PARK AND CEMETERY. 
}o2 
CHICAGO’S FALL FLOWER SHOW 
Although much smaller than the 
National Show of 1908, the Chicago 
Flower Show of 1909 was far and 
away the best in arrangement yet 
given in this city and excels in this 
respect any seen by the writer. 
The plan was fine in a large way. 
It possessed the two fundamental 
principles of good design — unity and 
variety. 
Seen from the galleries, the entire 
show, barring only the nursery exhib- 
its, was seen as a whole and made 
a complete and pleasing picture. 
This is something not heretofore 
attained and something worth while. 
The writer recalls mentioning in 
these pages last year, the just dissat- 
isfaction of exhibitors with the stag- 
ing of cut blooms, and also making 
the suggestion that no show could 
properly be called well arranged un- 
less such exhibits were made integral 
parts of the decorative scheme. 
This year they were just that— part 
of the show itself. 
Considered carefully, much of the 
excellence of effect was due to a cor- 
rect appreciation and use of back- 
grounds. Everything — cut flowers, 
plants, and nursery displays — had suit- 
able backgrounds. 
It made a tremendous difference. 
Cut blooms seen against banks of 
growing scenery, and plants distrib- 
uted in groups and masses as simu- 
lated planting on a spacious lawn, be- 
neath a starry sky, are a different 
story from those placed on barn-like 
expanses of bare planks and against 
soiled and sordidly barren walls. 
Add to the above gardenesque effect 
vine-covered lattices, suggesting unex- 
plored beauties yet to be disclosed, 
and picturesque straw-thafched, lan- 
tern-hung pagodas, and you have ma- 
terials for charming pictures. 
The background idea was consist- 
ently adhered to throughout. Even the 
nursery exhibits shown in the erst- 
while forlorn annex took on a fresh 
and natural aspect by reason of a 
continuous painted canvas background 
covering the rear wall and, seen 
dimly through the tracery of real 
branches, aptly suggested more trees 
and landscape beyond. Consequently, 
the shrubbery exhibits made a better 
appearance than ever before. 
A novel feature noted .among the 
competing room decorations (and 
these, too, fitted nicely into the 
scheme in the form of two streets of 
Japan-like rooms open on the street 
side), represented a Japanese interior 
and their method of placing cut flow- 
ers and plants on the floor or in low 
situations so that one looks down 
on them, thus securing a view of 
foliage as well as of blossoms, as 
opposed to our wasteful, not to say 
crude, use of an over-profusion of 
color and general habit of overlook- 
ing the beauty of leafage as well as 
of the form and placing of flowers 
among their foliage. 
The plan of the exhibition being 
educational, in that it was an exam- 
ple in itself of the “massed sides and 
open center” of good landscape plant- 
ing, it was quite i-n keeping that this 
idea should be further emphasized bj^ 
a series of talks by Mr. J. H. Frost, 
City Forester, given daily in the an- 
nex, among the well-arranged shrub- 
bery exhibits, and illustrated by ster- 
eopticon views. 
Mr. Frost endeavored in these fa- 
miliar talks to impress individuals 
with their opportunities to do as 
much, or perhaps more, for civic 
beauty by their combined small im- 
provements, than the municipality 
with its park, boulevard and street 
planting. 
He preached the gospel of back- 
yard beauty, and who shall deny that 
the beautification of Chicago back 
yards on a wholesale scale will go 
very far toward securing the much- 
talked of, greatly-desired City Beauti- 
ful. 
The private improvement propa- 
ganda was given further impetus by 
the free distribution of a leaflet con- 
taining information, plans and sug- 
gestions regarding the practical treat- 
ment of city lots. This leaflet, pre- 
pared by Mr. Frost, was printed at 
the expense of Vaughan’s Seed Store, 
and its character makes it exceedingly 
useful to city home-makers. Certain- 
ly nothing adds so much to the 
home-like aspect of any dwelling in 
city, village or country as well-placed 
planting. 
Frances Copley Seavey. 
FORESTER or TREE WARDEN 
Editor, Fark and Cemetery: Every 
student of municipal affairs must heart- 
ily agree with your proposition regard- 
ing the necessity of our cities assuming 
control of their street trees and of 
placing their care in the hands of a 
properly qualified officer, as set forth in 
your last issue. 
However, as to the term “City For- 
ester” as being the proper designation 
for this officer, I for one, dissent, as 
I believe the same to be a misnomer. 
A forester is one encharged with care 
of a forest. Forestry deals with the 
science of timber production on a com- 
mercial basis — it is crop production on 
exactly the same basis as wheat, corn 
on any other agricultural crop. 
One can scarcelj' imagine two terms 
that share so little in common as city 
and forest. They are opposites both in 
spirit and in purpose. The one is dis- 
tinctly formal and artificial in character, 
and the other entirely natural. Forestry 
deals with the tree primarily from the 
standpoint of its money value as ex- 
pressed in square feet of lumber or 
cords of wood. In other words it is 
purely a utilitarian purpose, while the 
street tree exists for the purpose of 
(Continued on page VIII) 
VIEW IN THE CHICAGO FLOWER SHOW. 
