88 
PARK AND 
Parker, Quincy, 111 ., president; Lewis Johnson, New 
Orleans, Charles Garfield, Grand Rapids, Mich., Mrs. 
Herman J. Hall, Chicago, president of Woman’s Aux- 
iliary, vice-presidents. The hold-over officers are vice- 
presidents, Thos. H. Macbride, Iowa City, la. ; Linus 
Woolverton, Grimsby, Out. ; John C. Olmsted, Brook- 
line, Mass. ; secretary, Warren H. Manning, Boston ; 
and treasurer, O. C. Simonds, Chicago. 
Mr. E. J. Parker, president-elect, in accepting the 
office, said he did so only upon condition that he have 
the support of the association in niore aggressive work. 
He drew attention to the progress being made in land- 
scape work, in connection with the establishment of 
courses of study in the universities, and in the work of 
the government in forestry matters. He suggested the 
necessity of educating the people up to the point of 
calling in the aid of the professional man in the im- 
provement of their property. The influence of the as- 
sociation must be exercised with city, state and the na- 
tional government in the matter of taxes and the ap- 
pointment of commissioners in all questions of land- 
scape improvement. ^Members of Congress should be 
petitioned for national reservations, cemeteries and 
parks, and ordinances should be secured from city 
councils providing against the marring of beautiful 
effects by advertising signs, and for the improvement 
of outdoor surroundings generally. Mr. Parker’s re- 
marks displayed promises of energetic leadership in 
the association’s work. 
An important and valuable report w’as that by Mr. 
G. A. I’arker, of Hartford, Conn., for the committee 
on park census, etc. It was a voluminous work and 
spoke volumes for the committee. It is impossible to 
do it anything but injustice in a brief summary, and it 
must be reserved for a comprehensive abstract in a fu- 
ture issue, for it contains such a fund of infortnation 
as could not have been obtained except under similar 
conditions, and while the statistics of this first pres- 
entation cover only cities of 50,000 inhabitants, some 
600 pages of typewritten copy were required to cover 
the information and deductions resulting from the 
efforts of the committee. 
A paper on “Border Plantations,” by Christian 
Wahl, late president of Milwaukee’s board of park 
commissioners. This paper contains many valuable 
suggestions from experience as a park commissioner 
in connection with his relations with adjacent property 
owners and the general public, touching especially 
upon the question of the rights of adjacent property 
holders to an uninterrupted view of a park as against 
the demands for artistic treatment by trees and shrubs 
of its borders. 
Mr. J. Woodward Manning, of Boston, fol- 
lowed with a stereopticon lecture on “Forestry for 
the Park and Roadside.” Illustrations of various 
methods of treatment were shown, as well as a large 
number of illustrations of special plants, shrubs and 
CE-METERY. 
flowers. It was a most instructive lecture and fitted 
in excellently well in the program. 
“Some Neglected Trees and Shrubs” now gave 
Prof. Thos. H. Macbride a desirable opportunity to 
plead against the too frequent use of foreign material 
in preference to the more available and often more 
effective trees and shrubs found locally. In describing 
the early conditions of Iowa in respect to landscape 
improvement he called attention to the qualities and 
nature of the local flora, and related the problem to 
the present conditions of the prairie states. A com- 
mendable feature of English landscape gardening is 
the fact that it has found out how to use local condi- 
tions and indigenous flora for the production of most 
charming effects. In describing the available local 
flora and their adaptation to certain uses, Mr. Mac- 
bride’s paper took on a practical form of great value 
and far-reaching importance. 
A short discussion ensued, in which several members 
warmly endorsed the views of the author, and Mr. 
Parker, the president-elect, urged the ladies specially 
to encourage the daily papers to publish weekly a list 
of the plants in flower at the time, with any specially 
characteristic features that may be of general interest; 
this should be continuel through the year, for the win- 
ter offers choice subjects as to color effects and beauty 
of twig and bark. 
This concluded the morning session. 
In the afternoon at 2:30 the members and visitors 
drove through the South Side parks, the Soldiers’ 
Home and Forest Home Cemetery. At the park con- 
servatory the commissioners had provided flowers and 
candy for the ladies and cigars for the gentlemen. 
The Soldiers’ Home, with its over 2,000 inmates, came 
in for severe criticism of its grounds, and it is a re- 
flection on the authorities that out of a large number of 
comparatively able-bodied men among the old soldiers, 
a force large enough to maintain the grounds in a 
beautiful condition cannot be made useful in this direc- 
tion. Forest Home Cemetery was greatly admired, 
but the route followed displayed considerable contrast 
between the purely landscape sections and those too 
profusely decorated with monuments. 
Evening Session. 
The evening session was in the nature of a public 
meeting and was held at the Pabst Theatre. While 
there was a goodly attendance, the failure to properly 
advertise the event and the intense heat coupled there- 
with served to prevent a proper appreciation of an in- 
structive evening by the people at large. The stage 
was elaborately decorated with potted palms, and the 
evening’s proceedings were harmoniously inaugurated 
bv several organ selections played by Miss Lillian 
Way, of the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. 
At the conclusion of the formal introductions and 
replies, and a short address by Mrs. Herman J. Hall, 
