PARK AND CE-ME-TE-R.Y 
33 
tainly setting the pace for other tree planting associa- 
tions. Mr. Vortriede attributes the success of the 
club largely to the fact that two editors of "our wide 
awake local press” and Mr. Johannes Reimers, land- 
scape gardener and author, are officers and active 
workers in the organization. They, and the member- 
ship, are certainly to be congratulated on the kind of 
work they elect to do and on the way in which they go 
about it. Think of it. More than 1,000 trees in one 
day set along the borders of country roads leading 
into the town ! Won’t somebody please report plant- 
ing that number of wild crab apple and native thorn 
trees somewhere and for the same purpose? And how 
inspiring it would be if others would follow this good 
example and send in reports oi their work. 
>!< * * 
There is an epidemic of Improvement Clubs in and 
around Chicago this spring. They are springing up 
with true Spring vigor and almost too rapidly to be 
counted. It is not alone the number, but the charac- 
ter of these organizations, and makes them notable. 
The}- are nothing if not in downright earnest. They 
now aspire, presently they will perspire, but let us 
hope that they will not follow Mr. Saltus' epigram of 
life and presently expire. Kenwood, the aristocratic 
south side suburb (so-called though it is miles inside 
the city limits), has perfected an organization planned 
on the lines of the South Park Association that did 
such good work last year as to call down much and 
verv favorable attention upon itself and its members. 
This new society was formed at a meeting called bv a 
committee from the Chicago Women’s Club, which, it 
Garden Plants— Their 
Conifer ales 
Abies, ‘‘the silver firs.” are in 20 species, natives of 
the moist mountain slopes of the Northern Hemis- 
phere, south to the Himalayas, Algeria, and Central 
America, generally at elevations above 3,000 feet. 
They have 4-8 leafy cotyledons — some say in fives, 
two-ranked flat narrow leaves, silvery underneath and 
sometimes above. The usually bractescent cones grow 
as a rule on the upper sides of the branches, and are 
erect, not pendant, as in Picea. 
The trees are mostly noble pyramids of great height. 
In cultivation they are beautiful when young, but sev- 
eral become prematurely shabby and bare at bottom, 
the worst generally being the swamp balsameas in all 
forms, Frazeri, Sibirica, which even in the West of 
Scotland requires moist soils, Veitchii, firma and 
homolepis. It cannot be said that the cultivation of 
this sub-tribe is a howling success on the lowlands 
of the Atlantic slope, for without a doubt they are 
commonly planted in too dry and hot places. At Ot- 
tawa, according to a revised list kindly forwarded by 
the director, Dr. Saunders, Abies Concolor, the white 
or gray barked fir of California and Arizona, etc. 
is said, has undertaken to form similar associations 
throughout the city. Hurrah ! When the Chicago 
Women’s Club puts its shoulder to the wheel the spokes 
speedily become invisible. 
Emulation of the South Park Improvement Associa- 
tion seems also to be at the root of the formation of 
the Hyde Park Improvement Club just organized by 
prominent public-spirited citizens of that solid and 
very desirable section of the city. 
* * * 
Over on the Rock Island road the citizens of a string 
of suburbs along “the ridge” (a beautifully wooded 
and attractive region ) , are going the lake shore im- 
provement workers at least “one better” by banding 
themselves into a sort of serial or, shall one sav pro- 
gressive organization, to the end of making that al- 
ready naturally attractive locality so desirable as a 
place to live that evidently flats must soon be resorted 
to to accommodate the people who will flock there. 
The places included in this wholesale movement are 
(beginning at the southern end of the ridge) Blue 
Island, Morgan Park, Tracy, Walden, Longwood and 
Beverly Hills. It is said to be the intention to "secure 
the services of competent landscape gardeners to plan 
improvements that shall make the ridge the garden 
spot of Cook County.” 
We are indebted to Mr. J. Horace McFarland, Har- 
risburg, Pa., for the photographs of billboards illus- 
trated in this department last month. Acknowledg- 
ment of this courtesv was inadvertently omitted. 
Geography— LXXXVIII. 
Continued. 
Gardening. 
ABIES CEPHALONICA. 
