445 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
plants in abundance, thus catering to 
the esthetic and popularly educational, 
with landscape effects introduced to 
make the winding walks of interest to 
the public. In the vicinity of a college 
or high school, the herbarium' fiend 
ransacks the wild places for choice 
plants which he removes . root and 
branch in large numbers. By these 
methods the choicer plants are driven 
farther and farther over the hills or 
back to the remote swamps and small 
patches of forest. A botanic garden of 
some extent is now becoming almost a 
necessity for supplying the students of 
school or college with suitable materials 
for illustration and study. 
The contour and contents of this gar- 
den have been under almost constant 
change. First the river which flows 
past the lower -'end of the garden would 
inundate part of the garden making it 
impossible to .grow successfully certain 
species, and necessitating the shifting of 
the aquatic plants to the lower level. 
Then it is found that certain plants re- 
quire more sunshine or shade than oth- 
ers. They will, according to their na- 
ture, be placed on the north or south 
side of the valley. The garden is di- 
vided in most instances, naturally by 
walks into small plots which contain 
the different families, the names of 
which are indicated, when common by 
their common cognomen, otherwise by 
their scientific name, on zinc tags placed 
in the plots. In the lower portion of 
the garden the aquatic plants are kept in 
an artificial pond, the water being fur- 
nished by an artesian well. 
Most of the botanic gardens of the 
world are maintained by the govern- 
ments, public subscription, or education- 
al institutions. There is no other gar- 
den which is the product of one man’s 
labor and supervision as the one at the 
Michigan Agricultural College. Mr. W. 
J. Beal, M. S., Ph. D., has made this 
garden his hobby for the last quarter 
of a century, and there are very few 
of the 2,200 species of plant in the gar- 
den for whose presence he has not in 
some way been responsible. He has 
created an orderly arranged institution 
for the instruction, information and rec- 
reation of the college and public, and 
it is more efficient than a park for these 
purposes, as operation is through the 
discovery of facts concerning plants 
and their products, obtained through the 
years of scientific study and use of sci- 
entific equipment. 
Edwy B. Reid. 
NATIONAL FLOWER SHOW THE BEST OF ITS KIND 
The first National Flower Show 
excelled all previous Chicago exhi- 
bitions in point of magnitude, com- 
prehensiveness and general interest, 
and certainly marks an epoch. It 
will be difficult to satisfy the public 
again with anything smaller. How 
this is to be accomplished is a ques- 
tion if, as has been suggested, the 
national character be perpetuated and 
the “next show be held in the east.” 
Not an unreasonable suggestion 
either, considering what the eastern- 
ers have done to make this one a 
success. 
“National” has been no misnomer, 
with exhibits from fourteen states. 
It has assumed almost an interna- 
tional character by representation 
from two foreign countries. Cut 
chrysanthemums in excellent condi- 
tion from Grenoble, France, figured 
quite prominently during the early 
days of the show, and fine English 
hothouse grapes were introduced in 
some of the table decorations. While 
possessing many excellent features 
and surpassingly beautiful, well 
arranged exhibits, there is unques- 
tionably much to be desired in the 
general scheme or plan of the show 
as a whole. 
The largest serious defect- consisted 
in a too generous use of pergolas. 
The most telling advantage of the 
big Coliseum as an exhibition hall is 
its size, offering space for effective 
exhibition of all classes of material 
and particularly for the production 
of a broad picture- — a sea of greenery 
and bloom as seen from the gal- 
leries. 
BEFORE AND AFTER 
VIEWS OF THE MODEL 
BACK YARD GARDEN,. 
NATIONAL FLOWER 
SHOW, CHICAGO. 
Exhibit of Vaughan’s Seed 
Store. 
This was entirely destroyed by 
being cut into bits by the pergolas. 
From no point could more than one 
quarter or even less, of the floor be 
seen except from a small space occu- 
pied by the musicians and not open to 
the public. 
This was the one criticism voiced 
on all sides by visitors — the ones who 
must be depended to make any show 
a financial success. 
The radical defect from another 
point of view was lack of properly 
located space for effectively staging 
cut blooms — the chief reason for be- 
ing of every Flower Show. 
The cause for this must be traced 
to the same door responsible for the 
unfortunate general plan of the floor 
space. 
The absence of proper facilities for 
placing the cut flowers, 
painfully apparent during p 
the early days of the ^ 
show, was in a measure *’ 
overcome later by dis- 
tributing exhibits, after 
they were judged, throughout the 
sodded spaces among the large and 
very handsome permanent exhibits 
of ornamentals, which in every way 
excelled all of the previous exhibi- 
tions. 
Nothing can excuse crowding into- 
serried ranks against dirty blank 
walls masses of the most glorious cut 
chrysanthemums possible to produce, 
and no one can blame the producer 
of such stock for grumbling at such 
unfair and unreasonable treatment. 
It should not be permitted and no- 
show is properly managed that al- 
lows it. 
It is, too, not to the credit or ad- 
vantage of the backers of the Chi- 
cago show that any dread of unfair 
partiality being shown local exhibi- 
tors should, be engendered among the 
out of town exhibit- 
ors. Such a thing is 
too small for Chi- 
