PARK AND CEMETERY 
AND LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
Vol. XXI Chicago, July, 1911 No. 5 
Organized Play 
Brookline, Mass., is now testing the value of organized 
play on the Municipal pho^grounds. This is something 
of an innovation in the East and the West must be credit- 
ed with being first in practically demonstrating how much 
more effective in results is the playground systematically 
conducted under competent instructors. It is said that 
the experiment in Brookline is due to the growing belief 
of the people, interested in physical edcuation, that the 
children and young people are not getting all the benefit 
which might be expected to result from the open air play 
parks. The Brookline Education Society is greatly in- 
terested in the experiment. In the light of experience 
in western cities this resolution on the part of the Brook- 
line authorities is not much in the line of experiment 
after all. 
v.^ Ng 
A New Forestry School 
By the appointment of Prof. J. A. Ferguson, of State 
College, Pennsylvania, to the position of professor of 
Forestry in its College of Agriculture, the State of Mis- 
souri is taking a forward step in the conservation move- 
ment to take care of the natural resources of the country. 
The Missouri College owns some fifty thousand acres of 
forest lands in the southern part of the state, and it is 
planned to utilize these lands as an outdoor labora- 
tory for instruction in practical forestry, and it is 
probable that part of the forestry instruction will be 
given on these forest lands. Forestry has taken hold as 
an attractive profession throughout the country, and the 
distribution of well informed and enthusiastic foresters 
should be the means of encouraging a better general un- 
derstanding of the value of our forests from all points 
of view. 
vg 
Good Business 
An interesting episode has come to our notice. A cer- 
tain park board recommended the awarding of a contract 
for a park building to the lowest bidder, who happened 
to be from outside territory. The board of aldermen 
objected, wishing the job to go to a local party; better 
judgment later prevailed and the park board’s recom- 
mendation -was accepted. This was the proper course 
and the aldermen are to be commended. It was good 
business,, and this course should at all times be followed 
in the Interest of the very public who elected both bodies. 
Ng V(g Ng 
A Timely Warning 
“Save the trees” is a cry now frequently heard in the 
East and to which much "attention has been paid for some 
years past. In the New England States the gypsy and 
tussock moths, and a destructive elm tree borer, have 
cost those states millions of dollars and appropriations 
have to be still annually forthcoming to keep up the 
fight. New York is beginning to suffer seriously, and it 
is quite probable that these insect pests will rapidly march 
westward unless the apathetic legislatures and executives 
awake to the fact of the actually enormous damage that 
one season will effect. It is only necessary to examine 
the records of the New England agencies which were set 
in motion by timely financial assistance to reach a con- 
clusion as to the vast damage done and the prospect of 
what might have resulted had there been any delay in 
the use of effective means of annihilation and restriction. 
State and municipal authorities throughout the country 
should watch with eagerness any news concerning these 
pests, and l)e prepared to fight them. 
Ng 
Cemetery Decorum 
Decoration Day has. again brought up the question of 
conduct in the cemetery, and we note many instances 
where the behavior of the public was by no means to its 
credit. However opinion may differ on the observance of 
IMemorial Day, either individually or collectively, there 
can be but one standard of conduct for all participating in 
cemetery exercises on that day; and it is a sorrowful com- 
mentary on the effectiveness of popular eduction, if re- 
spect for the city of the dead cannot be ensured on such 
occasions except bj^ legal restraint. Something is radical- 
ly wrong somewhere, and it is up to our teachers and 
preachers to exercise their intelligence in promoting a 
better understanding of what Emerson called the Con- 
duct of Life. 
sg xg 
Missouri Supreme Court on Billboards 
Every competent court decision appears to bring us 
nearer to a solution of the Billboard problem, and the 
latest dictum of the Missouri Supreme Court lends itself 
to such a conclusion. The decision sustains the 
ruling of a St. Louis Court which upheld a St. Louis or- 
dinance which was drastic in its regulation of billboards, 
in fact the Supreme Court Justice suggested that the or- 
dinance might have gone farther. The following extract 
from the opinion will be of interest to many: “The sign- 
boards and billboards upon which this class of advertise- 
ments is displayed are constant menaces to the public 
safety and welfare of the city; they endanger the public 
health, promote immorality, constitute hiding places for 
criminals and all classes of miscreants. They are also 
inartistic and unsightly. While advertising, as before 
stated, is a legitimate and honorable business, yet the 
evils incident to this class of advertising are more numer- 
ous and base in character than are those incident to num- 
erous other businesses which are considered mala-in-se, 
and which for that reason may not only be regulated and 
controlled, but which may be entirely suppressed for the 
public good under the police .power of the state. My in- 
dividual opinion is that this class of advertising as now 
conducted is not only subject to control and regulation 
by the police power of the state, but that it might be en- 
tirely suppressed by statute, and that, too, without offend- 
ing against either state or federal constitution.” 
xg xg xg 
The Arnold Arboretum Bulletins 
The Bulletins of Popular Information issued weekly by 
the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University are cer- 
tainly an instructive addition to our horticultural litera- 
ture. They appear in the form of four page folders, three 
pages of which are devoted to notes concerning the char- 
acter, habit, growth, appearance and availability of the 
plants or trees under consideration, and the value of these 
notes lies in the fact that the objects under consideration 
have received the most attentive and appropriate care that 
science and efficiency can provide, and that both prob- 
abilities and possibilities of their usefulness and adaptation 
to other situations may be gathered from them. The in- 
formation is authentic, reliable and interesting. 
