PARK AND CEMETERY 
67 
petition by the present condition of their estate. H. I. Gardner 
is secretary of the society. 
* * * 
The ward improvement clubs of San Jose and East San 
Jose, Cal., are planning a union of forces for the improvement 
of that city. At a recent meeting of the Third Ward Club, 
at which representatives of the other organizations were in 
attendance, the subjects discussed give a good idea of the 
scope of the work to be undertaken. President Coe delivered 
an address on “Apathy and Progress — the City’s Needs,” and 
some of the other subjects discussed were: “Expansion”; 
“A Greater San Jose”; “A San Antonio Street Bridge”, and 
“The Appropriation of a Portion of the Surplus Tax for 
Improvement of the City.” A committee has been appointed 
to devise some feasible plan of getting the taxpayers to agree 
to allow the city to apportion a part of the surplus tax raised 
during the past year by mistake, to be used for the improve- 
ment of the city. 
* * * 
Mr. Charles M. Loring, of Minneapolis, is still actively 
engaged in lecturing in the West on town and park improve- 
ment. In one of his recent addresses in Fergus Falls, Minn., 
he took up the work to be accomplished by an improvement 
association and stated that its first object should be to secure 
uniformity. The common custom of permitting one man to 
set out a row of boxelders in front of his premises while his 
neighbor was setting out elms and another man some other 
kind of trees, should be stopped and trees should only be set 
out in streets under authority of some central body, such as 
the park board, the civic society or a committee of the Council. 
An ordinance should be passed forbidding the setting out of 
trees except by such authority. Only in this way can mag- 
nificent tree-lined avenues, such as add so much to the beauty 
of some cities, be secured 
* * * 
The London City Improvement Society, London, Ont., is 
conducting a prize-planting contest with the expert assistance 
of Mr. John Pearce, parks superintendent of that city. The 
prizes are to be divided into the following classes: Class i. — 
Best front lawn and surroundings, $57, in three classes ; three 
first prizes, $9 each ; three second, $6 each ; three third, $4 
each. Class 2, best back garden, $57, in three classes ; three 
first prizes, $9 each ; three second, $6 each ; three third, $4 
each. Class 3, best new premises, showing the greatest amount 
of improvement, where the house was not occupied before Oct. 
1st, 1903, two prizes: First, $10; second, $5; class 4, best 
window boxes in business premises, three prizes : First prize, 
$5 ; second, $3 ; third, $1 ; class 5, twenty pounds of tea for 
best window boxes in private houses. Three prizes. First prize, 
10 lbs.; second, 7 lbs.; third, 3 lbs.; class 6, prizes of plants 
will be given to the residents in a block which as a whole pre- 
sents the best appearance during the season. Class 7, for school 
grounds — $120 worth of plants, bulbs and seeds to be divided 
into twelve prizes — 4 firsts of $15 each, 4 seconds of $10 each, 
and 4 thirds of $5 each. Prizes to be awarded for best kept 
grounds, lawns, flower beds, best general appearance, and 
greatest amount of improvement made during the season. 
Class 8, for school janitors — three prizes will be awarded — - 
$8, $4, $3 — to those showing greatest care and neatness of 
school premises, inside and outside. 
* * * 
The Easthampton Village Improvement Society, Easthamp- 
ton, Mass., recently celebrated its 28th anniversary. The 
society was incorporated in 1876, and only eight of the 25 
incorporators are living, four of them still being residents 
of Easthampton. The original bylaws of the Association 
provided that the annual meeting should be held “out of 
doors” during the month of August or September of each 
year. It was the design to make this meeting a sort of 
annual picnic and gathering of the whole people to discuss 
matters of common interest. The field-day plan was fol- 
lowed for several years, and several prominent men ad- 
dressed the meetings, but it was finally decided to hold 
the meetings in the evening. The first definite action 
taken by the Association was to send to each family in town 
a printed circular, asking them not to throw their coal 
ashes into the street during the winter. The next step was 
in the way of planting shade-trees, and it is estimated that 
the Society set out 1,000 trees in different parts of the 
village. The Society purchased and kept for sale, at cost, 
hitching posts of uniform pattern. Waste-baskets have been 
kept in the postoffice. For several years a determined fight 
was made against the elm tree beetle and the trees were 
sprayed by the Association. Since then the town has taken 
charge of this part of the work, but the Society deserves 
the credit of making the beginning. From the first the 
streets have been cleared and the borders trimmed at least 
once a year and nearly every year the work has been done 
twice. The Mayher Memorial Fountain was erected under 
the direction of the society in 1902, and each year since 
1899 it has offered prizes for planting and flower grow- 
ing by the school children. Last year over 1,300 packages 
of seed were distributed at one cent a package. The Spring- 
field Union has the following to say of the work of the 
society : 
“The association has made its influence felt in many differ- 
ent directions and it has taken up many d’ffcrent lines of 
work, but far more important than the definite things that 
it has done has been its influence upon the public sentiment 
of the town in favor of better kept private grounds and of 
everything that goes to make Easthamption a desirable town 
in which to live. Before the association began its work the 
lawns around the houses were carefully fenced iri and the 
grass was cut once or twice a year with a scythe and in 
general comparatively little attention was paid to beautify- 
ing private or public grounds. With the coming of the 
village improvement society things began to change, old 
fences began to disappear and the lawns that had been 
partially hidden behind them began to be put in better con- 
dition, lawn-mowers came into general use and the whole 
town became, in a way, transformed from 1 country village 
with carelessly kept grounds and streets, into a beautiful 
town whose citizens vie with each other to make their homes 
ornaments to the town and to do their part toward the care 
of the streets.” 
FORESTRY IN MICHIGAN. 
The Michigan Forestry Commission is. quietly doing work 
calculated to awaken a wide interest in the solution of its 
problem in Michigan. In three townships situated at the head- 
water's of the Muskegon, Au Sable, Big Thunder, and the Tit- 
abawasse rivers, the organization of the Fire Protective Force 
and the planting of nurseries is already satisfactorily under 
way, although but a small appropriation is available. An ex- 
periment is also to be performed in planting without much 
preparation, some of the burned-over lands, hoping that an 
economical reforestation may thus be illustrated as an object 
lesson. Prof. Filibert Roth, who is at the head of the For- 
estry School in the University of Michigan, is also State 
Forest Warden, and directing the practical movement under 
the authority of the Commission. 
Charles W. Garfield is president of the commission, and 
Edwin A. Wildey secretary. 
