PARK AND CEMETERY. 
33 
PARK NOTES. > 
The park system of Minneapolis, Minn., comprises 1500 
acres. 
* * * 
A scheme has been approved for a park at Birket’s Hollow, 
Peoria, 111 . 
* * * 
A new park, Indian Mound, will soon be opened to the pub- 
lic at Hannibal, Mo. 
* -!f ie 
The Park Commissioners of Scranton, Pa., are contemplat- 
ing the extension of Nay Aug Park. 
* » * 
By the gift of Levi W. Phelps, of six acres of land, Ayer, 
Mass , has an opportunity for a park. 
Rockland, Me., is considering a suggestion of Mr. John 
Jones respecting a fine location for a public park. 
* * X 
Plans have been made for the improvement of the public 
square at Tyler, Tex., so as to convert it into a park. 
* * * 
Among the annual appropriations of the city of Concord, N. 
H., is an amount of $6,600 for parks and cemeteries. 
XXX 
Newburyport, Mass., has its park benefactor, and Fountain 
Park is the object of continual improvement at his hands. 
XXX 
Plans are being considered by the Park Commissioners at 
Cambridge, Mass., for the improvement of Winthrop Square. 
XXX 
The Lincoln homestead, in Larue County, Ky , has been 
purchased by an association at Hodgenville, to be converted into 
a public park. 
XXX 
Property owners about Demong Park, Syracuse, N.Y., have 
decided to raise $2,000 for a fountain for that park. An example 
worthy of emulation. 
XXX 
One electric light is better than half a dozen policemen in 
maintaining order in a park, says Mr. Wm .S. Egerton, Superin- 
tendent of Parks, Albany, N. Y. 
XXX 
The Illinois House of Representatives has unanimously 
passed the bill appropriating $35,000 for the repairs and care of 
the Lincoln Monument at Springfield. 
XXX 
Hyde Park, Mass., has made an appropriation of $21,000 for 
the purchase of thirty acres, known as “High Rock,” in the 
northern part of the town, for park purposes. 
* * * 
A park ordinance which has been introduced in the city 
council of Decatur, 111 ., provides that a tax levy of two mills on 
the dollar shall be made for park and boulevard purposes . 
XXX 
Within the past year Hartford, Conn., has received gifts of 
three large parks. With two of these sufficient money was left 
to improve them in the best manner. One donor gave land, an- 
other land and money, the third money to buy and care for the 
land. 
XXX 
The World, New York, says: Some residents of theCorlears 
Hook neighborhood, who have trees and plants in their back 
yards are missing some of them, and have traced them to the 
spacious square at Corlears Hook. They siy it is all the fault of 
the poorer classes who insist on having the park constructed in 
spite of the delay by the city authorities. 
XXX 
The improvements in progress in Rogers Williams Park, 
Providence, R. I. , include an eight mile boulevard skirting a 
chain of lakes, which cover some 1 13 acres and have a 2/4” miles 
straight course. One of the islands in the lakes is 32 acres in 
extent and this will be made attractive. It is expected that a 
large revenue will be derived from the water features. 
XXX 
The method of continuous maintenance was tried on the 
park boulevards of Albany last year, instead of the usual system 
of periodical attention. A man was put in charge of an avenue 
to cut grass, clean up debris, clear gutters and to report repairs 
needed. According to the report of the superintendent this 
method gave greater satisfaction and was more economical. 
* * X 
It is becoming an exception to take up a newspaper of any 
importance without finding some space devoted to park matters 
and all over the country there is manifest an increasing public 
interest in this important branch of community economics. We 
are living in an enlightened age of which the growing tendency 
to increase and improve the public park is a sure indication. 
X . X X 
The Sheridan road, a magnificent driveway to skirt Lake 
Michigan from Chicago to Waukegan, a distance of 36 miles, is 
progressing satisfactorily. The scheme is one worthy of consid- 
eration by all our larger cities, having favorable conditions for 
such an addition to its park and boulevard system. It varies in 
width between fifty and one hundred feet, connects with the 
grand boulevard scheme of Chicago, and en route, utilizes all the 
bluffs and ravines on the lake shore to produce picturesque 
effects. 
XXX 
Sometime ago the legislature of New York appropriated 
$250,000 for the establishment of a Botanical Park, on condition 
that $250,000 more should be raised from private sources. It 
was recently reported that all but a small amount of this sum 
had been secured, which with another $250,000 to be given by 
New York City, making in all $750,000, should possibly provide 
one of the finest parks of the kind in the world. Two hundred 
and fifty acres lying on both sides of the beautiful Bronx River 
are to be laid out, and when completed will undoubtedly sur- 
pass any of the few parks of like character in the country. 
* * -Jf 
The Pennsylvania legislature in 1865 appropriated $26,000 
to acquire and preserve Valley Forge. The act proposed that 
the intrenchments, redoubts and fortifications, of which there are 
considerable remains, shall be maintained as nearly as possible 
in their original condition as a military camp. Title has been 
acquired to over 200 acres, but the commission asks for more 
funds and authority to extend the boundaries to include the outer 
intrenchments of Valley Forge camp, — an increase of some 300 
acres. This park would enclose the whole of Washington’s win- 
ter quarters. A further sum of $50,000 is asked and public ap- 
proval seems to be at the back of the commission. 
* X * 
The Essex County, N. J., Park project of which an extended 
account was given in our last issue, was carried by a majority 
of 20,000 on the election on April 9. This wisely developed 
scheme received a cordial endorsement from press and people 
and comprehensive as it is, taking in a whole county of varied, 
topography, and covering a proposed acreage of 4,500, its prog- 
ress will be watched with much interest. The amount to be 
raised within a limited number of years is $2,500,000, which is 
small considering the condition of the county. The plan out- 
lined comprises four large parks to take in the best topographic- 
al features of the county with the finest natural scenery, to be 
connected by parkways, broken at intervals by smaller parks to 
form breathing places in the more thickly populated locations 
The scenery of Essex County includes the bold trap rock range 
of the Orange Mountains and generally affords exceptional op- 
portunities for splendid public parks. 
