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PARK AND CEMETERY 
PA’JiK cAFFAlRS IN In replying to certain criticisms 
QUINCY, ILL. (Pp public press of Ouincy, 111., 
Mr. E. J. Parker, president of the Quincy Park and 
Boulevard Association, in a letter to the City Press, 
gives some interesting facts. He says the squirrels are 
provided with food and water 365 days in the year, in 
all seasons, and that while the normal life of the squir- 
rel is in the forest, they have distributed themselves 
throughout the city, and may be found wherever there 
is a group of trees large enough to afford them a safe 
and attractive home, but they do considerable damage 
girdling the young trees. On the question of parks 
and boulevards he draws attention to the fact that Chi- 
cago, Kansas City, Omaha, Denver and other cities on 
the Pacific Coast are all younger than Ouincy and yet 
have outstripped her in the acquisition of parks and 
boidevards. Kansas City commenced work in 1895 
and has expended $3,000,000 in parks and boulevards, 
of which the area is 2,200 acres. The views from the 
bluffs in Quincy along the Mississippi river are far 
superior to those from the bluffs in Kansas City along 
the Missouri river, but no complaints are made con- 
cerning park and boulevard improvements in Kansas 
City, for it is realized that the value of property has 
greatly increased, building operations have been stim- 
ulated, and a liberal expenditure of both public and 
private funds has been encouraged, adding to the 
beauty, health and population of the city. Many 
Quincy citizens appear to strenuously object to a mod- 
erate taxation for park purposes — a shortsighted pol- 
icy much to be condemned, both from a social and busi- 
ness standpoint. The Park and Boulevard Association 
of that city deserves great credit for its unremitting 
labors for the city’s welfare. 
'PROGRESS IN That gardening in a general way 
GA'RDENIRG. landscape gardening in particu- 
lar has developed along healthy lines during the last 
decade is an acknowledged fact. Hence it has been 
gratifying to notice the disappearance of the fantastic 
flower design of the park gardener — those inartistic 
and expensive creations which some years ago made 
our parks, and especially those of the West, targets 
for ridicule and severe criticism. Chicago did not es- 
cape this epoch of “freak gardening,” and perhaps it 
was more dominant here than elsewhere ; but the city 
had at least the courage to acknowledge its defects in 
this direction and adopted a more reasonable and artis- 
tic course. When a well-known gardener who saw 
copies of his work in a western city was asked if he 
wanted to take the designs home with him, strange to 
say, no copyright having been secured on them, re- 
plied : “No, thank you; pass them on further West.” 
It is to be regretted that this false conception of orna- 
mental gardening has again asserted itself with con- 
siderable vigor in some of the parks of Chicago, and 
indeed with no little surprise to those who know the 
sorrowful plight they are in horticulturally. The com- 
mission in charge would gain public confidence and 
respect by using the funds, appropriated for park pur- 
poses, to reclaim the decaying lawns and dying groves 
instead of throwing money away on expensive flower 
designs entirely devoid of artistic taste and inappropri- 
ate for park purposes. They would be better able to 
provide for the people ideal parks of sylvan beauty, 
designed for rest and recreation, teaching the unedu- 
cated what a park should be, and helping to re-establish 
the good name of the Chicago parks. 
ORGANIZED It will be readily conceded that under 
EFFORT. proper conditions better results are 
obtained under organized rather than individual ef- 
fort ; or at least results proclaim themselves more 
speedily. The difficulty, however, in ordinary cases is 
how to organize. This question, so often propounded, 
may be solved by a careful stud)- of a pamphlet re- 
cently issued by the Kansas State Horticultural Soci- 
ety, written by its secretary, Mr. William H. Barnes, 
which is one of the best efforts yet made to foster and 
encourage outdoor improvement. It is entitled “Horti- 
culture,” and suggests plans for “organizing for 
cleaner, smarter, lovelier, more beautiful and enticing 
homes in Kansas,” and tells also “ how to organize and 
.conduct local horticulture societies, civic improvement 
societies, horticulture clubs, horticulture exhibitions, 
flower shows, ‘for the people, of the people, and by the 
people.’ ” The pamphlet includes a very generous 
list of subjects, or as the author puts it, promptings, 
for essays and discussions for local societies. We have 
often claimed that state horticultural societies have the 
best opportunities for missionary work in outdoor art ,' 
their facilities for gaining the attention of the coun- 
try people and the probability of their obtaining a read- 
ier sympathy in the work, are at once apparent, and it 
may be justly observed that the farmer and rural resi- 
dent want awakening to the need of outdoor improve- 
ment, at least quite as much as their city brethren, not- 
withstanding their closer relations with nature itself. 
There should be a firmer bond of active co-operation 
between the national organizations devoted to outdoor 
improvement and the state horticultural societies, to the 
end that the results obtained should be in accord with 
the best principles at present considered essential to the 
proper development of the movement now becoming 
a sign of the times. 
'“'‘One impulse from a vernal wood 
May teach you more of man,, 
Of moral evil and of good 
Than all the sages can. 
— Wordsworth, 
