PARK AND CEMETERY 
333 
SCENE IN PARK, BATH. ME. PHOTO BY A. S. HEAL, BELFAST, ME. 
Park Notes 
Part of the grounds on which the winter exposition at 
Charleston, S. C., was lield have been purchased by that city, 
and will be maintained as a permanent public park. The 
tract includes the Court of Palaces and the sunken gardens. 
The exhibits of Oregon, New Mexico, Missouri, and other 
states have been presented to the city as the nucleus of a 
permanent industrial and commercial exposition. 
* * * 
An extensive system of improvements is to be begun at 
once in the parks of Cincinnati, Ohio, to be paid for by the 
$50,000 bond issue authorized by the last legislature for that 
purpose. Some of the items in the proposed plan of improve- 
ments are as follows : Completion of Clifton Drive in Eden 
Park, $8,500 ; new show greenhouse, 200x40 feet, $6,000 ; new 
cement walks and shelter house in Burnett Woods, $4,800. 
The other improvements include the building of drives, 
grading of slopes, constructing a new drinking fountain, etc. 
* * * 
At the annual meeting of the park board of Springfield, 
111., the reports of officers showed a total expenditure for the 
past year of $34,875.90, including the following items : Im- 
provements in Washington Park, $18,581.76; acquiring park 
sites, $4,467 ; building and maintaining parks and boulevards, 
$25,320.35; salaries, $1,775. The tax levy for the year 
amounted to $35,000. The secretary’s report shows the total 
number of trees in the park to be 3,351, over half of which 
are oaks. 
* * * 
A bill passed by Congress during the last session provides 
for the establishment of a natural park at the headwaters of 
the Mississippi, to include a large part of the lands of the 
ceded Chippewa reservation in Minnesota. The lands are to 
be made a forest reserve under control of the Secretary of 
Agriculture, and the trees are to be cut, treated, and regrown 
in accordance with the rules of modern forestry. For this 
purpose 231,400 acres of the park are to be put under the 
care and management of the United States Forester. The to- 
tal area of the tract is 830,162 acres, including 93 lakes and 
seven rivers, making a total of 218,470 acres of water surface. 
It has an altitude of 1,300 feet above sea level, and is re 
markable for fish, game, and beauty of natural scenery. 
* * * * 
Leading citizens of Philadelphia have formed a permanent 
organization for the purpose of promoting the construction 
of a boulevard from the City Hall to Fairmount Park, for 
which the council is to be asked to appropriate $6,000,000. 
The plans call for the vacating of property in Filbert and 
Cuthbert streets, from Broad to Fifteenth, as an entrance, 
and thence for an avenue 160 feet wide, with a wall or shaded 
walk on either side to Logan Square, where the Soldiers’ 
Monument is to be erected. Continuing from that point diag- 
onally, the avenue broadens to 300 feet, with a fifty-foot 
strip of lawn in the center, and runs to the present Green 
street entrance to the park, where a grand plaza is proposed. 
* * * 
The report of the Board of Park Commissioners of Boston, 
Mass., recommends an appropriation of $150,000 to complete 
the work of park construction, which includes shelter and 
sanitary buildings in many of the parks, the extension of the 
conduits connecting the Fens with the Charles River, and 
the completion of grading, learning and planting in various 
parts of the park system. In his report, Superintendent 
Pettigrew has the following to say concerning the cost of 
maintaining the parks : “Each year it is becoming more diffi- 
cult to maintain the parks and playgrounds on the amount 
appropriated for that purpose by the city government. Dur- 
ing the past five or six years the work of construction has 
proceeded with great rapidity, especially in the matter of 
planting and on account of playground extension. Planta- 
tions laid out for ornamental effect are expensive to main- 
tain. As compared with other park systems the Boston 
parks contain a large percentage of such planted areas. Play- 
grounds, too, are found to average high in the cost per acre 
for maintenance, as compared with parks of large size.” He 
also gives the following statistics of the Boston parks : “The 
gross cost of the entire park system, playgrounds, etc., up to 
Jan. 31, 1902, is placed at $17,260,692.39, of which $7,567,881.05 
is charged to land and $9,692,811.34 to construction. The 
total number of acres is 2,389.21; driveways, 35.2 miles; 
walks, 57.29 miles; rides, 8.7 miles; area of ponds and 
rivers, 125.4. The total public park loan outstanding at the 
close of the year was $13,991,300; sinking fund, $3,904,629.34; 
net debt, $10,086,170.66. The playground outstanding loans 
were $787,060.98. 
