PARK AND CEME-TERY 
28& 
cultivation again when spring opens. We are ready 
with money to go on with this good work, and many 
other things will be done, such as walling our river 
on both sides with the waste of granite chips from one 
of our manufactories” (granite mined in New Hamp- 
shire is dressed at Northfield. The last of the granite 
for the three lower stories of the new Marshall Field 
building, Chicago, was shipped from there in March) 
“and covered with a growth of vines; and a public 
drinking fountain will be erected on or near the com- 
mon. Baskets have been placed at intervals along 
our streets where paper and other waste may be 
placed. Seats are to be placed in convenient spots for 
travelers. And in the near future we shall see an 
observatory with a well-kept road leading to it which 
will give to us and to our summer visitors one of the 
most beautiful views in our Green Mountain State.” 
These women are following the lead of the great 
Black Forest Improvement Association. They are 
making jesthetics pay. Summer visitors who find 
such advantages are likely to return another summer 
as well as to tell their friends of the practical advan-, 
tages and attractions of the place. If residents of Wis- 
consin and Michigan resorts within reach of Chicago 
and of other large cities, would make the most 
of their opportunities in a similar manner, they would 
soon find an increase in the number of summer vis- 
itors. 
^ ^ ^ 
The Women’s Clubs of Hanford, Armona, and 
Lemoore, California, are nothing if not practical. 
Their latest move is in the line of a joint undertaking 
to the end of establishing a shaded avenue to connect 
the three towns. This will be accomplished by set- 
ting out trees at intervals of sixty-six feet along both 
sides of nine miles of roadway. The trees are 
all to be a symmetrical form of the Pride of 
China (Melia Azedarach) known as the Texas Um- 
brella tree of which Johannes Reimers, landscape gar- 
dener of the San Francisco and San Joaquin Valley 
branch of the Santa Fe railway, sometime since wrote 
me, “We make much use of this tree for shade around 
buildings and for shaded avenues. Its low, spreading 
form makes it harmonize with the broad-roofed Span- 
ish style of architecture used for our buildings. It is 
a rapid grower and is not deformed by the continuous 
northwest trade winds.” 
The ladies intend at a later date to supplement the 
China trees with alternating palms, but the variety to 
be used is not mentioned. Probably Pritchardia or 
Washingtonoensis, or, perhaps, Phoenix Canarie}isis, 
all of which do well, though either of the first two 
.nakes the most rapid growth. They are said to “grow 
like weeds.” 
A further quotation from Mr. Reimers, who is 
not only expert in the practical side of planting, but 
is also an artist, should have great value for some of 
our readers. He says that “the gardens of California 
should be given a classic Mediterranean aspect. It 
has the climate, the coloring of rock, of soil and of 
sky, together with the warm blue sea of Italy, Spain 
and Greece. The stateliness of the cypress has not 
been appreciated here ; and what might not be done 
with the fig, the olive and the palm on these hillside 
slopes.” 
These suggestions should furnish food for thought 
for the planters of the far Southwest. 
^ 
A tremendously interesting and impressive report 
comes to us from South Norwalk, Conn. It is not 
an annual report, but a digest of an address on 
Town Improvement given by ex-Mayor Milton J. 
Col)urn of that place before a meeting of interested 
citizens. It is so good that it should be printed in 
circular form and distributed. 
But it is pretty hard on the various “Improve- 
ment” journals, books, departments and associations 
that in this goodly year of 1902 any one in these 
United States should be able to say, as he did at the 
opening of his talk, “I know little about the subject 
assigned me and have been unable to find any writ- 
ten treatise on it.” However, quiet, steady >vork 
will surely tell in time. 
Mr. Coburn said many good things, only a few of 
which can be given space. He said that art is a 
great factor in the growth of any community. That 
public art — artistic lamp posts, street signs, public 
buildings, bridges, monuments, parks, railroad sta- 
tions, good roads and well-kept homes — all make 
for the good of a community, whether large or 
small. “I am always strongly impressed in towns 
that I visit, by my environment; so strongly that 
without further introduction, I estimate the charac- 
ter of its people. By their streets ye shall know 
them. We instinctively judge a man’s personality 
by the outward aspect of his home, and the town 
stands to the community as the home does to the 
individual.” 
The speaker goes on to describe his visit to two 
neighboring towns in search of artistic antiquities. 
One he found shabby to the last degree— fences and 
houses weatherworn and dilapidated ; the school 
house a low, unattractive building set in a sand- 
bank close beside the road, unpainted, without 
blinds and destitute of shade and even of grass ; the 
church in keeping with the schoolhouse and its 
steeple in a state of uncertainty “whether to point 
its members up or down.” At this town he bought 
antiquities from its leading citizen at ridiculously 
low prices. In the next place visited the outward 
aspect was just the opposite. There was paint ; 
gates, fences and houses were in order; the school- 
house surrounded by shade trees and lawns ; the 
church a little gem ; pleasant, orderly homes ; plenty 
I 
