PARK AND CEMETERY 
AND LANDSCAPE GARDENING 
Vol. XXII. Chicago, April, 1912 No. 2. 
The Playground and Recreation Association 
The annual meeting of the Playground and Recreation 
Association will be held in Cleveland, Ohio, June 5-8, 
this summer, and no movement in the country promises 
more good for the young generation now beginning its 
career than wisely taught and carefully supervised play. 
No sooner had the playground idea got a footing in the 
community and a few public playgrounds were estab- 
lished, than the actual need of trained supervision ex- 
pressed itself unmistakably, and the necessity is being 
met by educational authorities in courses of instruction 
and practice, to provide supervisors and teachers for 
playground requirements. It has already been clearly 
shown that where playgrounds are furnished with trained 
supervision, they show immediate and clear results, quite 
in contrast with those which are left to themselves and 
their patrons, which have not, and cannot, very well 
make good. But play is such a necessity in the develop- 
ment of human kind, with such intense effect on the fu- 
ture citizen according as it may be wisely directed, that 
its vast potentiality is recognized, and all educators as 
well as intelligent communities are rapidly striving to 
meet the situation, and the Playground Association 
should receive very generous sympathy and help. 
Ng V? N? 
The Importance of Parkways 
In a letter to the Sacramento, Calif., "Union,” in refer- 
ence to the proposed Del Paso Parkway, Mr. John Nolen, 
Landscape Architect of Cambridge, Mass., lays particular 
stress upon the value of parkway connections between 
parks, and draws attention to the convincing experience 
of some of the large European cities. It is a regrettable 
fact that many of our large American cities are now 
realizing the great oversight in this regard that has been 
made in the past; and while strenuous effort and enor- 
mous cost may in a measure make up for past neglect, 
the probabilities are that better results would have been 
secured by appreciation of conditions at the earlier time. 
Well located, properly conceived and appropriately com- 
pleted parkways, between the several parks of any city, 
will pay enormous dividends on the capital invested, not 
only in actual cash to the abutting owners and to the city 
treasury, but in the health and pleasure of the inhabi- 
tants. Upon this, as Mr. Nolen says, depends the mak- 
ing of real park systems. 
N? Ng Ng 
Utilizing the Vacant Lots 
At this season it is timely to suggest to our readers 
that they can do much toward promoting the' excellent 
work of utilizing the vacant lots in their communities. 
To say nothing of the uselessness and shiftlessness of 
permitting vacant lots to remain uncared for, and the 
very certain fact that instead of beauty spots they be- 
come sore spots, there is the fact that opportunities for 
profitable gardening operations which might be highly 
beneficial and helpful to numbers of people are entirely 
overlooked. Why not help some less fortunate fellow 
citizen to cultivate the vacant lot so that while helping 
himself he would most certainly keep the lot in far bet- 
ter condition than the vacant lot usually presents? Ways 
and means to bring this about will readily come when 
the benefits on both sides of the question are realized. 
This is good work for the Improvement Association to 
consider. 
vg sg sg 
An Agricultural College Departure 
At a quite recent meeting of the Board of Curators of 
the University of Missouri, the College of Agriculture of 
that State was authorized to place a limited number of 
trained agricultural men in counties or localities during 
the present year, and this plan has been adopted as a 
possible way of reaching a greater number of farmers 
with the instruction that has proven so profitable. By 
the way, the great number of requests for the services 
of the college men moved the Board of Curators to thus 
meet the demand. The State pays 25 per cent of the 
salaries and the community is expected to provide the 
balance. There is no shadow of a doubt that such a 
method of imparting practical knowledge will not only 
meet a long felt but little appreciated want on the part of 
the farmer, but will immensely add to the agricultural de- 
velopment of the State. Farm management, in its proper 
sense, is understood but by a small fraction of the farm- 
ers of the country, and Missouri by attempting a very 
practical and far-reaching work of instruction is making- 
advances in an economic question of great public value, 
and which may be profitably emulated in every state of 
the Union that has not entered upon some such work; 
and the proposition might be advantageously extended to 
other fields. 
Ng ^ Ng 
The Physician and the Parks 
The “Journal of the American Medical Association” 
claims that the movement for parks and playgrounds be- 
longs to the department of preventive medicine under 
the modern conception of the subject, and few will dis- 
agree with the proposition. Now while the medical pro- 
fession has not been altogether neglectful of its opportu- 
nities in this direction, it cannot truthfully be said that 
it has shown itself to be thoroughly up-to-date in helping 
the cause; for the influence of the physician in the matter 
of urging the development of parks and playgrounds in 
the past should have shown better results in the progress 
of the movement, and that long ago. However, it is a 
happy reflection, and withal, quite true, that it is never 
too late to mend, and as the park movement is yet only 
in its infancy, there is tremendous work ahead of us 
still, and in urging medical men to use their influence 
in the community to promote so great an improvement, 
it is done with the knowledge of their intimate relations 
to society and the value placed upon their judgment in 
all public hygienic questions. It has been suggested that 
physicians and architects should be the leading spirits in 
providing healthful conditions for the people. A promi- 
nent Eastern paper editorially says: “The physician is 
the leader best fitted to direct such movements, and he 
should not lag and leave it to the publicist, the social 
worker, or others less well equipped to appreciate the 
real requirements of the situations.” Generally speak- 
ing, we need more parks and playgrounds in every large 
city; and for the smaller ones the matter should be given 
immediate attention, so as to provide for the future. 
