December 8, 1897.] 



Garden and Forest. 



487 



and Madame Felix Perrin, however, lost their characteristic, 

 sparkling, rosy color, and were not of a salable character. 

 Some of these varieties were shaded from the time the buds 

 were the size of marbles until they came into full flower. 

 Others had already burst their buds and were out an inch or 

 more before the glass overhead was whitewashed. I know 

 nothing about shading Chrysanthemums during the purely 

 vegetative phase of their life. It seems clear, however, that 

 during the reproductive phase the forming flowers are weak- 

 ened in color by shading. There was only one contradictory 

 plant among twenty-five. It is a common complaint among 

 florists that the pink color stays only a few days after the flower 

 opens, and perhaps sunlight and shade cannot then arrest the 

 fading. The results with the nitrogen factor were not con- 

 clusive. At any rate, we did not force any pink into such 

 white varieties as Lenawee and Our Mutual Friend. 



One of the most popular of all Chrysanthemums is the white 

 variety Ivory. It is included by many dealers in their list of 

 twelve best varieties for commercial purposes. It is used for 

 cut flowers and pot-plants, and still figures among the winners 

 in the exhibitions. Naturallv pink sports of it are eagerly 

 sought after. Miss Agnes L. Dalskov (commonly called Pink 

 Ivory) has been much praised elsewhere. With us it had 

 barely a trace of color last year, and none in 1897. 

 Ithaca, N. y. Wilhelm Miller. 



Correspondence. 



City Playgrounds. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — The Massachusetts Emergency and Hygienic Associa- 

 tion has led the way in this country in efforts to provide play- 

 grounds for the summer use of children, and has now under 

 its charge in Boston eleven yards, mostly belonging to schools, 

 at which, during the summer of 1896, there was an average 

 attendance of 1,804 children a day. These yards, of course, 

 are only available during vacations. The valuable Charles- 

 bank gymnasium accommodates a large neighborhood, and I 

 am told that the average attendance there in the summer 

 months is above a thousand a day ; but there are many sec- 

 tions of the city too distant for the residents to avail themselves 

 of the Charlesbank, and to them the great park systems are 

 wholly inaccessible, so that these sections are in sore need of 

 some municipal provision for spacious recreation-grounds. 

 There is also an Emergency Playroom at Morgan Chapel, 

 Shawmut Avenue, and the Episcopal Mission has provided 

 seven rooms, where at certain hours children can play under 

 proper supervision. There are vacation schools connected 

 with Denison House, and the Lincoln House Settlement is 

 doing- admirable work in providing recreation for the poor of 

 the South End, and, no doubt, there are other private pro- 

 visions for their needs, but a great deal remains for the munici- 

 pality to organize and pay for. 



It may be of interest to your readers to know just what is 

 being done by the Emergency and Hygienic Association in the 

 yards they manage so admirably, and, therefore, I subjoin an 

 account of some of them which I had the pleasure of visiting 

 last summer with one of their public-spirited directors. 



I was taken first to South Boston, to a sort of human chicken- 

 coop on a three-cornered piece of land between two streets, 

 left unoccupied when the Ellis Memorial was built. This space 

 the trustees of the Memorial were glad to put at the service of 

 the Association, and the ground was at first enclosed with a 

 board fence, and later with slats to admit the air more fully, 

 and shaded with a canvas awning. This awning I found in 

 a very dilapidated condition at the end of the summer, it having 

 been willfully torn by mischievous boys of the neighborhood, 

 who at first gave a great deal of trouble to the managers by 

 forcing an entrance and terrifying the children. The intre- 

 pidity of the matrons in charge of the ground, helped by the 

 police, put the hoodlums to flight, and the younger children are 

 no longer molested. The doors of all the yards, however, have 

 to be kept locked to prevent the intrusion of the unruly ele- 

 ment, always ready to make a disturbance, and only the 

 younger children are admitted at the proper hours of recrea- 

 tion. There was nothing but a dirt floor in this poor and small, 

 but much-valued enclosure ; at one end were sand piles for 

 the smallest children, in which they played contentedly with 

 shovels and pails. There are superintendents called matrons 

 in all the yards, whose business it is to keep order, to teach 

 kindergarten games and occupations to the children, to take 

 charge of and distribute the playthings and books which are 

 provided, to settle disputes, and to keep out intruders. These 

 young women, mostly school-teachers who desire to supple- 



ment their small salaries by work in summer, take great in- 

 terest in the little ones, know their names and characteristics, 

 and are most kind and cordial in their treatment of them. It 

 is interesting to note that though these teachers often begin 

 the playground work when they are weary and worn with 

 school-teaching, they grow brown and healthy in this daily 

 occupation in the open air, even amid such poor surroundings. 

