200 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
“To the Senate and House of Representatives s / 
transmit herewith a petition to the President of the 
United States to aid in preserving the Calaveras 
groves of big trees, submitted by the Calaveras Big 
Trees Committee and citizens of California and else- 
where. I cordially recommend it to the favorable con- 
sideration of Congress. The Calaveras big tree grove 
is not only a California but a national inheritance, and 
all that can be done by the Government to insure its 
preservation should be done. 
“THEODORE ROOSEVELT.” 
This action of the President is one step forward in 
governmental influence towards the protection of 
natural beauty in America that can scarcely be over- 
estimated. He knows, also, that the preservation of 
the forests preserves the. climatic conditions that affect 
the land, and is therefore necessary from an economic 
r 
standpoint as well. 
The most important reason for the preservation of 
this grove is that the trees show some reproduction, 
while the northern species of Sequoia is practically un- 
fruitful. They are the sole survivors of a prehistoric 
genus of trees once growing widely over the globe. 
For thousands of years they have towered above the 
tragedies and comedies of humanity and have survived 
the warfare of the elements. And now forty milling 
and logging companies are at work destroying these 
monuments of the forest to furnish material for cigar 
boxes! Think of it,. you who are mercenary or indif- 
ferent, and let us save our forests before the woods- 
man cries — “too late.” 
EMPRESS TREE, PAULOWNIA IMPERI- 
ALS. 
By Joseph Meehan. 
Among the many beautiful trees of Japan which 
add to the charm of spring in the Middle States, is the 
Empress Tree, Paulownia imperialis, an illustration of 
which appears with this. While ranked among the 
hardy trees in Pennsylvania and parts of the country 
similarly situated, it is not reliably hardy in the West. 
Sometimes with us its succulent seedling growth of 
the first year, and at times of the second, will be injured 
in winter, but not afterwards. After hard wood has 
formed, there is no more injury, no matter how low 
the mercury falls. 
The Paulownia is very late pushing into leaf and 
flower in the spring, in this respect acting as does the 
Catalpa. Almost every kind of deciduous tree is in 
leaf before it. The flowers are produced in great 
panicles, the flowers blue, trumpet shaped, large, and 
deliciously fragrant. Rather singularly too, late as the 
leaves are in unfolding, the flowers precede them. A 
look at the illustration will prove this. So numerous 
are the flowers and so delicious the odor that at a dis- 
tance of 500 feet away or more the fragrance is recog- 
nized gratefully. The panicles of buds are formed in 
the fall, and, as said, expand in spring, in May, before 
the leaves. Large seed pods form afterwards, and some 
of these are still on the tree photographed, the dark 
masses here and there indicating them. 
The leaves of the Empress tree are of exceeding 
large size ; on vigorous young shoots being often 18 
inches in diameter. Because of the tropical character 
of these leaves the tree is often found where not 
hardy. It gets killed to the ground in winter ; young 
shoots spring up in spring, which bear enormous 
sized leaves. A clump of these shoots make an effective 
display of foliage in summer, which commends it to 
many striving to create a tropical effect. 
We are told its common name, Empress tree, was 
given it in honor of Anna Paulowna, Princess of the 
Netherlands. 
It was introduced from Japan in 1840. Though well 
known in England, it rarely flowers there excepting in 
the extreme southern parts, the wood not ripening 
properly. 
BIG SPRING PARK, NEOSHO, MO. 
Few of our cities or towns have been favored by na- 
ture with a site so well adapted for a city park as is 
the tract recently purchased by Neosho, Missouri. The 
town has a population of 4,000, and its energetic ceme- 
tery association started the work of improvement by 
employing Sid J. Hare, of Kansas City, to lay out the 
cemetery, which led later to his being employed to lay 
out a six-acre park in the heart of the city two blocks 
