265 
PARK AND 
Annual reports or extracts front them^ historical sketches, 
descriptive circulars, photos^'aphs of improvetnents or dis- 
tinctive features are requested for use in this department. 
A village improvement society has recently been organized 
at West Haven, Conn., with a membership of 78. The first 
meeting was well attended and had as its chief feature a 
lecture on “The Care and Preservation of Trees,” by Prof. 
William Britton, entomologist of the Connecticut Agricultural 
Experiment Station. 
* * * 
The street tree committee of the Chamber of Commerce of 
Riverside, Cal., has planted over 360 street trees and has in- 
duced abutting property owners to plant or agree to plant two 
or three miles more. An enthusiastic public meeting was re- 
cently held for the promotion of the work, at which a stereop- 
ticon lecture on street trees was delivered by Mr. Charles M. 
Coring of Minneapolis. 
^ ^ ^ 
The Bridgewater Improvement Association, Bridgewater, 
Mass., has decided to add a competition in vegetable growing 
to the competition in flower gardening in order that more of 
the children might be interested. The vegetables selected 
were beets, onions, winter squash, pumpkins, pop-corn and 
field beans. The society will hold exhibitions of flowers and 
vegetables grown in the competitions. 
* * * 
Improvement associations who want to keep a concrete 
record of the work they are doing, have done or ought to do, 
will get much help from photographs of improvements “be- 
fore and after” making. Nothing is more effective in start- 
ing cleaning-up work than to show pictures of spots that need 
improvement, and nothing more inspiring than a photographic 
record of work accomplished. No time is more appropriate 
than the present spring season to get evidence of this nature. 
* * * 
The Village Improvement Society of Oberlin, O., has out- 
lined a spring cleaning campaign as follows : The streets 
are divided into sections, over each of which a committee of 
three will have a constant and watchful care as to the con- 
dition of sidewalks, curb lawns, street ditches, roadway, 
alleys, crossings, unsightly buildings and fences, vacant lots, 
weeds, unswept sidewalks, scattered papers and dodgers. 
They will also make suggestions as to the planting of flowers, 
shrubs and vines, or anything which will add beauty in any- 
way to the village. 
* * * 
The Kent Improvement Association, East Greenwich, R. I., 
at its recent annual meeting presented reports of officers 
showing the results of an active year’s work. The association 
has placed rubbish boxes along the main street, supervised 
the carrying away and dumping of rubbish and secured the 
improvement of the railway station. Prize contests for home 
and school improvement were conducted, and plans have 
been prepared by Jacob S. Martin, landscape architect, for 
the improvement of the Chepiwanoxet School grounds. The 
plan specifies a list of twenty-two shrubs and plants, gives 
the number of plants required and the amount of loam neces- 
sary for each planting. 
CEMETERY. 
The Civic Improvement League of Columbia, S. C., has 
published in neatly printed pamphlet form a lecture on “The 
Value of Beauty to a City,” delivered in that city by F. 
Wellington Ruckstuhl, the New York sculptor. Mr. Ruck- 
stuhl handles his subject in a convincing and enthusiastic 
way, and the disseminating of such literature is one of the 
best ways to get the people to realize the importance and 
value of civic beauty. Mr. Ruckstuhl also makes some con- 
crete recommendations for the improvement of Columbia, 
which could be read with profit by improvement workers 
everywhere. Miss Belle Williams is president of the league. 
* * * 
The Civic Improvement League of Fergus Falls, Minn., has 
planned a general spring campaign to improve the appearance 
of the city. Committees have been appointed to confer with 
the owners of various unsightly properties with a view to 
having them cleared up and improved, and to urge tree 
planting, and it was decided to purchase large galvanized iron 
baskets to be placed at the street corners in the business sec- 
tion for the reception of waste paper. 
* * * 
This year the beautifying of stations and grounds owned 
by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company is being carried out 
with more detail and on a larger scale than ever before. 
Along the entire Fort Wayne route special pains are being 
taken this year to have the property of the road kept in the 
best possible condition. Other parts of the Pennsylvania sys- 
tem, and other local railroads are doing much in this way 
also. A. W. Hutchinson is in charge of the work, and is at 
the head of the big propagating houses at Sewickley, Pa. 
♦ ♦ * 
The Massachusetts Conference for Town and Village Bet- 
terment was held in Boston April 27 and 28. Representatives 
from many improvement organizations of the state were 
present, and many matters of interest to improvement workers 
discussed by able speakers. At the first day’s session Prof. 
N. S. Shaler made an address upon “The Care of the Land- 
scape.” “Folk of the future,” he said, “will blame us for our 
neglect of the natural beauties of this country.” He spoke 
of Massachusetts’ exceedingly rich natural beauty, a beauty 
of such delicateness that it is easily marred by the hand of 
man. Cape Cod in its quality of outlines and beauty has 
nothing to match it anywhere. The drumlings, or arched hills 
left throughout New England by the glacial period have a 
quality of outline rarely met with elsewhere, he said. Once 
these drumlings were numerous in Boston and its vicinity, but 
the rich have seized them for vantage points upon which to 
build their homes. Prof. Shaler appealed to those present to 
organize a society for the prevention of damage to the natural 
beauties of the commonwealth. 
Warren H. Manning spoke of the numerous parks and pub- 
lic reservations throughout the country, and said he expects 
to see them all linked together some time by a series of road- 
ways or boulevards, thus creating a great national park sys- 
tem. 
Henry T. Bailey made a plea to have the state purchase the 
salt marches as a part of the state reservations, and Robert 
T. Woods talked on industrial education. 
On the second day Guy Lowell, architect, of Boston, read 
a paper, which was afterward supplemented with some hand- 
some lantern slides, on “Village Ideals in Architecture,” and 
in the course of the address he showed some glaring crudities 
regarding two of Boston’s institutions — the public library 
building and Commonwealth avenue. 
Ossian H. Lang, of New York, read a paper on “Social 
Centers,” and several members of the conference gave reports 
of social service in small towns, among which were Brimfield, 
Montague and Groveland. 
