132 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
Antlual reports or extracts from them^ historical sketches^ 
descriptive circulars^ photogi'aphs of improve^ncnts or dis- 
tinctive features are requested for use m this department. 
The Civic Improvement Associations of Ann Arbor and 
Ypsilanti, Mich., are endeavoring to organize a movement for 
building and beautifying a driveway or boulevard between 
the two towns. 
Jjc * 
Residents along Benton Boulevard, Kansas City, Mo., have 
petitioned the board of health to have owners of vacant lots 
compelled to cut the weeds. Instructions were accordingly 
given to the department inspectors to notify the owners, 
or in the absence of the owners, the local agents, to have the 
weeds cut. If these notices are not complied with, arrests 
are to follow. 
* * * 
It is reported that farmers in southern Michigan and 
northern Indiana are about to inaugurate a crusade against 
the tree and fence advertising, especially the former. They 
say that billboards are nailed upon their fine shade trees 
and other trees wherever they are to be found and greatly 
injure them. A number of the farmers have agreed to tear 
down every sign of that kind that is nailed to their trees 
as fast as they are put up. 
* * * 
Some enthusiastic citizens of Oak Park, a suburb of Chi- 
cago, have gone one step beyond the development of the 
backyard beautiful by inaugurating a movement for the alley 
beautiful. They see no reason why an alley should be a 
filthy place, and will take one of them as an object lesson 
and transform it into a country lane bordered by shrubbery 
and turf. They have named the alley “Cottonwood Lane,” 
and its transformation will be watched with interest. 
2j< ^ 
The Denver Outdoor Art League, whose model garden was 
recently illustrated in these pages, has enlisted the services 
of the boys in selling the vegetables that are raised in the 
garden. The boys have entered enthusiastically upon the 
work, and many families are regular customers, as the veg- 
etables are the freshest that the city affords. Although the 
vegetables find a ready sale and bring good prices, it is not 
expected that the garden will prove profitable the first year. 
It was started chiefly as an experiment to show people how 
their vacant lots could be improved at a cash advantage. 
^ 
The women of Milwaukee have organized the Better Mil- 
waukee Association, consisting of a main body and two 
branches which are to work for the civic improvement and 
development of the city. The first work will be an attempt 
to get several small parks. The association has prepared a 
chart showing the distribution of the parks and the relative 
population in each section of the city, showing where these 
small parks are needed, and will petition the city council 
to establish them. Mrs. E. C. Folkmar, 368 Cass Street, 
is president of the association. 
* * * 
The Village Improvement Society, of Dalton, Mass., has 
conducted a flower planting contest, and a committee in 
charge of the work is soon to make its report. The society 
has also secured the presentation to the town of a drinking 
fountain, a gift of Mrs. F. M. Couch. It will be of pink 
Westerly granite and will stand about four and a half feet 
high. The drinking bowl for the horses will be oval, five 
and a half feet long and four feet wide, with horses’ heads 
neatly carved at the top. Across the top' will be this in- 
scription: “Taught by that Power that pities me, I learn to 
pity them.” Underneath this will be 1906 in large figures. 
On the lower part of the fountain will be carved a dog lying 
full length resting, facing a small drinking bowl. Both 
sides of the fountain will be alike, facing the highway and 
sidewalk, with the exception that this inscription will face 
the walk : “That mercy I to others show, that mercy show 
to me.” 
* * * 
Secretary Mayo Fesler of the Civic League of St. Louis 
recently returned from a month’s visit to Chicago, Detroit, 
Toledo, Cleveland and Buffalo, where he has been investi- 
gating municipal conditions, particularly smoke abatement, 
tenement houses, garbage disposal, public building groups 
and park systems. The results of his study will be included 
in the reports of the committees appointed to investigate 
these various subjects. During the summer the league has 
had engineers at work on the smoke-abatement problem in 
•St. Louis, visiting the boiler plants, taking smoke records 
and conferring with owners and engineers. The league’s 
smoke-abatement committee will issue its report with rec- 
ommendations early in November. A committee of the 
league has been making a detailed study of the housing con- 
ditions in the crowded portions of the city, with a view to 
issuing an illustrated and tabulated report and recommend- 
ing ordinances to remedy certain conditions. The munici- 
pal code of St. Louis at present contains no adequate provi- 
sions for control of tenement houses. Another committee 
of the league, which has been working for the past year on 
a comprehensive city plan for St. Louis similar to the Burn- 
ham plan for San Francisco, including inner and outer 
park systems, civic centers, grouping of public buildings, etc., 
will issue an illustrated report. 
* * * 
Some of the results of the work of the Joplin Improvement 
Association, Joplin, Mo., are thus summarized in a recent 
issue of the Joplin Globe : 
“Joplin is at the present time a more beautiful city than 
it has ever been in its history. The residence portion is 
more attractive, the school grounds are less barren, and the 
public streets and sidewalks are a thousand times cleaner 
and more sanitary than they have ever been. While the Jop- 
lin Improvement Association does not take the entire credit 
of this change for the better, still it is an undisputed fact 
that the members of the association have been instrumental 
in causing many of the improvements. Before the anti- 
spitting ordinance was adopted by the council Joplin was 
one of the filthiest cities in the country in this one respect. 
The ladies of the association were instrumental in having 
this ordinance made a law and enforced. This city has been 
called upon to face the natural disadvantages of its location, 
there having been no trees to speak of when the town was 
founded. All the shade trees, practically, in Joplin have been 
planted and as the movement to beautify the city is of re- 
cent origin it can not be expected that the limit of perfec- 
tion has yet been reached. One of the main aims of the Im- 
provement Association has been to create an interest among 
the property owners in the resident districts. Through the 
children the association has gotten in touch with the par- 
ents. By offering cash prizes for the best kept yards and 
lawns the children have taken an interest in the work.” 