 Two or three times a week, and sometimes daily, the yards 

 are visited by members of the committee, who are a court of 

 final appeal in case of difficulty. 



From this playground we passed on to a more pleasant one 

 at the Mather School, in South Boston, which is shaded in the 

 morning by a few street-trees and by the high buildings about 

 it. We had found about eighty children enjoying themselves 

 in the dreary little pen at West Second Street, but here there 

 were, or had been during the morning, nearly two hun- 

 dred, who disported themselves upon the flagged pavement 

 outside the schoolhouse enclosed by a high iron fence. Here 

 were also sand pens and toys, and the boys and girls proudly 

 exhibited the work they had done with cardboard and 

 worsteds, or the little drawings they had made. Sometimes a 

 baby in a carriage was wheeled and attended by an older 

 child. At stated hours plays for the little ones were conducted 

 by the matrons ; among these the Mag drill was particularly 

 enjoyed. It was interesting to note the pleased expression on 

 the wretched, depraved faces of men of the lowest descrip- 

 tion, who paused to look through the fence when the children 

 were in a ring playing some of the pretty kindergarten games, 

 and one realized that the playground was a civilizing influence, 

 not only for the children, but for the adult neighbors who 

 looked on. 



Another schoolyard in Shawmut Avenue, opposite Lincoln 

 House, was thronged at a later hour with frolicsome happy 

 children, and in the lower part of the schoolhouse some of 

 the girls gathered to paint flowers from nature. While I was 

 there flowers, sent in great baskets from the Flower Mis- 

 sion, were distributed among the children, to their evident 

 joy. Several newsboys dropped in for a spare twenty minutes 

 to enjoy a game of checkers, and weary mothers came to 

 leave their little ones in safe-keeping. Shawmut Avenue is a 

 dirty street, and the dust blew about in clouds, but the boys 

 and girls swept the yard frequently, and so kept it orderly. 

 One longed for a tree or a corner of green shrubbery or a bit of 

 grass. The visit later on to the Charlesbank Gymnasium was 

 restful, and it was easy to realize what it must mean to the 

 denizens of crowded tenement-houses to have such a resort, 

 where shrubs and trees flourish, and there is a stretch of turf 

 to roll upon. 



The Earl of Meath has said it is better for a city to have a 

 hundred parks of one acre than one park of a hundred acres. 

 Frequent open spaces, with plants and grass in the corners, 

 should be scattered for the use of children all through the 

 great cities with their crowding houses, hard pavements and 

 noisy streets, which until lately have been the only place where 

 the young could amuse themselves. It is pathetic to see the 

 great enjoyment which not only the children, but the mothers, 

 take even in the least attractive of the yards, and the refining 

 influence of the kind and sympathetic treatment which they 

 receive is evident both upon the children and their parents. 

 Many of the boys are so unused to decent treatment that when 

 they first come they are in constant dread of a blow when the 

 matrons approach them, but after a time they become respect- 

 ful and helpful, and a book to read often tames the most 

 obstreperous. 



All that the directors ask is that the city shall furnish the 

 yards with shade-trees, of which they are sorely in need. Even 

 the broad stretch of greensward at the Charlesbank is un- 

 available on hot summer days, because it is absolutely 

 unshaded. It seems a mistake to sacrifice the comfort of the 

 children to a landscape-design which could hardly be fatally 

 marred by one or two trees to afford a refuge from the burn- 

 ing summer sun. 



But the city should do more than grant this simple request ; 

 it might clear away rubbishy old buildings and give open 

 spaces for the use of children in every quarter of the city, as 

 the authorities are doing in London. The Charlesbank, which 

 we owe to the Park Commissioners of Boston, was the first 

 free open-air gymnasium in the world, and this, under the 

 superintendence of the. Massachusetts Emergency and Hy- 

 gienic Association, has already in three years added noticeably 

 to the public health. Children with tendencies to curvature of 

 the spine, with stiffness of the joints and general ill-health have 

 had exercises prescribed for them by the careful superinten- 

 dents, and these defects have been remedied. The matrons 

 report the glowing activity and vigor of the girls, 300 of whom 



