PARK AND CEME-TE-RY 
71 
to large farms where it is distributed by irrigation 
over the fields, and the average yield of crops is al- 
most double that of farms not connected with the 
works. Other waste, ashes, rubbish, etc., is collected 
at the expense of the city and removed to dumping 
grounds which in one instance have been turned into 
a fine recreation ground called Victoria Park. 
“This was originally a pasture; was purchased 
about five years since, the top earth removed, the 
land used for two years as a dump, then the surface 
earth was replaced, the whole field graded and sodded 
and now the field forms a fine addition to the system 
of parks and parkways in process of development. 
“Two small parks, already mentioned as semi-pri- 
vate, were several years since acquired by the corpo- 
ration of Leamington and opened to the public. They 
“There is a public library at Leamington at present 
in the City Hall, but upwards of $100,000 is to be 
spent in the erection of a building for the Library 
and a Technical School.” 
Elsewhere we find that the “two prevalent impres- 
sions given a visitor to this pretty product of mod- 
ern methods are cleanliness and space, primarily due 
to the breadths of the streets with double rows of 
trees and strips of green turf. Beyond these are the 
open acres of pasture land and park which successive 
Corporations, wise in their generation, have secured. 
Thanks to the far seeing policy of the Conscript 
Fathers, it can never be hemmed in.” 
Hawthorne said of this neighborhood : “The high 
roads are made pleasant to the traveler by a border 
of trees and often afford him the hospitality of a way- 
ECM TREE walk, GRASS BORDERED IN CENTER OF STREET, LEAMINGTON. 
lie on opposite sides of the main street, but on the 
same side of the Learn. 
“Recently the authorities have acquired land on 
both sides of the river and now possess abouty sixty 
acres in the very centre of the town. The land begins 
with the older parks, then extends down the stream, 
and affords charming river walks. Trees and shrub- 
bery along the stream have been left untouched wher- 
ever possible, and owing to both parks and walks ly- 
ing in the centre of the town they are accessible to all 
classes without any expense of transportation. An- 
other important point is that considerable of the newly 
acquired land along the stream is of the character that 
in American towns is usually given over to the poorer 
sort of dwellings, and which from soil conditions is 
not adapted to human occupancy, however favorable 
to vegetation. 
“If left to private ownership, tracts of this kind 
soon become unsightly and unhealthful; opened as 
park spaces they benefit the whole community, phys- 
ically and financiall3L 
side bench beneath a comfortable shade. But a fresher 
delight is to be found in the foot paths which wan- 
der away from stile to stile along hedges and across 
broad fields, through wooded parks, leading you to 
little hamlets of thatched cottages, ancient solitary 
farmhouses, picturesque old mills, streamlets, pools, 
and all those quiet, secret, unexpected, yet strangely 
familiar features of English scenery that Tennyson 
shows us in his Idylls and Ecologues.” “All this and 
more within less than three hours’ rail from Padding- 
ton.” Frances Copley Seavey. 
NOTES. 
By way of increasing public interest and adding 
to its membership, the Improvement Society of 
Aiken (S. C.) gives an annual moonlight picnic on 
the grounds of one of its members and a New Year’s 
reception at a private house. The moonlight picnic 
idea is charming and appropriate. It should appeal 
with force to the temperament that inclines towards 
