PARK AND CEMETERY 
1 14 
) 
In his latest work, Modern Civic Art 
(G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York), 
Charles Mulford Robinson has made a 
clear, logical, and very nearly consistent 
plea for the introduction of both sci- 
ence and art into the plotting and con- 
struction of towns and cities. He justly 
argues that it is given to but few to plan 
a town or city in its entirety with rea- 
sonable hope and expectation of seeing 
such plans carried to completion, but 
that none the less should correct plans 
be made at the outset so that each step 
of the work shall be a distinct advance 
toward a truly worthy accomplished end, 
no matter how far away that end may be. 
He also points tbe way for those towns 
and cities that, realizing their imperfec- 
tions and needs, would make desirable 
alterations. He takes up each phase of 
such plans and tells specifically what is 
best in each case from the point of view 
of civic art. He sets a standard for the 
makers of towns and of cities so that 
they may know from the inception of the 
work what they should aim for, thus 
making possible a definite goal. Instead 
of, as heretofore, making each street sep- 
arately and with no provision for parks, 
squares or other open spaces, and fol- 
lowing the common hit or miss fashion 
of placing public buildings, he shows that 
such work may and should be ap- 
proached and carried out by scientific 
plans and in accordance with defined ar- 
tistic ideals. All of the physical features 
are aesthetically provided for ; not one 
is left to chance. 
It is a suggestive and helpful book 
and would seem to be opportunely con- 
ceived and brought forth to fill the 
proverbial long felt want — or at least to 
supply a need strongly realized at the 
moment ; and if one rises from its read- 
ing with a somewhat too strongly archi- 
tectural picture in mind, one in which 
the down-town trees remind him of the 
little “shaving” trees of the toy villages 
of childhood, this is wholly due to the re- 
iterated remonstrance against “natural” 
effects and repeated allusions to “small, 
formally trimmed trees.” In fact, Mr. 
Robinson’s distrust of the propriety of 
using naturally grown trees and shrubs 
as a background and setting for statuary, 
and his open advocacy of limiting plant- 
ing on streets that are fairly well down- 
town, to small, clipped trees indicates 
the stilted taste of those in sympathy 
with architecture rather than with land- 
scape art. 
If we are to understand the author to 
mean that trees and shrubs must be 
clipped into formal shapes to be in har- 
mony with statuary and with closely 
built up streets, which is the impression 
received, there are those who will, at 
least mentally, take issue with such a 
proposition. The canons of landscape 
art clearly admit the use of naturally 
grown material for such positions and 
purposes, always provided that it is se- 
lected, placed and treated with knowl- 
edge, judgment and taste. 
Mr. Robinson’s book is so good, its 
standard is so high, its teachings so up- 
lifting not only in the lessons of prac- 
tically artistic city building, but in those 
“higher ideals of modern civic art as 
applied to moral, intellectual and ad- 
ministrative progress,” that one dislikes 
to find the one note which destroys its 
artistic balance. 
If the points cited, minor though they 
may be, are out of key with the tenor of 
the work, as seems to us to be true, then 
they are unfortunately made and must 
prove harmful. 
The book claims to teach what a vast 
number of people are supposed to be at 
the moment eager to become informed 
about, and it probably meets the need 
more completely than any other one 
work yet offered and in a way that ap- 
proaches most closely to a manner easily 
understood. Still, despite its obviously 
excellent intention, it fails to ring true 
on these two points. 
A Plea for Hardy Plants (Doubleday, 
Page & Co-. ), by J. Wilkinson Elliott, is 
“reprinted from the transactions of the 
Massachusetts Horticultural Society, 
Part i, 1895” and contains “additional 
plans and copious illustrations by J. 
Horace McFarland and others.” It 
brings a whiff from the Grandmother’s 
garden of childhood and may be said 
to be keyed to single hollyhocks. 
The numerous and mostly fascinating 
illustrations are intended by the author 
to prove that “one dollar intelligently 
spent on the grounds will afford more 
beauty than ten dollars spent on the 
house,” and they go far toward making 
the assertion good. 
Mr. Elliott makes ardent and effective 
arguments in favor of a more general 
use of hardy planting material, all of 
which it seems should go without saying 
so self-evident are the facts cited — at 
least to those who are in sympathy with 
picturesque planting. But if, as the author 
asserts, “the public hardly knows that 
there is such an art (meaning landscape 
gardening), these and similar facts and 
arguments should be repeated until a 
deep and lasting impression is made. 
The material advocated in this attrac- 
tive pamphlet of 76 pages is above re- 
proach and the manner of use suggested 
is in the main good, although the plans 
and to some extent the text, indicate the 
tastes of the planter rather than those of 
the landscape gardener. Planting ma- 
terial is frequently suggested frankly for 
its own sake instead of for the purpose 
of creating pictures. 
It should be borne in mind that even 
the best material may be spoiled in the 
handling and that if the term landscape 
gardening means anything it means the 
creation of pictures. 
The illustrations do help this hardy 
plant story amazingly, and they reveal 
many valuable lessons, together with 
some that are less clearly and certainly 
desirable. 
But if some of the illustrations and 
suggestions and most of the plans in 
this pamphlet fall short of what one has 
come to believe approaches most nearly 
to the possible ideal, there is so much of 
excellence to offset these drawbacks that 
one should not cavil at a failure to* attain 
perfection, particularly in consideration 
of the present difficulty in finding con- 
crete examples to fitly illustrate ideals 
and ideas. 
The enthusiasm exhaled by both the 
text and the pictures must prove an in- 
centive to further study of this charming 
subject by Mr. Elliott’s readers, and 
therein lies the most potent impulse of 
the work. 
Proceedings of the Iowa Park and 
Forestry Association ; second annual 
meeting at Des Moines, la., December 8 r 
9 and 10, 1902. A well-printed and illus- 
trated book of 142 pages containing min- 
utes of the meeting, and all of the papers 
and addresses. 
Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, Eng- 
land ; Hand list of coniferae, second edi- 
tion; Hand list of trees and shrubs, ex- 
cluding coniferae, and six bulletins of 
miscellaneous information. 
