699 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
ASKED and ANSWERED 
An exchange 0/ experience on practical matters by our readers. You 
are invited to contribute questions and answers to this department. 
Paint for Iron Fence and Gates. 
What kind of paint is best on iron 
gates and what color is most suitable? 
— E. D., S. C. 
Regarding the best kind of paint to 
be used on outside iron work, we have 
done considerable experimenting 
along this line for a great many years, 
and we must confess that there is no 
paint made that will last indefinitely. 
Iron gates and fencing of any kind 
should be painted at least every two 
years, if they are to be kept in first- 
class condition. As to the kind of 
paint, there are a number of very 
good brands which we could recom- 
mend, such as Dixon’s Black Graphite 
or Chas. Mosers’ Black Rust Proof 
paint. We ourselves, however, pre- 
fer to use lamp black mixed with 
boiled linseed oil, believing it to be 
the most satisfactory, owing to the 
smooth, hard finish obtainable, of a 
lasting quality. A first coat of red 
lead is desirable in order to give the 
best results, but “black” is the most 
durable color that can be used. If 
colors are preferred, would recom- 
mend Dixon’s green paint. 
Stewart Iron Works Co. 
Cincinnati, O. 
Concrete Mixers. 
Edw. G. Carter, Superintendent 
Oak Woods Cemetery, Chicago, 
asks “How many superintendents 
use concrete mixers or know that 
their foundation labor bills might be 
reduced 60 per cent by so doing?” 
Here is a suggestion that cemetery 
superintendents will find well worth 
following up. Comments or sugges- 
tions as to how to obtain the best re- 
sults in building foundations will be 
welcome. 
Grass Around Trees. 
Is grass around trees (maple) in 
avenue injurious to growth of trees? 
— E. D., S. C. 
Certainly not. The grass to a cer- 
tain extent conserves the moisture in 
the ground, and saves the surface of 
the earth from the drying influences 
of sun and wind; and when it rains it 
catches and holds the water, giving it 
a chance to percolate into the soil 
rrther than run off from it. So much 
for the utility, now let us look to 
appearances. An avenue of trees is 
a beautiful sig’bt, and this beauty 
is vastly enhanced when the trees 
are stretched along on grassy sward 
as in our city boulevards or parks. 
Bare ground is far from inviting. And 
unless it is soft and unfastened on 
the surface just as the farmer stirreth 
the soil in his fields, it becomes hard 
and baked and decidedly disadvan- 
tageous to the welfare of the trees. 
To cultivate the ground under such 
circumstances would be ridiculous, 
far better mulch it. But greatly 
better and more beautiful is to 
grow grass under the trees. Should 
the trees appear starved the meaning 
is — poor preparatiort before planting. 
Wm. Falconer. 
Supt. Allegheny Ceme- 
tery, Pittsburgh. 
Telephone Wires in Cables. 
A year or two ago I made some 
inquiries about trees and electric 
wires and your reply was of consid- 
erable assistance. Now I have an- 
other; The city police and fire wires 
must, they say, go on the streets, and 
as the trees interfere they want to 
cut, which, at best, would be only a 
temporary expedient. I suggested 
wooden tubes to carry the wires 
through the trees, but the fire chief 
says these would get soaked in a rain 
and render the wires useless. Is there 
a tube made for this purpose that is 
practicable or have you any other sug- 
gestion to make? There are only two 
or three wires. One telephone com- 
pany has started the plan of putting 
the poles and wires in the alleys and 
running a cable on the avenues where 
the trees conflict. — B. D. M., Wis. 
The practice of using cables for car- 
rying telephone wires through trees in 
public streets, or parks, is becoming 
quite common. Of course this cannot 
be done economically where there are 
only four or five wires, but where 
there are more than ten wires it is 
considered better practice to use cable 
even at the expense of taking down 
the old wires, if the interference of 
trees is great. 
The telephone companies are no 
longer in the habit of sending out 
vandals with saws and hatchets to 
hack up the trees, possibly because the 
public is becoming more tolerant, and 
does not demand absurdly expensive 
construction in places where it is not 
called for. 
F. H. Reed. 
Editor “Telephony,” 
Chicago. 
The Telephone Review, published by 
the New York Telephone Co., gives in 
its issue of September, 1910, the fol- 
lowing interesting facts about the tel- 
ephone cable construction in New 
York City and vicinity: 
“Let us take a look at the distributing 
system in the Borough of Manhattan, New 
Tork City. This system is a very satisfac- 
tory one to ail concerned, and is perhaps 
the highest type of modern' telephone con- 
struction that can be found anywhere in the 
world today. Starting at the upper end of 
the Island, we find neat pole lines on the 
streets with small telephone cables attached 
thereto. These cables form the distributing 
plant for that portion of the town which is 
sparsely developed and look the same today 
as they did when erected several years ago, 
and will look the same for many years to 
come, as the cables contain spare pairs for 
growth. This construction is ideal for newly 
developed sections of a town, for residen- 
tial districts with detached houses, or 
built-up sections where the telephone de- 
velopment is comparatively small. Frequent 
terminal boxes are spliced to these cables 
and make it possible to connect individual 
rubber insulated wires that run to each tele- 
phone with the wires in the cable without 
opening the lead sheath and exposing the 
paper insulation. These terminals also ren- 
der it possible to make changes from time 
to time that the service requires, such as 
changes in the class of service, i. e., from 
party line to direct, and vice versa, 
“A little further downtown, where the 
houses, apartments and business places are 
built in solid blocks, no telephone pole lines 
are found on the street. Anyone walking 
along the streets there would assume that 
all wires were underground. This is not 
the case, however, as the distributing cables 
here are just as much above ground as in 
the first case mentioned above. Small cables 
are brought out from the main feeder cables 
in the street and run underground into some 
building, from where they are brought out 
above ground and run along the back fences 
or rear walls as the conditions require. 
“Going still further downtown, the large 
business and office buildings are reached. 
No wires are visible in the streets, but con- 
ditions are almost identical with those just 
described. The distributing cables here are 
in the buildings themselves, but are not un- 
derground. Take the built-up block further 
uptown, referred to above, with a hori- 
zontal distributing cable along the back 
fences and stand It on end; condense it into 
one building, and you have the telephone 
system of a modern office building. 
“Thus we see that throughout New York 
City the distributing plant is above ground, 
but the greatly desired object of getting the 
wires out of sight has, in general, been ac- 
complished. If the general public could be 
made to realize these facts and would 
change their motto to: ‘Put the wires out 
of sight,’ instead of: ‘Put the wires under- 
ground,’ and would give the Telephone 
Company co-operation instead of opposition, 
much more rapid progress could be made 
in the accomplishment of the result desired 
by all concerned. 
“The progress so far made has, in general, 
been accomplished not by the help of the 
public, but in spite of it. An illustration 
of this fact is the work done in that section 
of Brooklyn known as Platbush. Trying to 
force medicine down a baby’s mouth to save 
its life does not begin to tell the story of 
Flatbush. A better, more up-to-date and 
satisfactory telephone plant cannot be found 
in any residential section of any city in the 
world than there is In Platbush today, but, 
oh! the years , of discouraging labor and 
battle to accomplish it! 
“It has been the aim of the Plant De- 
partment of this Company for a number of 
years to get as many telephone wires out of 
sight as possible. When this cannot be 
done, every effort is being made to sim- 
plify the overhead construction. 
