'93 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
ROAD TARRING IN PARIS PARKS 
Automobiles were common in 
France some years before they be- 
came a frequent sight on American 
highways and the French engineers 
are accordingly that much ahead of 
the Americans in their study of the 
dust problem on macadam roads. 
The difficulty of maintaining maca- 
dam under this new style of traffic 
-is most acutely felt in the Bois de 
Bologne in Paris. It is the custom 
in the French Capitol to sprinkle the 
wooden pavements of the principal 
thoroughfares, such as the Rivoli and 
the Champs Elysees five or six times 
a day. The consequence is that 
every automobile in Paris is obliged 
■to use steel studded tires all the time. 
The steel studded tire on these vehi- 
cles driven at the high speed which 
is permitted in Paris, is probably 
the most destructive agent to macad- 
.am roads that could possibly be de- 
vised. Nearly all the traffic through 
the Bois de Bologne consists of auto- 
mobiles — the powerful low-geared 
little taxi-cab comprising a large pro- 
portion of the total. The Park author- 
ities impose a special tax on every 
automobile that passes through the 
A PIONEER 
Once upon a time the subject of our 
sketch, and of the accompanying il- 
lustration, was one of many tiny seed- 
ling conifers scattered throughout En- 
gleman’s and other canyons of the 
Rocky Mountains, but its destiny was 
unlike any of its fellows except one, 
which was similar although different. 
It is one of the first two Colorado 
Blue Spruces (the blue form of Picea 
pungens) to be adopted into civilized 
life. Full grown specimens of this 
handsome tree, then unknown in cul- 
tivation, so impressed some Pike’s 
Peak miners that when they returned 
to their homes they brought with them 
two infant plants bearing the un- 
lusual blue tinge which sets this variety 
apart from all others and makes it such 
an acquisition. The home-coming min- 
ers, arriving in 1869 or 1870, presented 
the little trees to the late Mr. A. R. 
Whitney, who set them out in a flower 
bed at his home at Franklin Grove, 111. 
Mr. ■ Whitney’s daughter, Mrs. A. W. 
Crawford, who now lives on the old 
place, recalls seeing them when she was. 
a child growing among the Bleeding 
Hearts in her mother’s garden and re- 
members them as being about the same 
height, which would be from twelve to 
gate as a sort of fine for the damage 
that the vehicle will cause to the 
roads in the park. 
The maintenance of the roads has 
been brought down to a fine point. 
A large force of men is constantly 
at work in one place or another in 
the park keeping the roads in smooth 
dustless condition. Probably every 
maker of dust preventives has en- 
deavored to secure the large market 
for his material which the park con- 
tract would offer, but tar is the only 
remedy which has found acceptance. 
Special apparatus for heating and 
distributing the tar is employed. It 
is spread over the surface of the 
macadam while hot. It percolates 
into the fine pores of the road and 
on cooling solidifies there, forming a 
matrix around the stone and holding 
it there so firmly that automobile 
tires cannot tear it loose, or stir it 
up into dust. The roads are care- 
fully cleaned and are rarely or never 
sprinkled with water, the tar treat- 
ment being a sufficient and satisfac- 
tory antidote to dust. The acuteness 
of the problem in the Bois de 
Bologne makes' the endorsement by 
COLORADO B 
THE PIONEER E'LUE SPRUCE OP 
CIVILIZATION ON THE GROUNDS AT 
LARCHMERE, WAUKEGAN, ILL. 
fifteen inches. This means that the 
trees were from twelve to fifteen years 
old, possibly older, as their growth 
may have been retarded by being 
transplanted and into climatic con- 
the authorities of the tar treatment 
highly significant evidence of its effi- 
ciency. 
The tar which is used by the 
French engineers is not raw or crude 
tar, but one which has been sub- 
jected to a certain amount of distil- 
lation and refining, so that uniform- 
ity of results can be made reasonably 
certain. 
In this country that particular 
preparation of tar is known as 
Tarvia, and is made in three grades 
of different density to provide for 
varying conditions in which it is to 
be used. The densest and heaviest 
grade of the tarvia is known as 
Tarvia X, and is sufficiently thick in 
its consistency to fill the large voids 
of the I'A in. stone with which it 
can be advantageously mixed in the 
course of building a new road or re- 
building an old one. 
For resurfacing, Tarvia A is used, 
a lighter material, as Tarvia X is too 
dense to penetrate the small voids of 
the stone screenings; while for an 
old road where all voids are filled 
with dust, a still lighter material, 
called Tarvia B, is employed. 
L U E SPRUCE 
ditions so different from those of 
their habitat. Seedlings raised in cul- 
tivation grow only about one inch 
annually, infrequently a trifle more. 
Later, one of the trees was taken up 
and sent to Mr. Robert Douglas, now 
deceased, an enthusiastic and well 
known lover of trees and recognized as 
an authority on their culture. 
It was supposed that the trees would 
lose their color on removal from such 
a high altitude, but this happily proved 
a mistaken idea. Mr. Crawford says 
that Mr. Douglas and Mr. Whitney 
were with the party on the opening of 
the Union Pacific Railway and that it 
was then they saw the Colorado Blue 
. Spruce for the first time. Subsequently, 
as is well known, Mr. Douglas had seed 
of this variety collected by reliable men 
and raised many thousands of the trees 
in his nurseries and sold them all over 
this country as well as in Europe. In- 
deed, a representative of the Orange 
Judd Farmer who visited the nurseries 
in 1891 was told by Mr. Douglas that 
more had been shipped to Europe than 
had been sold in this country and that 
he had received orders from two large 
English firms “to take all the blue 
specimens he could raise, at his own 
