PARK AND CEMETERY 
and Landscape Gardening. 
Vol. XV CHICAGO, NOVEMBER, 1905. No. 9 
TAe Outer Park Belt for Chicago, 
Among the promising improvements favorably vot- 
ed on at Chicago in the recent election are : more 
funds for the West Side park system and the vote in 
favor of the act of the last legislature to create a 
forest preserve district, for the purchase and preser- 
vation of natural forests outside the city. The legal- 
ity of this vote may, however, have to be tested in the 
courts as there seems to be some doubt as to whether 
its adoption requires a majority of all votes cast or a 
mere majority in its favor. There had developed 
quite a formidable opposition to the latter project, 
some details of which have been given in a previous 
issue, mainly on the fear of political jobbery, the 
crudities of the act authorizing it, the fear of increased 
taxation and the possibility of increasing tO’ a dan- 
gerous degree the city’s indebtedness. The advocates 
of the plan succeeded in placing the advantages to be 
attained in a favorable light to the voting public, with 
the gratifying result recorded above. There are some 
very beautiful natural forest tracts on the outskirts of 
Chicago, which by judicious arrangements of boule- 
vards will make almost a complete outer belt of parks, 
and as the properties can now be secured at fair fig- 
ures, it would seem to be an economical undertaking 
to purchase these tracts for the future good of the 
city. It goes without saying that there is no time like 
the present for such an undertaking. 
l^ 
Progress in the Billboard Campaign. 
Notwithstanding the obstructions which legal tech- 
nicalities appear to present to the civic demand for the 
abatement of the billboard nuisance in our leading 
cities, substantial progress can be readily observed. 
The law seems to buck against aesthetics, to use a 
commonplace expression, and has no remedy appar- 
ently for offences against civic morals or the degra- 
dation of a refined public taste. In this ease, as in all 
history, the law is following and not leading. The 
campaign of education is, however, rapidly doing the 
work, which it was hoped city ordinances would effect 
more rapidly, and the billboard corporations are com- 
ing under the ban of public disrepute. Educated 
citizens readily see the obnoxious side of the question 
and their influence is very materially affecting the 
usefulness of this means of publicity, either for the 
merchants’ wares or the place of amusement. And it 
will be true, that once impress upon the citizen the 
bad taste and the more material objections of the bill- 
board, and it will soon go. It would be well to note 
that thanks to Governor Odell of New York, who 
designated a special term of the Supreme Court to 
hear the case, a decision was rendered giving the city 
of Buffalo power to regulate the billboard nuisance. 
This will be good for the whole state. Cleveland is 
still behind in the race against the nuisance but will 
surely right herself in due time. 
^ ^ 
Mr. Burbank and the Florists. 
We were surprised in a recent issue of The Florists 
Exchange to note a gross injustice done to Mr. Luther 
Burbank by Mr. O’Mara, prominent in florists’ circles, 
in the course of an interview describing his western 
trip, in which after recording his failure to gain ac- 
cess to Mr. Burbank he said : “I did not observe 
anything there to convince me that Mr. Burbank is 
the great horticulturist and hybridizer he is cracked 
up to be in the magazines.” We cannot think that 
Mr. O’Mara intended this crude statement to get into 
cold type, reflecting so seriously as it does on his own 
knowledge of well authenticated facts, and the edi- 
torial blue pencil should have been used under any 
circumstances. We were very pleased to see in a later 
issue of the journal a long communication from Mr. 
W. Atlee Burpee in defense of Mr. Burbank. The 
latter gentleman happly needs no defense ; readers 
of horticultural literature fully realize the position Mr. 
Burbank has attained in the horticultural world, and 
also that this great work is fairly a labor of love, pur- 
sued with a rigid and unselfish devotion. 
yf ^ ^ 
The Country Cemetery in cMichigan. 
In response to the demand of the improvement 
workers among the agricultural organizations of Mich- 
igan, a law was passed appointing a “Memory Day” 
to be annually proclaimed by the governor of the 
state, on which special attention is invited to the 
needs of the cemetery and a day of active work sug- 
gested for cleaning up and improvements. The idea 
has been very cordially encouraged by the press gen- 
erally, and it is quite expected that an extension of 
the proposition into more days than one will ultimate- 
ly result in far better conditions in the rural burying 
grounds. It is a fact, very difficult of explanation, 
that comparative neglect marks the condition of near- 
ly every country cemetery, which in large measure is 
undoubtedly due to the absolute lack of knowledge of 
how to go about the work of improvement. This 
strengthens the argument that real progress in this 
direction can only come about when the elementary 
principles of outdoor sightliness are better understood. 
