PARK AND CEMETERY. 
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Governor Black, of New York, proposes to make a begin- 
ning in practical forestry by tievoting 25,000 acres ol the forest 
preserve to tree culture under the direction of the experiment 
officials at the Cornell University station. A bill has been in- 
troduced into the legislature appropriating $5,000. 
* # * 
The Rural Improvement Association of Keene, N. H., is an 
active agent in caring for the trees and lawns of the town. Its 
committee on the destruction of caterpillars’ nests has made a 
record and has reported the expenditure of $1. 50 by means of 
which about 2,000 nests and two quarts of eggs were destroyed. 
It is perhaps needless to say that it was voted to continue this 
work during the coming seas >n, as heretofore. 
* * * 
Arbor Day was celebrated in Humboldt Park, Chicago, and 
some 2,000 children participated in the exercises. About 40 
trees were planted, including 35 different varieties of maple, 
which will be a nucleus for an arboretum, and an excellent start 
for such an object in a public park. A full program of instruct- 
ive exercises was carried out. The credit for a very instructive 
and pleasurable observance of the day is largely due to Mr. 
James Jenson, superintendent. 
» * * 
From various reports A bor Day appears to have attracted 
still more attention this >ear, and from the many published pro- 
grammes of exercises carried out in various localities its impor- 
tance is gaining recognition. In connection with the public 
schools, not the least effect of its institution is the educating in- 
fluences it promotes, and as it affects to a greater or less degree 
many lines of life and work, it tends to broaden the mind of the 
young and lead the intellect into other channels of thought. 
One of the offsprings of the Day is the Botanic Club, which may 
be made a means of both pleasure and instruction, and a valu- 
able helpmeet to the Improvement Society. 
* * * 
The plan under consideration in Washington to erect stat- 
ues on the remaining corners of LaFayette Square, has drawn the 
following from the Washington Star : In order to provide a 
suitable site for the LaFayette memorial, “several of the fine 
shade trees were removed. It is the opinion of some people if 
there is such a plan as the above, and if its execution involves 
the destruction of more of the fine old trees in LaFayette Square, 
it would be to the present as well as to the future advantage of 
the city not to have the statues, but to keep the trees. In other 
words, it is the belief that the statues will not make good the in- 
jury to the beauty and attractiveness of the city which will be 
caused by further inroads upon the splendid old trees which are 
in some of the public parks.” 
* * * 
The Civic Club of Philadelphia, a woman’s organization, 
whose object is to secure “a more beautiful, a more healthful, a 
more comfortable public life” is just now receiving the encon 
iums of the press from many quarters. In dilating upon the 
matter the Philadelphia Press says: That the city’s “streets are 
cleaner than they were five years ago and the city’s garbage bet- 
ter collected is due largely to the efforts of the women organized 
into an active, working society. That there is a more earnest 
municipal spirit and greater interest in the welfare and prosper- 
ity of the city is to be ascribed to the same cause. That a more 
adequate idea of the duty of being good citizens is being incul- 
cated in the mind of the young is owing to the Children’s League 
of . lo >d Citizenship established by the Civic Club. That the 
city has better drainage, belter schoolhouses and more small 
parks, and that more attention is given to art, music, shade tree 
planting, libraries and decoration is the result of the organized 
efforts of the women of the city. In fact, there is hardly any 
department of life in Philadelphia that has not been bettered by 
the same influence.” Here is a wealth of suggestion for village 
improvement societies anywhere and everywhere. The above 
remarks are, it is pleasant to say, applicable more or less to sev- 
eral other cities of the union. And we would ask where does 
not the following, from an address by the lady president of the 
Civic Club, apply, when we think over the evils vexing our civi- 
lization: “We arrayed ourselves not against any one class of 
men or any one order of shortcoming, but against the general 
deficiency which at every turn is felt by those who critically ex- 
amine into the municipal ar.d intellectual facilities which seem 
to satisfy the average citizen of Philadelphia.” 
* * * 
In a communication from Mr. Warren H. Manning, land- 
scape architect, Boston, on his return from a western trip a few 
weeks since, he writes as follows on Golden Gate Park: “At San 
Francisco, I was especially interested in Golden Gate Park, 
which I am led to believe from my observations must have been 
the most difficult undertaking in this line that has ever been 
carried out successfully in this country. The park site was 
originally drifting sand dunes having a sparse covering of oaks 
and shrubby lupines. The whole tract had the full force of the 
winds directly off the broad Pacific. Mr. John McLaren, the 
superintendent, who is almost wholly responsible for the suc- 
cess attained here tells me that in some cases when the roads 
were constructed he would return in the morning and find his 
work covered with sand ten feet deep which had to be shoveled 
off before construction work could be continued. In other cases 
he was obliged to plant the surfaces four times in succession be- 
fore he succeeded in establishing plants. In spite of his best ef- 
forts the young plants would at times be blown out root and 
branch by the wind. The sand w'as first held in place by plan- 
tations of beach grass which is common to both the Atlantic and 
Pacific coasts. At the same time the seeds of the shrubby 
lupines were sown. After the surface was once fairly well fixed 
by the beach grass, plantations of Monterey pines, Monterey 
cypress, several varieties of acacia and leptospermum were made, 
which after a time became sufficiently well established to form a 
shelter for a larger variety of trees and shrubs. The pines will 
establish themselves and grow a few years on the bare sand. 
They soon lose their color, however, and after a time fail unless 
four or five inches of loam is added to the surface. It is surpris- 
ing then to see what a wonderful difference in growth and color 
the pines assume after one or two years growth. Golden Gate 
Park is not one of the parks where all the undergrowth is cleaned 
out. The plantations along the side of the path and those facing 
down plantations of larger trees are exceedingly luxuriant. The 
plantations are distinguished by their breadth and simplicity, for 
a few varieties that are absolutely reliable at all times predom- 
inate. These plants are supplemented however by an immense 
variety of flowering or edging shrubs, herbs and ground covering 
plants, but the contrasts are not made so marked as to give the 
plantations the mixed character that one so often sees. They 
simulate all that is attractive in natural plantations to a re- 
markable degree. There are no earth surfaces and no trimmed 
edges to beds. The whole visible surface is covered with a lux- 
uriant growth of ferns and thousands of hardy flowering plants 
in many varieties. The most unfortunate feature of the park is 
the tendency to permit the introduction of architectural struct- 
ures, statuary, etc., which have no place in a natural landscape. 
Every student of park planting, can well afford to make a pil- 
grimage to Golden Gate Park.” 
