PARK AND CEMETERY, 
iSi 
An interesting item in the report presented at a recent 
meeting of the park commission of Chattanooga, Tenn., was to 
the effect that upon the streets of that city there were growing 
6,822 trees. 
* * * 
The park idea grows apace in the smaller towns, and many 
are profiting by the advice to provide park areas while property 
is within the reach of their finances. East Aurora, N. Y., has 
voted to appropriate f7,ooo for the purchase of a grove to be de- 
voted to park purposes. 
* * * 
The supreme court of Illinois has decided that the shade 
trees in front of a man’s residence belong to him, although they 
may be located on public property. The case in which the de- 
cision was rendered was one in which the property owner sued 
the telephone company for damages for cutting off the limbs of 
his trees. 
* » * 
The question of a city park at Kirksville, Mo., has been 
settled finally by the City Council, and the city has secured a 
beautiful tract of twenty acres of land in the northwest portion o^ 
the city, which will at once be opened for a park. A subscription 
of several hundred dollars was raised among the merchants to 
provide for improvements on the grounds. The Commercial Club 
has also voted $200 annually for that purpose . 
* * * 
The board of control of the Mackinac Island park, Mich., 
has adopted a resolution providing for the improvement of that 
portion of the park known as the “Fort garden,” in front of the 
old fort. Permission was also granted the Marquette Monu- 
ment Association to erect a monument in some part of this sec- 
tion of the park, which will hereafter be designated as Pere 
Marquette place. 
* * * 
The first assessment under the Minnesota law authorizing 
the board of park commissioners, on petition of the property 
owners and order of the common council, to take charge of 
boulevards for cutting the grass was recently confirmed by the 
board of park commissioners of St. Paul. During the season the 
superintendent of parks has regularly cut the grass on street 
boulevards to the extent of eight and one half miles of street 
frontage, at a total cost to the owners of abutting property of 
$625 67. The cost per front foot for the season has varied, ac- 
cording to the length of time during which the work was done 
and the conditions under which it was done, from i cent to I 73 
cents. 
* * * 
Another important park project under consideration in Chi- 
cago is the parking of the Des Plaines river, which traverses 
some of the finest suburban sections of the city. Boston and 
Minneapolis have already embarked in such waterway parks, 
and the results are more than satisfactory, and the land and 
landscape features about the Des Plaines offer opportunities for 
an extension of the city park system, it would be unwise to neg- 
lect. The territory of which it is proposed to make a park is 
twenty miles in length and a half mile wide on each side of the 
river. It is thought that the towns can obtain the land at a l./w 
price, and several land owners have expressed their willingness 
to donate a part of their holdings. 
» * * 
In the course of an address before the Twentieth Century 
Club, Boston, by Dr. Edward Everett Hale, on “Forestry and 
Village Improvement,” Dr. Hale said; “The state is properly 
the first o.vner, because it can manage forests better than any 
one else. It takes 50 years before an investment in forests 
can be realized. Few individuals can afford to wait that long, 
but the state has all time. Germany derives a large income 
from the forests. Hanover alone 10 years ago derived a yearly 
profit of $700,000. The Germans regard their forest incomes as 
the best. It is time we should be fellow-workers with God and 
replant our hills. We must bring back to the state of Massa- 
chusetts the glory of the first century.” 
* * * 
The 39th annual leport of the board of Park Commissioners 
of Hartford, Conn., has recently been presented to the Common 
Council. It is a pamphlet of nearly 100 pages illustrated with 
29 full page half tones of scenery in the various parks of Hart- 
ford. A large amount of improvement work under able design 
and superintendence is recorded in connection with the princi- 
pal parks. Hartford is particularly favored in park areas, and 
enjoys some exquisite park scenery. The modern view of con- 
necting the parks by parkways laid out in effective designs, has 
gained favor in Hartford, and much attention was given 
to this feature of its system during the past year. In the opin- 
ion of the board with the exception of one or two small pieces of 
land needed to protect and complete purchases already made, 
the present boundary lines embrace all the land to be included 
in the park areas; During the year ending April 30. 1S99, the 
board expended I103 282 09 as against receipts of f 103.388.65. 
We have a few private parks in this country of considerable 
area, though generally lacking the care which hereditary owner- 
ship bestows upon such estates, but compared with the parks of 
the great landowners of Old England, no compari.son can be 
made. In all there are some 334 of these parks many of them 
being several thousand acres in extent. Windsor park and 
Windsor forest cover more than 4,000 acres. The park of the 
marquis of Abergavenny, near Tunbridge Wells, is 2,500 acres 
in extent. Of some of the largest the London Mail in a recent 
article says; “Blenheim park, the seat of the Duke of Marl- 
boro which is twelve miles round, has an acreage of 2,700; the 
herd of deer, at present comprises 770 fallow and sixty-four red 
deer. A curious feature in Blenheim park is an arrangement of 
the oak and cedar trees, which are grouped in separate bodies 
sons to indicate the position of the Dutch and English troops at 
the battle of Blenheim. The largest park in England is Grims- 
thorpe, the property of Lord Aveland, in Lincolnshire. It is no 
less tha 1 sixteen and three-quarters miles in circumference. 
The red deer have been bred here for centuries, although the 
herd is not so numerous as that which roams over the wilds of 
Tatton park, the seat of Lord Egerton, which comprises 2.500 
acres of Cheshire land. The deer here are of extraordinary 
beauty and number 800 fallow and forty red. The finest deer 
in Kent are to be found in Eastwell park, 2,508 acres, the seat 
of the earl of Winchelsea. One of the grandest parks in England 
is Chatsworth, the duke of Devonshire’s seat in Derbyshire. 
Every variety of scenery is to be found in this domain. It is a 
pretty sight in the evening to see the deer quenching their thirst 
in the Derwent, which runs through the grounds. Lord Kim- 
b.rley his restored the deer to his Norfolk park, which were 
removed during the present century by his predecessors and he 
is said to h .ve declared that ‘a park is not a park without deer.” 
In Scotland, while there are not so many parks, the tendency in 
this direction is increasing, as it is also in Ireland. 
