An international flower show by the So- 
ciety of American Florists and Orna- 
mental Horticulturists was held last month 
in New York City, from April 5 to 12. 
Twenty thousand dollars were offered in 
prizes and the splendid display was staged 
in the Grand Central Palace. 
According to an opinion of the Con- 
troller of the Treasury, Congress failed 
to make specific appropriation for the ac- 
quirement of land for the parkway con- 
nection between Potomac Park and the 
Zoological Park, Washington, D. C., by 
way of the valley of Rock Creek. How- 
over, the commission will proceed with the 
condemnation proceedings. 
The commissioners of Waco, Tex., have 
purchased ten acres of land lying be- 
tween Cameron and Baker parks, which 
remove the barrier preventing consolida- 
tion. The city now owns about 100 acres 
in a continuous strip along the edge of 
the cedars. 
An estimate of the cost of making her 
lake shore park of 238 acres, including 
breakwater of some 8,400 lineal feet and 
reclaiming the land, would give Milwau- 
kee, Wis., one of the cheapest parks she 
owns, so far as land values are concerned. 
The Lake Park, purchased in 1890, is the 
lowest in original cost, for which the city 
paid $2,157 per acre. The proposed lake 
shore park is estimated to cost $1,470 per 
acre. 
The second annual report of the Van- 
couver, B. C., Parks Board says that “the 
year which has just closed was the ban- 
ner year in the history of the park sys- 
tem.” 
Theo. Wirth, superintendent of parks, 
Minneapolis, Minn., and vice-president of 
the Society of American Florists, has pre- 
pared a plan for an outdoor exhibition of 
planting to be held during the annual con- 
vention of the florists at Minneapolis in 
August next. The Board of Park Commis- 
sioners offers the use of the land free and 
will prepare it for the occasion. This 
would be a unique feature, of which the 
grow'ers of plants and shrubs used in land- 
scape gardening will undoubtedly be glad 
to avail themselves. 
Public playgrounds for children in 
every forty acres or less plat in Iowa 
cities are assured in an accepted amend- 
ment made by Representative Bernbrock, 
of Waterloo, to the bill by Boettger, of 
Davenport, relative to new city plats. The 
Bernbrook amendment provides that in 
the future every plat of land made in a 
city shall have set aside and dedicated to 
the city as a public playground for chil- 
dren one block of the same size as other 
blocks, not less than 250 feet square, ex- 
clusive of streets adjacent thereto. If 
more than forty acres is platted at one 
time, it is provided a block shall be set 
aside for each forty acres platted. 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
Harrisburg, Pa., in the past eleven years 
has increased its park lands from 50 to 
890 acres. With a population of 64,000, 
the city now has one acre of parks to 
every 76 of its population, an average only 
exceeded, perhaps, by three cities in the 
country. 
A special committee of business men of 
Springfield has started upon a campaign 
which, it is expected, will result in the 
approval of a mill tax levy which will in- 
sure for Springfied a system of free parks 
and playgrounds. 
In order to reach the meeting of the Na- 
tional Conference on City Planning at 
Chicago, May 5-7, and secure the benefit 
of suggestion from those actively inter- 
ested in city planning, the School of Land- 
scape Architecture of Harvard University 
is issuing a Preliminary Outline of its 
City-planning Classification Scheme, by 
James S. Pray and Theodora Kimball, 
giving the main headings, with some in- 
dication of the material to be included in 
the fuller scheme. This Preliminary Out- 
line may be obtained at 10 cents a copy 
from the Harvard University Press after 
May 1st. The City-planning Classification 
Scheme, with alphabetic subject-index, may 
be ordered in advance, or obtained as soon 
as issued (about June 1st), at 50 cents a 
copy, from the Harvard University Press, 
Cambridge, Mass. 
