PARK AND CEMETERY. 
!94 
COUNTY PARK COMMISSIONS FOR WISCONSIN 
The Legislature of Wisconsin has 
passed a bill providing for the organ- 
ization of county park commissions 
as follows: 
Every county in the state having 
a population of 150,000 or more may 
have a non-partisan county park com- 
mission consisting of seven members. 
The chairman of the county board 
shall within sixty days after this act 
shall take effect appoint such com- 
mission. The commissioners first ap- 
pointed shall hold office for the term 
of one, two, three, four, five, six and 
seven years respectively. Thereafter 
one commissioner shall be appointed 
to hold for the term of seven years. 
When the commissioners shall have 
been appointed, they shall convene at 
the courthouse within thirty days af- 
ter such appointment and perfect an 
organization and thereupon such park 
commission shall have the usual pow- 
ers of such bodies in addition to those 
hereinafter enumerated. It may also 
appoint such other officers and em- 
ployes not members of the board as 
may be necessary to carry out the 
purposes of this act. Every such 
board shall have suitable offices which 
shall be provided by the county where 
maps, plans, documents and records 
shall be kept subject to public inspec- 
tion at all reasonable hours and un- 
der such reasonable regulations as 
such board may prescribe. 
Every such park commission shall 
first make a thorough study of the 
county in which it is appointed with 
reference to making reservations of 
lands therein for public uses and lay- 
ing out ample open spaces, roads and 
boulevards, the whole to present a 
comprehensive scheme for a county 
park system. The commission shall 
make plans and maps of the proposed 
park system and shall gather such 
further information in relation there- 
to as it may deem expedient; all of 
which maps, plans and information 
shall be included in a report which 
said park commission shall make to 
the county board as soon as may be, 
but not later than two years from the 
date of the appointment and qualifica- 
tion of such commission. Subject to 
the approval of the county board the 
park commission shall proceed in ac- 
cordance with its plans to acquire, 
maintain and make available to the 
people, as well as to care for, lay out 
and improve, reservations, parks, 
ON CHICAGO PARKWAYS IN 1906 
USE OF TARVIA 
During the season of 1906 the 
South Park Commissioners of Chica- 
go treated with Tarvia the sur- 
face of more than 106,000 square 
yards of the most heavily traveled 
boulevard streets in that city, in an 
endeavor to overcome the excessive 
cost and difficulty of properly main- 
taining those streets under the traffic 
to which tliey are subjected and to 
suppress the dust which was dam- 
aging propert}' values. This board 
has charge of the construction and 
maintenance of the extensive park 
and boulevard system on the South 
Side of Chicago, embracing 2,228 
acres of parks and 45 miles of park 
drives and boulevards. These drives 
and boulevards are almost entirely 
surfaced with limestone macadam, 
which, under normal conditions, pro- 
duces one of the most satisfactory 
roadways for light traffic that can be 
secured. Since the advent of the 
motor car, however, and particularly 
during the past two or three years, 
these macadam drives and streets 
have been extremely dusty and have 
been maintained in many places only 
at an unwarranted expense, while in 
Sf'me instances it has even been prac- 
tically impossible to keep their sur- 
faces in good serviceable condition 
during the spring months' 
The treatment with Tarvia was un- 
dertaken on a small scale early in 
May of last year in an experimental 
way, in an endeavor to find a method 
of suppressing the dust and insuring 
the surface of the macadam against 
the exceedingly detrimental pulveriz- 
ing effects of automobile traffic. 
The first tarviating work that was 
done embraced 3,160 square yards of 
street surface on Michigan Avenue 
between Twenty-third and Twenty- 
fourth streets. 
Michigan avenue is a boulevard, 50 
feet between curbs and 5.73 miles 
long, and is the only street used ex- 
clusively by light-weight vehicles 
leading from the extensive residence 
districts on the south side of the 
city to the central busjness district. 
It is also a boulevard connection 
between the drives and boulevards of 
the park system on the south side 
and those of the park system on the 
west side of the city. Besides, it 
carries toward its northern end prac- 
tically all of the light traffic between 
the .South and North Sides. The 
parkways, roads, and all kinds of open 
spaces for public resort and recreation. 
To acquire land for the purposes of 
carrying out the provisions of this 
act, every such park commission shall 
have the power to acquire land in the 
name of the county and subject to the 
approval of the county board in fee 
or otherwise by gift, purchase, or 
lease with the privilege of purchase. 
Such park commission may incur 
expenses with the consent of the 
county board, not to exceed $5,000 for 
all purposes during the preliminary 
period of making the study of the 
county and getting out the report or 
reports to be made to the county 
board, although the county board may 
upon request from such park com- 
mission, authorize the expenditure of 
additional money. All authorized ex- 
penses of such park commission, after 
bills therefor have been regularly 
audited by the county authorities shall 
be paid out of the general fund of the 
county. 
Counties are authorized to appro- 
priate money to carry out the provi- 
sions of this act. 
The usual provisions for the repeal of 
conflicting acts, are provided in the hill. 
amount of traffic on this boulevard 
has always been proportionately very 
heavy, but since automobiles have 
come to be used so extensively for 
business as welh as for pleasure, the 
traffic passing along it has increased 
greatly over the former volume. 
This increase in the volume of 
traffic is largely automobiles, and at 
the same time many of the horse- 
drawn vehicles which formerly used 
this boulevard have been replaced by 
automobiles. The result of the com- 
paratively recent change in the nature 
of the traffic over Michigan avenue 
has been to convert the surface of 
the latter from the smoothest and 
most uniformly good macadam drive 
in the city, and, in fact from one of 
the best that could be built, t^o a sur- 
face that can scarcely be kept free 
from pits and loose stone. 
On holidays, when automobiles 
were numerous, it was e.xtremely diffi- 
cult to keep down the dust. 
The results obtained with this ex- 
perimental block were so satisfactory 
that the tarviating was continued 
south on Michigan avenue to Thirty- 
ninth street, with a total of 47,110 
square yards, nifl to other streets. 
