PARK AND CEMETERY 
87 
< PARK NOTES. > 
Landscape gardening, the art of embellishing grounds, de- 
mands a high appreciation of natural scenery and an ability to 
represent it in grounds. — L. H. Bailey. 
* 4t * 
Mr. John P. Hier has announced in the Syracuse, N. Y., 
Herald, his intention of endowing the city with a little park at 
the West Genesee street triangle, the option on the necessary 
property having been secured by him . Such public gifts are 
among the most enduring of monuments. 
* * * 
The commission created by the last legislature of Minnesota 
to purchase the site of old Fort Ridgely for the purpose of a 
public park and to erect a monument thereon, have concluded 
negociations for the necessary land and have practically decided 
upon the character of the monument. 
* » * 
The Park Commissioners of San Francisco having no funds to 
expend on a scheme of lighting by electricity the main road of 
Golden Gate Park to the ocean beach, an organization of citizens 
has been formed for the purpose, which under agreement with 
the board will furnish and maintain a lighting system. 
* » » 
An article in the By laws of a Western Cemetery decrees 
that there shall be annually set aside ten per cent of all sales of 
lots as a perpetual care fund. This should be amended without 
delay for the accruing amount will be altogether inadequate for 
the purpose intended. It should be at least 20 per cent. 
* * * , 
At the recent meeting of the Park Commissioners of New 
York City, a communication was received from Mr. Cornelius 
Vanderbilt to the effect that $250,000 had been received by sub- 
scription for the Botanical Garden in Bronx Park, and request- 
ing the Board to set apart 250 acres of land for the purpose. 
* * » 
The incorporated Soldiers and Sailors Monument Associa- 
tion of Livingston, N. Y., has purchased a site for a monument 
in the town which will be improved and set out in trees and 
shrubs that the proposed name “Memorial Park” may not be 
inappropriate. Herein is a suggestion for soldiers memorials 
— parks . 
* * * 
The estimated cost of the improvements about the Grant 
monument, which the Grant Monument Association desires New 
York City to carry out is put at some $350,000. This is to con- 
demn property between Riverside drive and the boulevard di- 
rectly east of the monument, and to extend and widen certain 
thoroughfares so as to provide a new approach with an uninter- 
rupted view of the monument. 
•St » * 
Mr. William C. Tallmadge has donated to the village of 
Mechanicville, N. Y., ten acres of land, valuedat $5000 an acre, 
for a park. Some months ago hfe volunteered to give the land 
on condition that the village buy up several lots that had been 
sold. This was refused and Mr. Tallmadge a few days ago gave 
the trustees a deed and thus solved the question like a true ben- 
efactor. 
■St * * 
Peabody, Mass., appears to have finally settled the question, 
over which so much time has been spent, viz; what to do with 
her legacies for park purposes. At an adjourned meeting the 
question was favorably passed upon, the vote standing 170 to 23. 
This will give the town a park of over 23 acres, and counting the 
use of the land recently purchased by the Essex Agricultural 
Society 10 acres more. 
Mr. Thomas Meehan, of Philadelphia, has been the means 
of adding twenty-seven small parks to that city within the past 
ten years. These comprise in area some 775 acres, and con- 
cerning such small city parks, he urges that their use as play 
grounds should never be losfsight of, and the needs of the 
people being thus forseen and provided for, their maintenance 
will be more readily adjusted. 
* * •» 
The city of Galveston, Texas, is singularly devoid of parks, 
due to the sandy nature of the soil. Situated on an island one and 
a half to two miles wide by thirty miles long, whereon every tree 
has had to be brought over and planted, it is hardly to be ex- 
pected that parks would form an important feature. The few 
parks that exist are simply improved blocks, and private gardens 
exist only for what can be made out of them by their gardener 
owners. 
-x- * « 
The total area of the West Parks system of Chicago, includ- 
ing boulevards, is 957.25 acres, of which 360.60 acres are com- 
prised in the boulevards. Of the park lands proper 407.44 acres 
are improved, and there are 33.20 miles of improved drives. The 
South Park system embraces, including boulevards, 1306.75 acres, 
of which the parks take 994.9 acres. Of the park area 390 . 2 
acres are improved and there are 35.55 miles of improved drives. 
Lincoln Park contains over 300 acres, to which additions are 
being made and extensive improvements in progress. The parks, 
boulevards and cemeteries of Chicago aggregate over 4000 acres. 
* * -x 
The new board of park commissioners at Hartford, Conn, 
have decided upon a park for poor people, says the Meriden, 
Conn., Journal. About fifty acres in the northeast part of that 
city, bordered by the Connecticut river, has been secured. It is 
near the most thickly settled part of the city. If the new park 
board put the matter in the language printed, il evidently is not 
composed of men touched by the pronounced spirit of the age. 
All the public parks of every city are more necessary and pri- 
marily more particularly intended for those not blessed with 
means than the wealthy classes. 
•X * * 
An act has been passed by the legislature of Indiana to 
establish a Department of Public Parks in cities of over 100,000 
inhabitants according to the last preceding United States census 
and creating a board of Park Commissioners. The act provides 
a board of five members to be appointed by the Mayor, who 
shall serve without compensation, but whose expenses and clerk 
hire shall be supplied. It further prescribes the duties of said 
board, its powers, features under its control and financial condi- 
tions. It also defines certain relations between the city author- 
ities and the board, and the methods to be pursued in acquiring 
property and assessing for payments for same. 
XXX 
In connection with a description of Broadway Park, the sec- 
ond of the system of small parks being carried out by the Park 
Commissioners of Cambridge, Mass., the Tribune of that city 
says of such parks: “One of the greatest blessings of small park 
areas m the midst of busy cities is to those who have occasion to 
pass through them to some point beyond. To many a tired 
workman returning from his day’s labor the passage through a 
space of refreshing green, where severe utility gives place to 
other ideas, affords him a rest and prepares him the better to 
meet his family, and while but few of the many who receive this 
benefit ever give any expression of it beyond a more cheerful 
countenance and a lighter step, these benefits are none the less 
real because so seldom spoken of. It does the workman no wrong 
to entice him to linger for a moment in the midst of park sur- 
roundings.” Nothing is truer, and the argument is a potent one 
in favor of the small city park. 