The following National Park publica- 
tions may be obtained free of charge from 
the Secretary of the Interior, Washing- 
ton, D. C. : List of national park publica- 
tions ; an annotated list of books, govern- 
ment publications, and magazine articles on 
the national parks ; national park pictures, 
collected and exhibited by the Department 
of the Interior. The following informa- 
tion circulars contain data regarding hotels, 
camps and principal points of interest, lists 
of books and magazine articles, sketch 
maps, and rules and regulations : General 
information regarding Yellowstone Na- 
tional Park; general information regard- 
ing Yosemite National Park; general in- 
formation regarding Mount Ranier Na- 
tional Park ; general information regarding 
Crater Lake National Park; general infor- 
mation regarding Mesa Verde National 
Park; general information regarding Se- 
quoia and General Grant National parks; 
general information regarding the Hot 
Springs of Arkansas; general information 
regarding Glacier National Pork. 
In order to complete comprehensive 
plans for the extension and improvement 
of the park system adopted two years ago 
the Medford, Mass., park commissioners 
have asked for authority to borrow $100.- 
000 outside the city’s debt limit. 
At the annual meeting of the South 
Park Commissioners of Chicago, held in 
March, all the officers, including John 
53 
Barton Payne, who continues as president 
of the board, were re-elected. Albert 
Mohr succeeded to the commissionership 
vacated by Henry G. Foreman, whose term 
had expired. A $620, 000 bond issue was 
passed, of which $500,000 is for park im- 
provements and $120,000 for paving im- 
provements. 
The total expenditures for Buffalo’s park 
system last year were $328,836.02, of which 
$209,358.87 was paid out for ordinary care 
and maintenance; $53,920.92 for new 
buildings, and $65,556.23 for the work of 
the forestry department. 
Thirty-two Central American swans, the 
gift of Colonel Jacob Ruppert, part of his 
collection at his estate on Long Island, to 
New York’s park commissioners, have 
been placed on the Central Park lakes 
and in the flying cage in the Central Park 
menagerie. Colonel Ruppert explained 
that the birds’ presence on his estate w'as 
not approved by other species of sw'an 
there and that fights had resulted. 
The Park Commission of New Haven, 
Conn., adopted the plan for beautifying 
the central green as proposed by Frederic 
Law Olmsted. The plan calls for a mall 
twenty-four feet wide extending from 
Elm and College streets around three sides 
of the green to the corner of College and 
Chapel, with no mall on the College 
street side for the present, at any rate. 
Elm trees will border it. 
The following publications issued by the 
Department of the Interior are for sale by 
the Superintendent of Documents, Govern- 
ment Printing Office, Washington, D. C. : 
Geological History of the Yellowstone Na- 
tional Park, by Arnold Hague; 24 pages, 
including 10 illustrations ; 10 cents. Gey- 
sers, by Walter Llarvey Weed; 32 pages, 
including 23 illustrations ; 10 cents. Geo- 
logical History of Crater Lake, Oregon, by 
Joseph S. Differ ; 32 pages, including 28 
illustrations; 10 cents. Some Lakes of 
Glacier National Park, by M. J. Elrod; 32 
pages, including 19 illustrations ; 10 cents. 
Sketch of Yosemite National Park and an 
Account of the Origin of the Yosemite and 
Hetch Hetchy Valleys, by F. E. Matthes; 
48 pages, including 24 illustrations ; 10 
cents. Analyses of the Waters of the Hot 
Springs of Arkansas, by J. K. Haywood, 
and Geological Sketch of Hot Springs, 
Ark., by Walter Harvey Weed; 55 pages; 
10 cents. Proceedings of the National Park 
Conference held at Yellowstone National 
Park, September 11 and 12, 1911; 210 
pages; 15 cents. Contains a discussion of 
national park problems by officers of the 
government and other persons. Remit- 
tances for these publications should be 
made by money order, payable to the Su- 
perintendent of Documents, Government 
Printing Office, Washington, D. C., or in 
cash. Checks and postage stamps cannot 
be accepted. 
