479 
F^R.K AND CE:Me:TE:R.Y 
The flora adapted to San Diego was carefully stud- 
ied by Mr. Parsons during his visit with Miss Kate O. 
Sessions, a graduate of the University of California 
and for the past twelve years carrying on a successful 
nursery and cut-flower business in San Diego; Miss 
Sessions knows the cultivated plants of this region 
intimately, and understands their cultural require- 
ments thoroughly. Mr. and Mrs. T. S. Brandegee, 
botanists of high standing in Europe and in this coun- 
try, are also citizens of San Diego, and actively inter- 
ested in advancing the interests of the park. Mr. 
Brandegee has collected extensively in adjoining states 
and in- northern Mexico, and is an authority on na- 
tive plants generally, Mrs. Brandegee, in addition, 
knowing cacti better than any one else on this coast. 
Both Miss Sessions and Mr. Brandegee are members 
of the Park Improvement Committee of the Chamber 
of Commerce of San Diego, consisting of eight mem- 
bers. This committee, with the consent of the mem- 
bers of the Board of Public Works, who are the legal 
custodians of the park, have in hand the improvements 
now being begun. A citizens’ movement has resulted 
in a fund of $ii,ooo to be applied to flrst improve- 
ments. Besides this sum, which is likely to grow to 
$15,000, the cost of the landscape architect’s plan for 
the entire park and all incidental expenses involved in 
getting the work under way are the personal dona- 
tion of one citizen, chairman of the Park Plans Com- 
mittee, Mr. George W. Marston, whose interest and 
practical help are given to every department and in- 
stitution affecting the welfare of the city. The public 
spirit and intelligent appreciation and regard for tb/;" 
park and the sense of its value to the community by 
the people generally promises well for its wise conduct 
and sound development. 
The natural contour of the ground and the splendid 
opportunity for a collection of choice and rare serni- 
Improvement of 
The editor* of a well known magazine recently 
asked five hundred business men all over the country 
whether, in their opinion, there is any financial value 
in attractive surroundings to a business plant. Ninety- 
five per cent of those replying declare that the product 
of a factory or business concern is much more val- 
uable when the factory or office is clean, attractive, 
and beautiful, and when the employees can come in 
daily contact with orderly surroundings, and see floral 
beauties on the grounds. Furthermore, they declare 
that such well-ordered business concerns are a decided 
commercial benefit tO' the community. 
A question of equal significance might be asked of 
educators, preachers, and parents, whether, in their 
opinion, there is any moral, intellectual, and spiritual 
*Mr. Louis E. VanNorman, Editor of Home and Flowers, Xov.. 1902. 
tropical plants grown out of doors the year round in 
rampant luxuriance would be enough to distinguish 
the park and give it strong individual charm and 
value. But, in addition, the mesas provide a view- 
point for an unrivalled panorama of land and sea. On 
any day the eye can sweep a hundred miles in all di- 
rections, and the horizon line encircles thousands of 
square miles. TwO‘ great promontories. Point of 
Rocks in Mexico and near-b}^ Point Loma, reach many 
miles out into the Pacific, like giant fingers pointing 
to the gigantic precipitous Coronada Islands, far out 
at sea. San Diego Bay with its shipping, Coronado 
beach and its largest seaside hotel in the world ; Twin 
Peaks, Table Mountain and many other crests and 
ranges in Mexico, with successive mountain chains to 
east and north, from twenty to eighty miles distant, 
some snow-covered at this season, and miles of open 
country, all form not so much an offscape to the park 
itself, nor even a grandly beautiful frame to the actual 
picture ; but this international area with its lavish 
natural beauty seems an integral part of the park, as 
indeed it really is. No more extended, varied, beau- 
tiful and completely satisfying and inspiring view ex- 
ists anywhere in the world. 
The proposed general lines of treatment and devel- 
opment, the plants to be introduced into the park, the 
uses it is purposed to serve in the field of science, the 
definite features for improvement already decided 
upon, cannot be entered into in this general sketch. 
It must suffice now to say that nO' important city park 
was ever begun with larger promise of sound devel- 
opment and true ornamentation, and the prophecy that 
San DiegO' will have one of the greatest parks of mod- 
ern times carries with it the certainty of early realiza- 
tion. 
M. B. COULSTON, 
Secretary Park Improvement Committee. 
•School Grounds. 
value in attractive school surroundings, whether the 
children are happier and their work more efficient by 
daily contact with beautiful school grounds ; whether 
the cultivated taste and appreciation of the beautiful 
would not find expression in improvement of home 
conditions, thus making the school a radiating center 
for civic improvement. 
The great interest in public beauty which is mani- 
fest all over the country is largely due to the efforts of 
the American Park and Out-Door Art Association and 
the American League for Civic Improvement. They 
have done much public service by a process of organi- 
zation and education, and there is no better place to 
begin than in the public schools. The most effective 
means of reaching the parents is through the children. 
The branch of the Women’s Auxiliary of the Amer- 
