PARK AND CEM ETER V. 
27 1 
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The ladies’ committee of the Helena 
Improvement Society, Helena, Mont., 
has started a campaign to bring five 
hundred new annual members into the 
organization. 
* * * 
Superintendent of Schools Arthur K. 
Whitcomb of Lowell, Mass., reports 
that school children of that city de- 
stroyed 632,150 nests of the brown tail 
moths last year. 
* * * 
We are indebted to a correspondent 
who calls our attention to the fact that 
the “Fountain of Neptune,’’ illustrated 
on the cover of our last issue, is lo- 
cated at Nancy, instead of Nantes, as 
noted beneath the picture. 
■ 5|s ^ 
A. sub-committee of the Improvement 
Committee of the Board of Trade of 
Wilmington, Del., has been appointed 
to look up the dirty, unsightly and un- 
improved lots in all sections of the city. 
This committee will try to locate such 
places, learn the names of the owners 
and then persuade them to have the lots 
improved. 
* * * 
The Civic Club of Houston, Tex., 
will purchase land for a playground, 
which it has been conducting on leased 
ground. The following officers have 
been elected : President, Mrs. T. R. 
Franklin ; general vice-president, Mrs. 
William Christian; corresponding sec- 
retary, Mrs. R. R. Dancy; recording 
secretary, Mrs. March Culmore ; treas- 
urer, Mrs. W. H. Kirkland. 
^ 
Howard Evarts Weed, landscape ar- 
chitect of Chicago, during a tour of 
Texas cities in connection with some 
private landscape work, gave a num- 
ber of lectures on civic improvement 
work illustrated with stereopticon 
views showing the “before and after’’ 
where improvements have been made. 
He spoke before several improvement 
organizations and schools. Among them 
were the Texas Agricultural and Me- 
chanical College, the Industrial School 
in Denton, the school children and the 
Improvement League at Denison, and 
the Texas Academy of Science at Aus- 
tin, also at the San Jacinto School at 
Dallas 
* * * 
John M. Carrere, Arnold W. Brun- 
ned and Frederick Law Olmsted have 
been called in to study the problem of 
developing a civic center in Baltimore, 
Tentative plans by local men for the de- 
velopment of the civic center provide 
for carrying in the future the city’s 
group of buildings eastward toward 
Jones’ Falls, which is to be boulevarded, 
and then southward so as to include 
the market buildings on Center-Market 
place. The plan includes the purchase 
of all ground between Gay street and 
Jones’ Falls and the parking of it tem- 
porarily until the city is ready to erect 
buildings in the future. 
* * * 
The Winter Hill Improvement Asso- 
ciation of Winter Hill, a suburb of Bos- 
ton, will give prizes for the best kept 
front and back yards in its district. 
Last year the association gave prizes 
amounting to $200 and this year the 
contests are to be enlarged and im- 
proved. Every contestant will be free 
to follow his or her own inclination, 
and cultivate vegetables, flowers or a 
lawn. The points on which the com- 
mittee lay special stress are keeping the 
yard free from litter and waste, keep- 
ing the sidewalks clean, and the gutter 
free from litter and weeds. Miss Edith 
M. Whitmore is director and manager 
of the contests. 
* * * 
The annual flower show held under 
the auspices of the Denison, Tex., Civic 
Improvement League proved one of the 
prettiest events of the season. Nathan 
Smith & Son, Adrian, Mich. ; J. W. 
Vestal & Son, Little Rock, Ark., and 
J. W. Furrow & Co., Guthrie, Okla., 
were extensive exhibitors of chrysan- 
themums, of which there was a fine col- 
lection. B. A. Donald and Mrs. Joe 
Fritz of Denison and Mrs. G. J. Ralls 
of Atoka, Okla., won a very liberal 
share of the prizes in the amateur class 
on chrysanthemums. An interesting 
feature of the show was the exhibit of 
flowers and plants by the public schools 
of the city, showing a wonderful awak- 
ening of interest in the children. The 
show was a thorough success from 
every point of view and a considerable 
sum was distributed in prizes. 
* * * 
One of the features of the recent 
convention of the American Civic As- 
sociation at Providence was five boys, 
the officers of the Boys’ Civic Club of 
Scranton, Pa., including the “Mayor” 
and “Select Council” of “Scranton City, 
Jr.,” a mimic municipality which gov- 
erns itself. The boys transact business 
along the same lines and under the 
same rules as the city of Scranton, the 
officers being elected and appointed in 
the manner prescribed by the laws of 
Pennsylvania. The club is four years 
old. 
Considerable opposition on the part 
of the women delegates present was 
aroused by Nathaniel C. Fowler, Jr., of 
Boston, in the course of his talk at the 
round table conference in the Brown 
Union auditorium, when he declared 
that a large percentage of the bottled 
liquors purchased were bought by 
women. The statement by the same 
speaker that women were chiefly re- 
sponsible for the bill-board nuisance 
also brought out a storm of protest 
from the ladies, but it set them to 
thinking, which was just what he in- 
tended. 
* * * 
Mount Tom and Mount Holyoke, on 
opposite sides of the Connecticut river, 
in that beautiful section of country of 
the Connecticut valley which contains 
so many interesting spots, will in the 
future be better known than ever. 
Through the persistent labor and inter- 
est of Mr. Christopher Clarke in his 
project to open up the mountains’ beau- 
ties to the public and to preserve them 
for all time to the people in their nat- 
ural attractiveness, some ten miles of 
excellent roadway has been constructed, 
which affords a panorama of scenery 
unequalled in its class by any other lo- ’ 
cality in the country. As may be 
known by many, the two mountains 
stand practically opposite each other, the 
Connectitcut river breaking through 
between them into Hampden county, 
and forming a charming succession of 
bends and pools through a valley re- 
plete with natural and associated at- 
tractions. The roadways and paths on 
the sides of the mountains command 
all this. Mr. Clarke’s project com- 
prises the preservation of this locality 
as a great beauty spot, and while the 
whole plan is not thoroughly developed 
it will surely be before long. Mr. 
Clarke is a member of the Park Com- 
mission and a member of the Board of 
Trustees of Public Reservations of 
Hampshire county, Massachusetts, and 
he may be depended upon to work to 
the end of completing his scheme 
should his life be spared. His persist- 
ence has earned him the title of 
“crank,” which term, like so many in- 
stances on record, is honored by the 
association. 
