PARK AND CEMETERY. 
300 
PARK NEWS. 
3 
The committee on cities of the Mas- 
sachusettss legislature is considering an 
amendment to the law, to provide 
for the letting of parks and public 
places for amusement purposes. 
>j« * 
The park system of Harrisburg, Pa., 
is five years old and the city now owns 
.575 acres of park land. Reservoir 
Park has been enlarged and improved. 
Island Park has been opened on Har- 
gest’s Island, and large tracts of land 
have been acquired for Wildwood 
Park in the old Wetzel's swamp dis- 
trict. Two playgrounds have been es- 
tablished and parkways have been 
opened along Spring creek, the river 
front and State street. 
^ >i« 5{e 
Denver has added 87.07 acres to its 
park area during the past twelve 
months. This gives the city a total of 
1,053.43 acres. Denver’s largest park is 
City Park, 317.87 acres, and during 
1908 it is planned to increase this by 
the purchase of 154 acres of state land 
to the north. The modern and old 
ideas in landscape architecture are com- 
bined in this park, but J. Barri, general 
park superintendent, is endeavoring to 
gradually make the entire park modern. 
* * 5^ 
The executive committee of the 
American Association of Park Super- 
intendents met 
at Buffalo, N. 
Y. on March 
21, at the Gen- 
esee, President 
Cowell in the 
chair. There 
were also pres- 
ent Secretary- 
Treasurer F. L. 
Mulford, John Chambers and Theo- 
dore Wirth. Arrangements were 
made for the annual meeting of the 
Association to be held at Minneap- 
olis, Minn., on Aug. 11 to 14. Reso- 
lutions were adopted commemorative 
of tbe late Supt. R. H. Warder of 
Lincoln Park, Chicago, one of the 
leading members of tbe association. 
* * ♦ 
A petition has been circulated in 
Omaha, Neb., asking that the old 
charter provision specifying the ap- 
pointment by the district judges of 
members of tbe park board be recog- 
nized, and declaring that a new board 
should be reappointed in May. The 
petitioners claim that members of 
tbe park board are holding their of- 
fices unlawfully. The district judges 
have not made appointments to the 
board since 1899, the mayor having 
exercised that office for nine years. 
The Passaic Shade Tree Commis- 
sion, Passaic, N. J., has taken up 
complaints of citizens and several 
suits have been ordered instituted 
against persons accused of injuring 
shade trees. In one case the city is 
involved. Men engaged by the city 
to repair the fire alarm system cut 
some big limbs from a number of 
trees in Orchard street, claiming that 
they interfered with the wires. The 
workmen, it is alleged, went ahead 
without authority from the Shade 
Tree Commission, and Superintend- 
ent Hunter, of the commission, re- 
ports that there was no occasion for 
the cutting away of the limbs. Carl 
S. Deans is secretary of tbe commis- 
sion. 
A new city ordinance in Oklahoma 
City, Okla., provides that all persons 
owning property on paved streets or 
streets that have been brought to 
grade must, within sixty days after 
the completion of the paving or grad- 
ing, bring the parking between the curb- 
ing and sidewalk to grade and keep it 
smooth and level and seed it according 
to instructions of the park commission- 
er. A fine not to exceed $100 is the 
penalty for violation of this ordi- 
nance. The ordinance further pro- 
vides that whenever ten property 
owners petition it, the property own- 
ers on streets abutting upon paved or 
graded streets shall be required to 
plant, protect and care for trees, set 
out to a number of at least one for 
every 25 feet of parking. The pay- 
ment for these trees to be assessed 
against the property in the same 
manner as assessments are made for 
sidewalks. A fine not exceeding $100 
is also the penalty for violation of 
this section of the ordinance. 
jic ^ jji 
Municipal nurseries from which 
citizens may obtain free all the trees 
needed to plant about their homes 
are suggested by City Forester And- 
rew Meyer of St. Louis in connection 
with the coming observance of Ar- 
bor Day. Soft maples and sycamores 
are the varieties which Forester 
Meyer prefers for planting in the 
city. Of the two, he says, the syca- 
more is the hardier and more attrac- 
tive. The European sycamore, or 
buttonwood, in Mr. Meyer’s opinion, 
should be the city’s official tree, be- 
cause of its long life and freedom 
from borers and disease. 
* * 
The .\merican Society of Land- 
scape .Architects, which generally 
gathers in New York, went to Bos- 
ton to the Hotel Brunswick for its 
monthly' meeting March 10. There 
were si.xteen at dinner. F. M. Clark 
of Boston was a guest and spoke on 
dock, harbor and waterfront improve- 
ments. .Another lecture was by A. .A. 
Sburtleff, landscape architect of the 
metropolitan improvement commis- 
sion, on “Municipal Improvements," 
with special reference to Boston, and 
new ideas from German cities. Stere- 
opticon views illustrated both talks. 
President Frederick Law Olmsted, 
Jr., of Brookline, was in the chair. 
The following were present: F. H. 
Kennard, W. H. Manning, J. S. Pray, 
H. V. Hubbard, H. L. Alovius, J. F. 
Dawson, P. S. P. Negus, J. C. Olm- 
sted, Percival Gallagher, John No- 
len, Downing 'Yaux, Secretary, .A. F. 
Brinckerhoff, C. D. Lay. 
^ * 5k 
New Tarvia Treatment 
The so-called Tarvia treatment has 
been freely used during tbe past three 
years by municipal, state and Lb S. gov- 
ernment authorities, and its success as 
a permanent dust preventive is hardly 
to be questioned. Its value lies in the 
fact that it prevents the formation of 
dust by penetrating deep into tbe road- 
way and acting as a binder, uniting the 
coarse stone into a kind of tar con- 
crete and making a firm dustless sur- 
face. An important effect of the use of 
Tarvia is that it increases the durability 
of ordinary macadam by creating a wat- 
erproof surface. An objection to the 
wide use of the process in the past has 
been its expense. The Tarvia required 
heating before application, and this 
necessarily complicated the work and 
added considerably to the cost. 
The manufacturers of Tarvia have 
made extensive experiments with a 
view toward reducing the cost of appli- 
cation, and these experiments have now 
been adjudged successful. Tbe new 
kind of Tarvia, described l)y the mak- 
ers as “Tarvia B,’’ can be applied with- 
out heating in very much the same 
manner as oil. No special apparatus is 
required, and in fact on small jobs, such 
