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PARK AND CE/AETERY 
A Few Words From A Landscape Gardener. * 
Landscape gardening has for its object the pre- 
servation and development of out door beauty. I 
am glad of this opportunity to make a plea to en- 
gineers for the preservation of pleasing features 
in our landscape, because engineers and surveyors 
may exert so much influence in this direction. 
An enumeration of a few cases where unnecessary 
damage has been done will serve to introduce the 
subject. . A piece of land was purchased for its fine 
trees, a rapid stream of water that flowed through 
it, and its proximity to Lake Michigan. A survey- 
or was engaged to determine the boundary of the 
tract. One of the lines which he ran for this pur- 
pose happened to pass through an old red cedar, 
which the axman did not hesitate to mutilate by 
cutting off half the branches. The tree had stood 
by itself and was exceptionally perfect. If its val- 
ue as an ornamental tree could be given in dollars 
and cents (but this is a poor way of estimating the 
value of such a tree) it would be placed at fifty to 
one hundred dollars. Cutting the tree saved, per- 
haps, half an hour’s time for the surveyor. 
A few years since, in visiting a suburb of 
Chicago, which was fortunate enough to have a 
native forest growth, I was pleased to see that 
some of the original trees had been left along the 
roadside. An old oak with a thornapple tree that 
stood near, made a delightful group. There were 
alsp maples, lindens and hickories. When I saw 
this street a year or two later it had been improv- 
ed (?). Its grade had been changed slightly and 
the fine old trees, in picturesque groups, we-e re- 
moved to make room for straight rows of little 
elms. 
In one of the older cities in New York maples, 
elms and other trees were planted at an early day. 
They were placed from fifteen to twenty feet apart 
in rows on each side of the street. In a few years 
they crowded each other and shut out light and air 
from the houses, so the lower branches were cut off, 
and this process of trimming went on until in many 
cases the naked trunks, with ugly scars, where the 
branches had been removed, reached above the 
the second story windows. The upper branches 
spread across the street and over the houses, com- 
pletely shading everything but the back yards. 
In the outskirts of another city in New York 
lived a man whose grounds along the street bound- 
ary were fringed with native dogwoods, sumachs, 
Juneberries, witch hazel and sassafras, with here 
and there a wild grape or virgin’s bower. In cer- 
tain nooks golden rods and wild asters found homes, 
so that this group of native growth formed as in- 
* By O. C. Siinonds, in T/ie Technic, ’94, University of Michigan. 
teresting a collection of foliage and flowers as 
could be found along the highways for miles. But 
one day the fever for improvement seized the owner 
of the land and he had all the “brush” grubbed 
out. He then hailed a passing acquaintance who, 
he knew, had some skill and good taste in planting, 
imforming him that he wished to plant some shrubs 
and would like his assistance in selecting and 
arranging them. The man of taste replied that it 
would take ten years to produce an effect of shrub- 
bery as good as that which had just been destroyed. 
I mention trees and shrubs first because they are 
the materials with which a landscape gardener 
works— his paints. There are, however, other 
features over which the engineer has entire control 
— features which have much to do with the appear- 
ance and comfort of our surroundings, and hence 
come within range of the landscape gardener’s crit- 
icism. These are grades, location of catch basins, 
sidewalks, curbing and frequently the location of 
the street itself. How often do we see profiles 
made with straight lines, frequently perfectly level, 
when a slight curve would save expense, keep the 
road bed drier, and improve the appearance of the 
street. Catch basins for receiving the surface 
water are very generally placed at the street inter 
sections, making unnecessary steps at crossings and 
often obstructing these crossings with water 
during heavy rains. There will seldom be any 
difficulty in placing catch basins at some distance 
from corners, thus keeping the passageway for 
those on foot high and dry. Again, sidewalks are 
usually made to follow the grade of the roadway, 
when there is no real reason why they should do so, 
excepting the desire of the engineer to simplify his 
own work. In residence districts streets are usual- 
ly sixty-six feet wide, thus leaving a space of six to 
ten feet in width for grass and trees between the 
road-bed and the sidewalk. Where entrance drives 
to private grounds are not desired, no harm comes 
from leaving the sidewalk one, two, or even three 
feet above the street grade. Such an arrangement 
would frequently save fine old trees and also the 
expense of regrading and planting residence 
grounds. The steeper slopes could be covered 
with hardy shrubs, which would give a pleasingly 
varied and homelike effect 
In one of the most desirable residence districts of 
Chicago the streets are nearly all macadamized. Stone 
curbing separates the macadam from the grass plat. 
I have just measured this curbing in many places 
and find it to project from six to fourteen inches 
above the adjacent surface of the roadway. In 
such localities, where driveways are constructed of 
gravel, broken stone or asphalt, curbstones are not 
only expensive and unsightly but worse than use- 
