. 

 Prodigious efforts are being made to prepare for 

 opening, and, notwithstanding the most extrava- 

 gant prices demanded, it is estimated that there 

 are over fifty thousand men employed in various 

 ways on the grounds. Then, two weeks of the 

 worst April weather ever known to the writer has 

 delayed all outside work. The little steam 

 launches that take the tired visitors about in the pretty lagoons from one 

 building to another, are a great accession, and the easy rolling chairs, in which 

 the visitor is easily pushed along by fine, nobby young men, will all help 

 wonderfully in giving a restful mode of transfer from one part of the grounds 

 to another. 



The boom for high prices of accommodation has run very high and must 

 surely break. $1.50 to $2 per day for a room, without board, is absurd, in a 

 city of nearly a million and a half which is so easily able to accommodate 200,- 

 000 or more visitors per day. 



The Customs regulations are giving the writer heaps of trouble getting hold 

 of our goods. A special permit must be got to move our several car-loads of 

 fruit and vegetables from the City Cold Storage into the grounds, or for moving 

 about from one building to another ; and no box can be opened without a 

 Customs inspector to check off the eontents, the same to be returned to the box 

 at the close of the exhibition, or duty paid. 



The Administration Building, where most of the business offices of the 

 World's Fair are situated, is quite unique, and of peculiar interest. By many 

 it is considered the gem of the Exposition buildings from an architectural stand- 

 point. The grand dome, which is open to the floor in the centre, is two 

 hundred feet in height, gilded without and within, and richly decorated. It has 

 four pavilions, eighty-four feet square, and the general style is that of the Erench 

 renaissance, with the first story Doric and the second Ionic. This building, 

 with an heroic statue of Columbus before the main entrance, will be the first to 

 attract the attention of visitors after their arrival at the immense railway terminal 

 station, and will give a very favorable "first impression." 



The attention of the visitor is naturally directed next to the largest building 

 upon the grounds, the Manufactures and Liberal Arts. Leaving Administration, 



