PARK AND CEMETERY 
AND LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
Vol. XVII Chicago, September, 1907 No. 7 
Automobiles and the Public Roads 
•We are on the eve of a complete reconstruction of our pub- 
lic highways, if the automobile has come to stay, and 
come to stay unquestionably. Reports of road destruction 
are now common from every quarter, ‘and there is no doubt 
as to the cause. The New York Park Commissioner seri- 
ously discussed shutting out automobiles from the use of the 
park roadways, but this is only begging the question ; it must 
be squarely met sooner or later, and the automobile provided 
for. The real question to be solved is how shall funds.be 
provided for reconstruction and how assessed, so that the 
users of the public highway may be fairly taxed. And there 
is no surprise either in this very rapid deterioration of our 
roadways, because while with horse traffic the fast loads are 
light loads and the heavy loads, slow, with the automobile 
the heaviest loads travel as fast or faster than the light ones 
and with the wheel construction made to claw at the road 
surface, as it were, disintegration is an almost immediate re- 
sult. Now it is hardly to be conceived that our road au- 
torities and officials will attempt to construct roads to gratify 
the users of heavy and high speed motor vehicles entirely ; 
the cost would be prohibitive ; so that in all probability a 
compromise will come about, and roads will be improved to 
satisfy a reasonable traffic demand both as regards weight 
and speed of motors. It may mean, however, that main trav- 
elled roads must be built for the heaviest traffic permitted 
by law to pass over them. Under any circumstances the 
great problem 'should be approached with a big share of wis- 
dom in the minds of the men called upon to solve it, and' 
the ultimate decision, taking cost into consideration, may 
be to summarily check the speed enthusiasm of a goodly 
number of our citizens. 
Vj? 
The School Garden Movement 
In the course of the address of Mr. William J. Stewart, of 
Boston, president of the Society of American Florists and 
Horticulturists, recently delivered at the Philadelphia con- 
vention, in speaking of the School Garden movement, he 
said ; “I know of nothing which promises so rich a return 
as the school garden movement. In addition to its services 
in the cause of good citizenship it must be obvious to all that 
activity on this line is also good business policy, and insures 
the interest of the coming generation in. parks and gardens, 
tree lined highways, horticultural exhibitions and plants and 
flowers everywhere.” This movement should be heartily 
encouraged not only in the town, but especially in the coun- 
try, where a plentitude of nature’s riches is apt to check the 
progress of sucif an important phase of modern education. 
It will add zest to the ordinary studies and more pleasure 
generally to the child’s routine of school exercises. 
Ng 
State Flowers 
The question is often asked how can we become better ac- 
quainted with our “state flower,” if we depend for such ac- 
quaintance upon the occasional glimpses of it which we get 
in our wanderihgs in the wild so to speak. Mr. Geo. H. 
Hazzard, well known by his work in connection with the 
establishment of the Interstate Park at the Dalles of the St. 
Croix, on the line between Wisconsin and Minnesota, has ad- 
vised, in an editorial in the St. Paul Pioneer Press that Min- 
nesota lovers of their state flower, the matchless white and 
pink-purple cypripedium or Mocassin flower, should transfer a 
plant or two to their homes and give it the necessary atten- 
tion to promote its continued welfare. It would then be at 
hand at all times in its season. It is a magnificent flower, 
very easily transplanted, and could be introduced in com- 
petition like roses, dahlias, etc., and would respond to proper 
care. This is a good suggestion for the popularizing of many 
other state flowers and would be an especially interesting 
method of diverting to some extent a little attention to the 
garden plot. 
Ng Ng 
A Sense of Responsibility 
We have always advocated the cultivating of a share of 
confidence in the children in the care and tidiness of such 
portions of the public parks as are devoted to their special 
comfort. Wherever a sense of responsibility has been de- 
veloped, it is quite natural for a child to regard as a special 
privilege any tasks within its scope which will mean some- 
thing. By making the children and young people the allies 
of the authorities in maintaining and improving the pleasure 
grounds devoted to their use, much effective care has re- 
sulted at no expense, and with the comforting assurance that 
no harm will come under the watchfulness of eager young 
eyes always on the alert to demonstrate responsibility. 
Ng Ng 
Permanent Construction of Vaults and Large Monuments 
The necessity of appropriating all that science and skill 
can afford us towards securing, so far as possible, per- 
manency in cemetery vault and large monument construction 
has been the cause of much writing and regular discussions 
at the meetings of cemetery associations and others inter- 
ested. It is a most important subject, and when brought be- 
fore the recent successful convention of the Association of 
American Cemetery Superintendents, held at Providence, R. I., 
it elicited facts that astonished those present. The rules of 
“Greenwood” Cemetery, Brooklyn, prohibit the erection of 
any mausoleum or monument which has an uncovered per- 
pendicular joint open to the air, and in the course of a dis- 
cussion Mr. W. C. Grassau, of that cemetery, stated that 
“about seventy-five per cent of the mausoleums that were 
erected prior to the establishment of that rule require con- 
siderable attention at the present time.” Some have become 
absolutely dangerous, due to action of frost forcing them out 
of position, and some have had to be entirely removed, and 
owing to the impossibility of locating owners the remains 
have had to be buried in the ground. Such conditions cer- 
tainly demand attention and command that expense should be 
subservient to permanency, if the mausoleum is to maintain 
its position as a permanent burial monument. It is not alone 
in the covering of the vertical joint that care must be taken, 
but a mausoleum should be designed with as few such joints 
as possible, and these so well protected as to absolutely pre- 
vent the absorption or ingress of moisture. And care should 
be attentively observed in the choice of materials used for 
such buildings. The action due to the changes of 
temperature through the seasons, the alternate freezing and 
thawing of winter, and other forces of disintegration in 
nature, are constantly at work in greater or less degree, and 
materials for vault construction should be selected with these 
facts uppermost in the designer’s mind. There is undoubtedly 
a great deal of poorly constructed work now going up that 
will need heavy repairs in comparatively few years, and 
cemetery officials should be at once active to adopt and en- 
force stringent rules concerning the construction and recon- 
struction of vaults and large monuments. 
