PARK AND C£ME:TE:RY 
79 
The question of the ownership of the historical “Plains 
of Abraham,” at Quebec, which has long been a subject of 
litigation, has finally been settled, and the Dominion govern- 
ment has voted an appropriation of $80,000 for the purchase 
of the property from the nuns. The government will turn it 
over to the city of Quebec for a public park. 
* * * 
The commission, consisting of Frederick Law Olmsted, 
Daniel H. Burnham, and Charles F. McKim, authorized by 
the District of Columbia Committee of the Senate to study 
the park system of Washington, D. C., will sail for Europe 
July 13 to study the parks of European cities. They will 
visit London, Paris, Vienna, Rome, St. Petersburg, and other 
capitals and will meet and confer with government landscape 
gardeners in the old world. * 
* * ♦ 
The Quincy Boulevard and Park Association, Quincy, 111 ., 
has planted over 30,000 trees and shrubs this spring. One 
hundred different varieties of trees and shrubs have been 
planted in the parks and squares, and President Parker will 
publish a list of the varieties, showing their location. Other 
improvements to be made include a new shelter house for 
Washington Park. 
* * * 
The Palisades Interstate Park Commission has purchased 
he first piece of land on the Palisades for the interstate park 
authorized by the legislatures of New York and New Jersey. 
The plot purchased is a quarry at Coytesville. The owners 
had been taking out crushed stone from the quarry for ten 
years, but the work was stopped by the commission last De- 
cember. The price paid by the commission was $132,500, of 
which $122,500 was contributed by J. Pierpont Morgan. 
iii lit 
The Board of Public Improvements, St. Louis, Mo., has 
called forth much heated discussion in its effort to have two 
blocks in front of the Union Station converted into a pub- 
lic park. The spot has become an eyesore to travelers, and 
the board urges its conversion into a park on the ground that 
it would increase the value of surrounding property, and lead 
to desirable improvements in the neighborhood. Those op- 
posed to the plan claim that the city has not the money, and 
that the park would be a breeding place for crime, owing 
to the disreputable locality. 
♦ * ♦ 
The National Biscuit Co., Washington boulevard and 
Morgan streets, Chicago, is turning a vacant lot adjoining 
its factory into a park for the use of its employees. The 
plot, which contains 44,000 square feet, is being covered with 
grass, and planted with trees, shrubs and flowers. Gravelled 
walks will be laid out, and the whole enclosed with a high 
iron fence covered with trailing vines. The work will cost 
several thousand dollars, and is to be completed at once. 
The factory has 500 employees, 300 of whom are women and 
girls. 
* * * 
Owing to a lack of money for park purposes. Director Im- 
mel, of the Department of Improvements, Columbus, Ohio, 
has discharged the superintendent and other employees of the 
city park, and closed it until funds are available. The park 
has run behind in its finances for some time, and was very 
shabbily kept. Mr. Immel says there has been an overdraft 
in the department for two years, and that the retrenchment 
was unavoidable. 
:|e * * 
The Colonial Dames of Virginia have prepared a peti- 
tion to Congress, asking the government to purchase the old 
Temple farm, near Yorktown, and reserve it for a national 
park. This farm was the headquarters of Washington, 
Rochambeau and Lafayette during the battle of Yorktown, 
and contains the house where Washington and Cornwallis 
drew up the articles of surrender. A monument erected by 
Congress to commemorate the centennial anniversary of the 
surrender stands near this house. 
* * * 
The Park Board of Baltimore is making investigations 
preparatory to trying the experiment of growing wild flow- 
ers in the parks in natural soil taken from the woods. A 
committee of gardeners and park superintendents recently 
paid a visit to the country home of Mr. W. H. Whitridge. 
who has made a study of transplanting and caring for wild 
plants and ferns. His method has been to gather the leafv 
soil from the woods, work it into the earth at his own place, 
and then transplant the flowers, and this plan, if it is found 
practicable, will be followed by the park authorities. 
* * * 
Des Moines, la., has eleven tracts of land varying in size 
from one-half to 190 acres, giving a total of 498.78 acres 
devoted to park purposes. The total cost to the city has 
been $203,477.80, which with maintenance and improvements, 
amounting to $86,505.83, gives a grand total of $298,983.83. 
The names and acres of the principal tracts and their cost 
are as follows : Greenwood Park, 87 acres, $84,000 ; Wave- 
land Park, 190 acres, $36,000; Grand View Park, 98 acres, 
$39,000; Union Park, 98.5 acres, $98,000; South Park, 18 
acres, $6,500. A recent survey of the city engineer has de- 
veloped the fact that the course of the Des Moines river is 
gradually changing and has swerved 200 feet to the westward 
in the last 50 years. This will materially change the plans 
of the park board for improving the river front. 
* * * 
The movement looking toward the establishment of a 
national forest reserve in the Appalachian mountains, at the 
junction of Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee, has re- 
cently been furthered by the enactment of legislation by 
Tennessee authorizing the sale to the Federal government of 
forest lands in the northwest corner of the state. Virginia 
and North Carolina have already passed similar measures. 
This part of the Appalachian system contains the highest 
mountains east of the Rockies, 43 of them reaching an alti- 
tude of over 6,000 feet. Prof. Asa Gray found here a larger 
number of indigenous trees in a trip of 30 miles than in trav- 
elling from Turkey to England, or from the Atlantic coast 
to the Rocky mountain plateau. It is the meeting place 
of the distinctive northern and southern types of mountain 
flora. The trees are both evergreen and deciduous, and are 
said to be the finest mixed group in America. The tract 
proposed for park purposes lies between 35 deg. and 36 deg. 
north latitude and 82 deg. and 85 deg. west longitude, and 'S 
within 24 hours ride of New York, Chicago, St. Louis, To- 
ledo and the chief cities of the Gulf States . The wood- 
land in' most of this region can now be bought for $i an acre, 
so that the cost would not be great. The bill introduced at 
the last session of congress in both houses has been ap- 
proved by the Secretary of Agriculture and the President, 
and has been favorably reported by the Senate Committee 
on Forest Reservations. 
