PARK AND CEMETERY. 
690 
effect is attained by the use of Coun- 
tess of Elsmere petunias, cannas, an- 
tirrhinums, gladioli, pentstemons, dah- 
lias, cosmos, salvias, poppies, verbe- 
nas and other annual material. As 
the perennial plantations attain their 
growth the annual fillers will be pro- 
portionately lessened. 
Among the interesting plants in the 
border is a fine collection of hardy as- 
ters, including all the novelties from 
foreign sources. 
This attractive bit of planting, with 
its host of old-time flowering things 
beloved by the early New Englanders 
—bleeding heart, larkspur, horse balm, 
fox glove, hollyhocks, poppies, canter- 
bury bells and the like — will eventu- 
ally form part of a much larger feat- 
ure soon to be realized here in Frank- 
lin Park, namely, the new zoological 
garden, of which probably everyone 
has heard something and of which it 
is now a forerunner, but will in time 
no doubt become a harmonious and 
fitting detail. 
A very pretty view of it as a whole 
may be had from the ridge to the 
south, which in time it is also pro- 
posed to plant in some suitable man- 
ner with the design of completing the 
sheltered character of the location, 
while the floor of the little hollow be- 
tween the two may also at a later day 
be utilized for an attractive aquatic 
garden. 
STANDARDIZING MUNICIPAL PARK REPORTS 
Read Before American Association of Park Superintendents 
by E. T. Mische, Superintendent of Parks, Portland, Ore. 
There is need of standardizing 
municipal park reports. American 
municipalities display a woeful lack 
of co-operation. Each city goes its 
own piace its own way, and ofttimes 
that way is extravagant, fool-hardy 
and subversive of the community’s 
best interests. 
It is opportune to view some of 
the activities in which our munici- 
palities are engaged and to study 
how their efforts may be made more 
■efficient. 
Parks are, if anything, sociological 
and economic factors in city life. 
Moreover they are so-called directly 
unproductive properties and for that 
reason are often the object of un- 
wise discrimination. How often does 
it occur that one administration will 
reverse the policy of its predecessor 
and always on the most plausible 
pretext. A careful, conservative ad- 
ministration will be followed by an- 
other brandishing needful improve- 
ments, extension or local pride as a 
reason for change; or an active pro- 
gressive one will be followed by an- 
other who propose retrenchment, 
business or sanity as the main mo- 
tive of reversing policies. And yet 
•compelling conviction rarely goes 
home to the public, and why? Citi- 
zens generally lack information and 
until accurate information can be 
supplied as to details of each depart- 
ment and of their significance in the 
co-ordinated branches of a municipal 
government we can expect that some 
phases of the government will be 
dealt with in a manner unfortunate, 
to say the least. 
In the interest of real progress and 
of park development especially is it 
desirable that reports on general and 
specific municipal affairs should be 
made periodically and on occasion 
these reports should be harmonized 
for all cities? General annual reports 
should give figures of population, as- 
sets and indebtedness, revenues and 
expenditures. Following these in 
further detail would be departmental 
reports showing the budget appropri- 
ations and other resources, expendi- 
tures classified in sufficient detail to 
permit of intelligent analysis and 
showing just what has been accom- 
plished with each outlay. The need 
of standardizing municipal park re- 
ports is that it makes for a popular 
understanding of work accomplished 
or of work left undone which should 
have been done; properly followed up 
it supplies an efficiency of method 
that is a great assistant in adminis- 
tration; it permits of periodic ac- 
counting. It is very probable that 
efficient municipal government will 
only be feasible and be recognizable 
as such when our systems of munici- 
pal accounting are of special excel- 
lence. Reports of this sort furnish a 
basis for comparison of the work 
going on in the various cities and 
though at first they are apt to be very 
imperfect they should and doubtless 
will with time offer an opportunity 
for many valuable comparisons. 
We have yet to learn and appre- 
ciate the degree of economy and effi- 
ciency in vogue in European cities 
where administrators are retained 
solely for their ability, and that abil- 
ity is much more intelligently deter- 
minable than with us. 
There is no intention to make an 
invidious comparison nor to make 
any derogatory charges against of- 
ficials — every city is virtually in the 
same boat. At present each com- 
munity works out its own salvation 
in its own way and as a result we 
have for instance a duplication of ex- 
perimental work that is wasteful. 
Consider road construction; macadam 
is perhaps the most general in use 
for park drives— the old cities are 
aware of the disintegration follow- 
ing the advent of automobiles. Mil- 
lions have been spent in the con- 
struction of the drives and of a sud- 
den an arch enemy appears. Those 
with the existing drives seek means 
of conserving them. Patented prep- 
arations, surface metals, emulsons, 
new binders in the foundations and 
a host of injurious trials are being 
made at enormous cost, all for the 
purpose of protecting and improving 
the drives, and how many of these 
experiments have been tried and 
found unsatisfactory and yet the same 
course is adopted by another city 
just as if it had never been tried? 
Similarly, Chicago has within the 
past few years expended some five 
million dollars on a system of small 
parks and playgrounds which puts her 
in the van of all her sisters, here and 
abroad. 
Yet her experience teaches that 
some of the gymnasia facilities are 
inadequate and that for less than 
$30,000 a satisfactory gymnasium can- 
not be installed. These facts should 
be common knowledge and hence- 
forth the mistakes of Chicago should 
be corrected in the construction of 
similar works in other cities and 
Chicago herself should be subject to 
learning from her sisters more of the 
very matters in which she leads. 
To harmonize the park work in 
the different cities the report upon 
it should be harmonized and that 
done each report will be an assistant 
and guide to each other city. To- 
ward that end Portland will in its 
ensuing report adopt the general 
method now in vogue at Minneapolis 
and Kansas City — not that these are 
perfect or even closely approaching 
perfection but rather that their ten- 
dency is in the right direction and 
even in their present form they have 
comparative value. 
