429 
PARK AND CEMETERTf 
JAPANESE IVY AND TREES PLANTED AT POST-OFFICE, PERRY, O. T. 
a rose garden on the east side of 
the building in which he placed 
nearly lOO of the choicest varieties 
of roses. This spot for nine years 
had been a depository for coal ashes 
and cinders, bottles and bricks, 
througb wbich rainfall percolated 
into a constantly degenerating soil. 
This rubbish was removed and the 
soil purged and renewed. The roses 
were planted two years ago, and 
despite the fact that ravages of 
rose worms required the replanting 
of nearly half the bushes the first 
season there was a yield of fully 
60,000 fragrant blossoms tins year. 
The roses, as cut, were given to 
churches or used for decorations on 
public occasions. The postoffice 
rose garden has given pleasure to 
citizens and strangers alike. The 
admiration in which it is held locally 
has protected it from vandals and 
pilferers. It is inclosed hy an unlocked wire fence. 
The seven rural mail carries and the six postoffice em- 
ployes, whose duties require them to be frequently 
near the garden, are unanimous in the belief that not 
a rose was ever stolen from it, though it is surrounded 
on four sides by business streets and passed daily bv 
hundreds of persons. 
“If there was ever such a thing as public reverence 
for an effort to beautify and elevate it can be found in 
this rose garden,” Mr. Little is quoted as saying. 
A ROSE GARDEN IN THE POST-OFFICE YARD, PERRY, O. T. 
The cemetery improvement was also begun under 
great difficulties. A forty-acre tract on a stony hill, 
said to be the most barren within 100 miles, was 
selected for the cemetery, and Mr. Little is credited as 
being the only man who had courage enough to un- 
dertake its improvement. He told the City Council 
that if several thousand seedling evergreens were | 
planted, a loss of 90 per cent of them would leave i 
enough to repay the investment. He planted 50 trees j 
two years ago, at his own expense, and one-half of j 
them survived. Last April the 
Council allowed him to begin work, 
and 702 Scotch pines were planted 
in ploughed sod at regular intervals \ 
along the drive ways. In June only | 
three of them had died and Mr. Lit- j 
tie expects more than half of them ^ 
to survive. He has cultivated them i 
carefully, and the council is so well 
pleased that they have built a dam 
across a canyon to make a reservoir 
for a water supply. The water has 
to be hauled in wagons from this 
reservoir to the cemetery. i 
The Court House Park of Ameri- 
can white elms was planted chiefly • 
as an object lesson in tree planting,' 
and when the trees are thinned out 
will offer an excellent tract for aj 
fine public park. Mr. Little also? 
publishes a quarterly called “Okla-" 
homa,” which is devoted largely toj 
the gospel of tree planting. k 
