PARK AND CEMETERY 
and Landscape Gardening. 
Vol. XV. CHICAGO, MARCH, 1905 No. 1 
Oar Anniversary. 
With this issue, Park and Cemetery and Land- 
scape Gardening, begins its fifteenth annual volume. 
In an age of such rapid development as the past few 
years have witnessed, retrospective comment will fail to 
do justice, under our limitations, to the many pro- 
found points of interest which have been incidental 
to our national progress in outdoor improvement and 
civic betterment. In the application of landscape art 
to our parks and cemeteries giant strides have been 
made and a similar statement might be applied with 
eciual justice in connection with the improvement of our 
cities, only that the particular movement which com- 
prehends civic work is of more recent date. \\ e seem 
to be on the flood tide of development of a national 
taste looking to the application of the principles of 
beauty and art to American life in its dominant 
phases, so that even a prospective survey becomes a 
proposition involving prophetic vision and hence diffi- 
cult to anticipate in mere words. The most promising 
factor in the outlook is that the movement as a whole 
has interested practical minds and practical workers, 
so that while progress is rapid, a general confidence 
in results is apparent, and this naturally encourages 
all interested. The movement as a whole covers a 
wide field, although it means but a broadening out of 
principles ; but by keeping these principles constantly 
before its readers, and presenting their latest interpre- 
tations, this journal has kept pace with advanced prac- 
tical ideas, while its constant effort is to lead. The 
difficult task before it is to seek for and present in 
its columns, not alone descriptive and illustrated mat- 
ter so as to afford a realization of the progress being 
made, and the examples established, but what is ac- 
tually in the minds of the educated leaders in the 
several branches of the work. To do this ' con- 
centrated study and effort must be constant, and while 
no promises are here set forth as to what may actually 
be expected of the journal in future issues, the aim 
will be rigidly maintained to keep its readers and 
patrons well informed and interested in what pertains 
to progressive outdoor improvement in all its depart- 
ments. To this end the sympathy and co-operation of 
all interested are earnestly invited. 
^ ^ ^ 
Perpetual Care. 
The matter of Perpetual Care is once more looming 
up as one of the most important features of ceme- 
tery management. It matters not from what point of 
view we study the development of the modern ceme- 
tery, we come face to face with the fact of perma- 
nent care ; for of what use is all the effort to create 
beautiful results, if each lot, as it ceases to immediate- 
ly interest its owners, is to be permitted to run back 
to the wild again? But to permanently care for a 
cemetery as a whole recjuires money, and a large fund 
at that ; the amount required increasing of course with 
the area and other conditions governing the property. 
In the more recently established cemeteries such a 
fund is provided from the sale of lots ; hut in the 
great majority of cemeteries, large and small, no pro- 
vision having been made in the past, it is practically 
impossible to assess new sales, or increase the prices 
of lots, to an extent sufficient to permanently care 
for the whole cemetery. The general question for 
the older cemeteries therefore becomes one of interest- 
ing and educating the lot owners in modern cemetery 
practice, to the end that they may be induced to provide 
the necessary fund. The whole subject is one which 
affords so many points of view and includes so many 
interests, that it has been deemed best to discuss it in 
the form of a symposium, which will begin in this jour- 
nal in the near future. 
Proposed Park System for Chicago. 
The report of the special Park Commission to the 
City of Chicago on the subject of a Metropolitan Park 
System, recently issued, should be studied with care 
by every intelligent citizen of the coming metropolis. 
It is compiled by Dr. Dwight Heald Perkins, an 
architect and member of the committee, who has taken 
a very pronounced part in the park question for a 
number of years. It is proposed to acquire something 
under 40,000 acres of land, the major part of which 
will constitute an outer zone of scenery parks, in- 
cluding river, prairie and lake areas. Inner zones are 
also carefully provided for, so as to allow of a certain 
proportion of recreation and pleasure park area, proper- 
ly distributed, according to population and based upon 
scientific investigation. The whole system as devised, 
is based upon the requirements of a population up to 
10,000,000, a vast aggregation, of course, but to which 
the study of the growth of population for the world’s 
progressive cities points as a conservative possibility 
50 years hence. And all civic effort on park lines should 
today consider the question in the light of the future, 
a fact too largely overlooked. It is quite time for 
Chicago to act in a business-like way on this import- 
ant subject, for she is far behind in park area and 
distribution. The facts and data gathered and pre- 
sented in the reports, emphasized by a number of maps 
and a profusion of photographs, specially taken by Mi. 
Jens Jensen, landscape architect, whose valuable report 
is included in the book, will undoubtedly incline the au- 
thorities to take early action. 
