PARK AND CEMETERY 
AND LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
Vol. XVII. Chicago, June, 1907 No. 4 
Court Upholds Prohibition of Billboards 
In the vigorous campaign against the billboard inaugu- 
rated by The American Civic Association and ably assisted 
by the daily press throughout the country, credit for the most 
substantial actual results thus far must be given to Cali- 
fornia. Los Angeles has passed an ordinance imposing a 
tax of one cent a square foot, and a court decision from 
Santa Clara county, to the effect that a billboard may be 
declared a nuisance, reported on another page, is a distinct 
advance over any ruling thus far secured from the courts. 
Billboards have hitherto been successful in sheltering them- 
selves behind the specious plea that a nuisance is not a 
nuisance when it affects only the eye, and courts have held 
that objections to billboards were “esthetic” objections and 
not subject to legislative action. The decision referred to 
is the first strong evidence that this feeling is passing out 
of the legal mind, and foreshadows the time when an offense 
to the eye will be regarded as much a nuisance as an offense 
to the nose. It is the first recognition of the right to pro- 
hibit billboards under the police power, and should have 
the careful study of all civic improvement workers. 
>\ ^ 
The Clergy and Cemetery Monuments 
In the refusal of an Eastern Catholic clergyman to 
permit a monument to be erected in the cemetery under 
his charge in memory of a woman who had been con- 
victed of murder an important suggestion is conveyed 
relative to the monument question in all cemeteries, and 
the attitude thereto of the clergy of all denominations. 
While the majority of existing cemeteries are conducted 
under legally organized management, and are therefore 
usually removed from any ministerial participation in their 
control, it is nevertheless certain that in all matters 
wherein the lot owners have an immediate interest the 
influence of the clergy might be exercised to advantage. 
And in nothing might it be exerted to a better end than 
in the character and appropriateness of the memorial 
features. Many monuments should not have been permit- 
ted to be erected at all, and numerous are the memorials 
that show neither good taste nor discrimination. In these 
regards there is a surprising lack 6f that good common 
sense that depends largely upon certain eff.ects of educa- 
tion, and the clergy may well be expected to remedy this 
by advice and suggestions to their people. They have 
done well in co-operating to do away with the Sunday 
funeral, and so far as lies in their power their assistance 
to promote the growth and welfare of the modern ceme- 
tery idea will be warmly welcomed by all laymen and 
others interested. 
Ng Ng 
How to Contend with the Tree Butchers 
A great deal of thought and a great deal of care has 
been devoted in recent years to the subject of trees, 
until a better application of their usefulness and beauty 
and a greater reverence for their variety and characteristics 
are becoming general. And this is no fad! The institu- 
tion of Arbor Day drew popular attention still more 
closely to the question, and the rights of. the trees as 
well as the rights of the people in their trees have now 
become an established principle in law. But commercial- 
ism, whejr in corporate form, recognizes nothing of this, 
and for a long time past telephone, electric light and 
sometimes the trolley companies have ruthlessly disre- 
garded common decency in their dealings with the prop- 
erty owners along the right of way of their poles and 
wires, and both public and private trees have been maimed 
or destroyed, regardless of all rights or common knowl- 
edge, so long as they appeared to be- in any sense in the 
way. Some years ago tree protection associations began 
to organize in the east, with special regard to the care 
and planting of street trees, but as they grew in strength 
and number the protection of trees against corporation might 
was duly considered, until finally public feeling became 
fully aroused and, where argument and an appeal to bet- 
ter principles failed to protect a tree owner, recourse was 
had to the law, and in several instances heavy penalties 
have been assessed against the tree butchers and positive 
decisions rendered invariably in favor of the trees and 
their owners. It is now safe to say that in order to 
protect private or city trees against the destruction of 
marauding wire companies or other persons, it is first 
proper to attempt negotiations either for payment for 
values encroached upon, or for the actual preservation 
of the trees, and in case of failure in such a proper 
course to, resort to legal action. There is no question 
apparently as to the outcome and the trees are worthy 
of the effort. The far-reaching decision of the New York 
Supreme Court Justice Garretson, rendered on Novem- 
ber 17, 1904, in relation to the use of streets for poles 
and wires, that it was not a proper street use notwith- 
standing the statute and city permits, has made the electric 
companies both more careful and more sensible in their 
dealings with property owners. The tree protection asso- 
ciation idea should spread over the whole country. In 
union there is strength, and we should hear less of the 
tree butcher were tree education more evenly distributed. 
Ng Ng Ng 
Agricultural Education 
It is difficult to estimate the amount of good our agri- 
cultural colleges have done towards elevating both the 
work and the man, but there is yet a vast educational 
need to be provided for. One has only to read President 
Roosevelt’s speech on the occasion of the 50th anniver- 
sary of the Michigan State Agricultural College, which he 
attended on May 1, to understand this. He suggested 
that agricultural education should be given a “new direc- 
tion and a new impulse” and include the social side of 
farm life so that “no farmer’s life should lie merely within 
the boundary of. his farm.” The ethical needs as well as 
the ph}^sical needs of the country people must be consid- 
ered, and in this all who have passed time enough to 
draw conclusions from active residence among a rural 
population will cordially agree. Every department of 
education and training should be as broad in the country 
as .in the city. As it is, the country school from its 
limited facilities and narrow curriculum has been detri- 
mental to the development of the best faculties of the 
farmer, and has also for the same reasons tended to 
impress upon the pupils an exaggerated sense of their 
own importance and ability. An entire lack of ethical 
training, even in its first principles, will largely account 
for the difficulty, widely experienced, of introducing any 
reforms in the ordinary farming community outside of 
the physical improvement of stock and produce. 
