8 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
to accomplish. A park where combined with 
beautiful landscape effects are the resting places 
and memorials of those “not dead, but sleeping,” 
and where the very nature of the surroundings pre- 
scribe rest and peace and freedom from the “mad- 
ding crowd,” for the recreation of which the public 
park is made also attractive elsewhere. 
REFORM CLUB, NEW YORK CITY. 
Among the important efforts of the day, pro- 
jected to remove some of the evil features of our 
municipal government and to promote the cause of 
higher civilization, which, indeed embraces so much 
that we are far from having attained, is the Reform 
Club, New York City. 
Organized last year on a scale demanding delib- 
erate action, it was obliged to face the unsettling 
influences of the presidential campaign, and so was 
hampered more or less in getting solidly down to 
its proposed line of work. 
A series of meetings was inaugurated in the 
spring of 1896, which have been continued at in- 
tervals since, at which important problems of muni- 
cipal work were discussed by able exponents. But 
the first systematic work undertaken in New York 
was the getting together of a working library, and 
suggested by that work, a bibliography upon the 
subject of municipal affairs. This has just been is- 
sued as the first number of an intended quarterly 
publication entitled “Municipal Affairs.” The title 
of the issue itself is “A Bibliography of Municipal 
Administration and City Conditions.” 
A remarkable fact in connection with it is, the sur- 
prising amount of literature that has been produced 
on municipal matters. The material has been gath- 
ered from all sources, and comprises between three 
and four thousand articles. The work is excellently 
well presented, with abundant cross references and 
forms the most complete index of the kind ever pub- 
lished. It may be taken for granted that co-opera- 
tion was freely accorded wherever solicited, with 
results most gratifying, and which is courteously 
acknowledged. 
With such a foundation the work of the Reform 
Club should be much simplified, and this means in 
due time wide spread activity, all things being fav- 
orable. 
In closing a circular giving a summarized view 
of past and future work, the following appears: 
“In view, not merely of the special urgency of the 
situation created by the greater New York question, 
but of the extraordinary extent to which the inter- 
est of all classes has of late awakened to the prob 
lems of municipal administration, the committee 
proposes, as fast as the success of any step shall 
justify further advance, to undertake educational 
work upon the subjects which come home most 
nearly to the citizens of our metropolis; and it in- 
vites the co-operation of every patriotic citizen in 
helping to make our city more rich, more beautiful, 
and most of all, a more healthful, comfortable and 
attractive abiding place for ourselves and our fellow 
citizens. ’ ’ 
This involves sentiments appealing to all classes 
and all localities, and should inspire effort in simi- 
lar directions wherever conditions invite attention, 
and just now where do they not? 
The secretary, Mr. Robert C. Brooks may be 
addressed at 2 6 Delancey street, New York. 
ALL SUMMER EFFECTS. 
Summer decoration is a highly important part 
of Park work and it goes without saying that the 
more good all-summer effects are secured in 
planting the better. 
That is to say — the more space planted in the 
spring, as soon as out-of-door work can safely be 
commenced, with a prospect of the material used 
soon presenting an attractive appearance that will 
continue until frost cuts it off, the greater the re- 
duction in time and expense, both of which consid- 
erations must needs be active factors in deciding the 
summer campaign of Park and Cemetery superin- 
tendents, who must furnish something attractive for 
visitors to look at not semi-occasionally, but every 
day throughout the season. 
Some of the best beds and groups that come un- 
der the head of ‘ ‘all-summer effects,” are made up of 
plants whose flowers are of no consequence, foliage 
alone being taken into account in their use. 
The three groups here illustrated were grown 
in locations naturally rather moist; Nos. 1 and 3 be- 
ing in swampy soil near the water garden in Tower 
Grove Park, of which those of our readers who at- 
tended the St. Louis Convention probably have 
vivid recollections; and No. 2 in the Botanical Gar- 
den adjoining. All are exceptionally good exam- 
ples of this useful style of decoration. 
No. 1 represents an oval bed 30 ft. by 40 ft. in 
size. In the middle is a group of the great reed, 
Arundo Donax, surrounded by a row of Gynerum 
argenteum or true Pampas grass. 2nd. row: Erian- 
thus Ravennae, the plants being set in front of and 
between those in the first row, which plan is followed 
throughout the bed. 3rd row: Three varieties of 
Eulalia in alternation. Last row: Pennicetum 
longistylum and Panicum plicatum vittatum in al- 
ternation. The photograph was taken in the fall 
after the Pennicetum had been cut out and shows 
the Panicum drooping over and occupying the 
entire space given to the outer row. 
It is Mr. Gurney’s custom to use these two 
grasses in this way, because in most years the Pen- 
