PARK AND CEMETERY 
^•is 
Civic Improvement in an OKlalioma Town. 
William T. Little, postmaster of the ten-3-ear-old 
town of Perr_v, Oklahoma, who is credited with being 
the father of experimental forestry- in the territory has 
been teaching the citizens of that town lessons in tree 
culture that ought in future years to make Perr_\' a 
model among western towns. 
He has planted the Court House Park with American 
white elms which he grew from seedlings to 25 ft. trees 
in eight years, proved the usefulness of evergreens for 
the barren cemetery tract, and given object lessons in 
home adornment about his postoffrce, that will be valu- 
able civic assets to the citizens. 
The postoffice building stands in a “government 
acre,” at the northwest corner of the three-acre park 
which Mr. Little planted. The building was of na- 
tive red sandstone, lending itself admirably to the or- 
nament of vines and foliage, but without them a 
garish heap of boulders in a sun-baked street, defiled 
with waste paper, broken bottles, and surrounded with 
chasms made by washing rains. Mr. Little has spent 
more than $200 of his private funds in making neces- 
sary repairs to the building and in laying cement side- 
walks, without counting the cost of trees and yard 
decorations. 
The town council passed a special ordinance for the 
protection of the two fine trees that stand in front of 
the building. These trees were planted two years ago 
■ and at that time were single branches, each about six 
feet in length. A single tree is now 14 inches in cir- 
cumference and gives shade enough to cover three 
buggies standing in the street. 
This growth has been accomplished in a growing 
season of 16 months without cultivation artificial 
* water or soil repair. 
The south wall of the building was an expanse of 
dead stone two years ago last spring when Mr. Little 
‘ filled a nearby ravine and planted cuttings of Japanese 
■ ivy. Southern exposure in this climate offers little 
I encouragement to Japanese ivy or kindred plants, but 
under his care the ivy thrived. The soil was made so 
warm with manure that the vines budded earlier than 
usual, and were killed to the ground by the freeze that 
destroyed the peach crop last winter. From the 
ground the east vine reached the eaves three times 
the past summer. The west vine touched the eaves in 
three places, and had attained a lateral growth of 
twent\'-eight feet last season. The other vines climbed 
half way to the shingles in 155 days. The beauty of 
this vine-clad building will increase with the growth 
of the ivy, and is now the envy of housewives who ask 
the postmaster almost every dav to tell them “how to 
make vines grow.” And he tells them. 
Fringing the north wall of the building, which 
faces on the street, is a growth of locally-grown Ber- 
muda grass that always survives the winter in this 
latitude and elevation. It was of the coarse blade 
variety, which has a pronounced advantage in surviv- 
ing the cold of winter, and this grass when grown 
from root-re-setting has greater frost endurance than 
if grown from seed. 
The postmaster, at his own expense, has also planted 
FRONT OP POST-OFFICE, PERRY, O. T. 
