i 82 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
brous; lower surface brownish silveiy. Flowers April-Ma}', t-2, 
whitish. F'ruit pendulous on long .slender peduncles, % in. 
long, 'A in. wide. Japrn. .\t one time cultivated for its 
fruits which are large, scarlet, abundantly produced and 
somewhat tart. Fruit ripens end of June. Hardy at Bos'.on. 
//. Leaves Persistent. 
A. Branchlets of the current year silver}' white. 
B. E. macrophylla, Thunb. A shrub attaining a height or 
6 feet. Leaves ovate or broad el iptic, upper surface covered 
with few scales, eventually becoming dark green, low'er surface 
silvery white. Flowers, August, silvery. Japan. Not hardy 
at Boston. 
.\A. Branches of the current year brown or chocolate col- 
ored. 
B. E. pungens, Thunb. E. reflexa, Hort. A shrub attain- 
ing a height of 6 feet. Leaves ob'ong or oval, margins undu- 
lated, upper surface light green, lower surface silvery. Japan. 
Not hardy at Boston. Emil Mische. 
ANGLES AND INCLINED PLANES IN HIGHWAYS, 
Probably nine out of every ten people are un- 
consciously impressed by the ironclad rigidity of 
the lines of streets and roads, both in grade and 
direction; probably not one in a hundred is im- 
pressed consciously, or public opinion would have 
made the lines less rigid and the grades less awk- 
ward. Whoever will take the trouble to observe 
cannot but be struck by the difference between the 
picturesque and restful aspect of a road that was 
laid out before the memory of man, and the aver- 
age modern street or boulevard. The reason is, 
that the road followed the natural lines of the 
ground, and the boulevard was laid out by the 
engineer. 
In the thick centres of population it is no doubt 
essential that lines should run parallel and angles 
meeting at a point should add up so as to be exact- 
ly equal to four right angles; that grades should 
rise and fall without preparation, or many feet of 
inestimable real estate might be lost to buildings 
or light wells. But, where land is less valuable, 
in country and suburban districts, and wherever 
roads and streets are laid out with any regard to 
aesthetic effect on which in fact, more or less of 
their value depends, why is the use of suave and 
flowing lines so generally disregarded? Why are 
grades always angular and angles gawky? Why 
cannot a road or street turn off by an easy curve 
instead of two restless and hostile straight lines? 
And if the two straight lines are indispensable, 
why can they not be united by a curve, if it is only 
in the curbstone? If the road or street must rise 
or fall, as every road or street must if it is long 
enough, why cannot its rises and falls melt into 
each other imperceptibly by the endless phases of 
the ogee curve in which Hogarth discovered his 
line of beauty? Why has nobody who makes high- 
ways perceived how nature has made her scenes 
peaceful and soothing by covering the gaunt skele- 
ton of the earth with alluvial deposit in tlie whole 
of which there is not a straight line? Why, in 
short, should our streets and roads be forever 
gaunt in line, unyielding in grade and generally 
ugly in effect? 
The probable answer is that straight lines and 
angles, either in direction or surface, are easy to 
calculate or lay dowm, while curves are difficult. 
The engineer being trained to reduce all indefinite 
lines to definite ones, reduces all his grades and 
changes of course to the lowest terms of his ver- 
niers and the public gets the result. Everybody 
knows these results, or can learn to see them by 
looking about him, for they are obvious wherever 
the surveyor has been with his transit and put 
down parallel lines for houses to be built along. 
