184 
PARK AND CEMETERY, 
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|f •& PARK NOTES. ft 
The State of Georgia, by a state law has invested the Park 
and Tree Commission of Savannah with the charge of all public 
parks, squares, grass-plats, cemeteries and trees in that city, 
which pi ices the com mission in such a position as to give every op- 
portunity for the proper care of the property given to its charge, 
and offers a scope of procedure in every way favorable to the ex- 
ercise of mature judgment in the development and care of park 
and such like city enterprises. The commission has formulated 
a set of rules and regulations for the general care and govern- 
ment of the p irks, squares, grass plats, cemeteries, etc., of the 
city, and an ordinance has been pissed by the city council ap- 
proving the same, which gives them the effect of a city ordinance. 
* * * 
A dispatch says that Colonel John S. Cooper, who has re- 
cently returned from a trip in northern Minnesota along the up- 
per Mississippi, proposes to organize a movement for the estab- 
lishment of a new national park in that section of country. The 
region that he would have set apart by the government com- 
prises about 15 000 square miles of pine lands, dotted with lakes 
and abounding in hsh and game of all kinds. He says that after 
the lumber is removed the land can be bought for $1 an acre, 
and that the government can well afford to preserve the tract 
for a place of rest. This proposed game preserve extends from 
the headwaters of the Mississippi north to the Canadian line, and 
is described as an ideal health resort and place of scenic beauty. 
* * * 
Prospect Park, Brooklyn, has a building called “The Pride 
of the Park,” designed for the comfort of the bicycle girls. It 
is a pretty cottage with verandah outside, and within accessor- 
ies for comfort and rest, with a woman in constant attendance. 
The plan is unique and so far as is known it has never been 
tried anywhere else. It was suggested by Timothy L. Wood- 
ruff, now lieutenant-governor, a former park commissioner. 
“Its object is simply to furnish a refuge for women riders far 
from home, a refuge that they can nowhere else find. The thor- 
oughly nice girl who has torn her frock, hurt herself or who feels 
a trifle faint, does not want to hnd shelter in a roadhouse. In 
the closet of the cottage are sewing materials of all sorts, lini- 
m:nts, arnica, court plaster, soft linen for bandages, ointments 
and even curling irons and hairpins. All these things the park 
department provides. It is not a heavy tax upon their resources, 
the entire expense is trifl ng, but the comfort to the feminine 
wheeling fraternity is beyond price.” " 
* * * 
In discussing street trees for Pittsburg, in connection with 
Asphalt paving, Mr. William Falconer, in an interview in the 
News, says: No long-lived tree will live and thrive on an as- 
phalt street. That is if the street and sidewalk are covered 
tightly with that material. That would leave nothing but a 
mere little hole m the groun 1 cut through the paving in which 
to put the tree. Air and moisture are excluded and the only 
trees which will live under these conditions are not worth plant- 
ing. No long lived tree will stand it, and no other tree should 
be put in a street. The only trees that will live when planted 
in a little hoie cut through a pavement are the Carolina poplars 
and the Ailanthus. They will grow anywhere under any con- 
ditions, but no one will plant either of them under any but the 
worst possible conditions. They are abominable and not for only 
one reason either. They have but one quality worth consider- 
ing and that is not considered by persons familiar with the char- 
acter of the trees. They are rapid growers and that one fact 
alone is all that accounts for their presence anywhere. And as 
that quality is so closely surrounded, literally smothered by a 
multitude of bad qualities, it is not taken into account in the 
selection of trees for ornamental purposes. 
* * * 
In the Park Commissioners report to the Mayor of Boston, 
the following appears, which is very suggestive in its relation to 
parks generally: “We propose in future park plantations to 
use largely the trees and shrubs native to Massachusetts, be- 
cause these grow here more successfully, live longer, and re- 
quire less labor to keep them in good condition than the trees 
and shrubs of foreign countries. More natural and therefore 
more artistic results can be obtained by the use of the native 
flora, than by a promiscuous mingling together of the plants of 
the different parts of the world; and such a selection we believe, 
moreover, will have the effect of reducing very materially, the 
future cost of keeping the park plantations in a healthy and sat- 
isfactory condition, especially if the plantations are made in the 
first place, as we propose to make them in a thorough manner. 
In Franklin Park, especially, natural w-oods, glades and mead- 
ows, which should be its essential features, can be reproduced, 
as far as it is possible for art to reproduce nature, by employing 
only such plants as nature herself, undisturbed by man, uses in 
this part of the country.” 
* * * 
The following extract from the New Haven, Conn., Regis- 
ter offers a text worthy of deep consideration by the great ma- 
jority of small towns in the country. . “Commenting on the de- 
sirability of paiks as additions to the attractiveness of small 
towns, the Providence Journal regrets that the early settlers of 
“Little Rhody” did not do as much for posterity as those of cer- 
tain other States, notably Connecticut. All through our State, 
it observes, commons and greens may be seen in the center of 
the little towns. The typical Connecticut village has its park 
or open square, or is built along an extended street, so generous 
in its width and so beautifully shaded by graceful elm trees that 
a park-like effect is obtained. Plainfield, Enfield, Litchfield, 
Colchester, Sharon and scores of other communities enjoy to- 
day the fruits of the wise forethought of their founders.” 
* * * 
Mr. William Falconer, in his report on the Phipps conser 
vatories and Schenley Park, given in the Annual Report of the 
Department ot Public Works, Pittsburgh, for 1897, speaks of an 
educational feature developed in connection with the conserva- 
tories: “Repeatedly teachers in our schools have brought their 
classes out to the greenhouses to give the pupils an opportunity 
to study the living plants, and when such could be spared we 
have contributed some fern fronds and blossoms to pupils for 
class work in school. During the Chrysanthemum exhibition 
several of the teachers in the public schools sent their classes to 
the conservatory to write a composition on the chrysanthemum. 
This is particularly gratifying, for it is our ambition to make this 
great garden the botanical centre of the Iron Metropolis as well 
as a be mtiful recreation ground.” The magnitude of the nur- 
sery garden in Schenley Park may be gathered from the follow- 
ing extract from the same report: “It consists of about fourteen 
acres devoted to the propagation and cultivation of young trees, 
shrubs, vines, perennials, etc., for use in the permanent planta- 
tions of the park; in it are also tested all new hardy plants that 
are received. It now contains 3.742 deciduous trees, 951 conif- 
erous trees, 32,896 deciduous shrubs, 952 evergreen shrubs, 13,- 
770 vines, 1,735 garden roses, 4,987 wild roses, 2,000 hardy cacti 
and 40,162 hardy perennials. This vast variety of plants yield 
a most interesting assortment of blossoms all summer, and 
everthing being conspicuously named, botanists, florists, gar- 
deners, and others spend much time in it studying the plants. We 
are gathering the nucleus of a good botanical collection of 
plants, and have now eleven distinct speces of sunflower, eighteen 
of golden rod, twenty-four of perennial asters, and so on, besides 
scores of varieties of such plants as iris, pasonia, phlox, etc. 
