PARK AND CEMETERY. 
305 
DUTIES OF A RAILROAD GARDENER 
Address before the Convention of Railway Gardening Association by 
E. A. Richardson, Landscape Gardener, Boston & Albany Railway. 
A railroad gardener having direct 
charge of a station or a number of sta- 
tions is what is being considered under 
the above subject. 
He supplements his chief who may 
broadly plan the station grounds with its 
drives and foot approaches, but who has 
not the time to perfect all the details 
which will make the most of its possi- 
bilities. The lines of these approaches 
may need modification as the traffic of 
the places changes, and the gardener, if 
observant and interested, can see better 
than most people where they can be 
altered for the convenience and safety of 
the public. 
Before a station building is started, by 
conversation with passengers, tradesmen 
and station agents, he can often suggest 
a better location than is made in the of- 
fice or draughting room, where certain 
details in daily use cannot be thought 
out or foreseen. 
He can study up the trees, shrubs and 
plants that do well in the locality where 
the station is to be, with the soil and 
subsoil of the immediate location of the 
building and its grounds, and send all 
this information to his chief, who will 
pass it along to the designer and planter. 
Certain localities have a lawless, un- 
cultivated element who either use the 
station or pass constantly by it. The 
designer and planter should know of this 
element so as to be on guard against the 
planting of certain shrubs and plants 
that would certainly meet with destruc- 
tion. The local gardener should be a 
good scout for his superiors on these lines. 
A railroad gardener is an educator and 
needs patience, self-control and the per- 
sistence to wait until people will come to 
the place where they will appreciate the 
value of stations well planned, well kept 
and attractive to the eye and to the im- 
agination. 
If his work has been properly propor- 
tioned, he can always have his station 
grounds in a neat condition; if so kept, 
they will always be attractive, even if 
they are small and simply treated- 
To always keep these grounds in such 
a condition will very likely require quite 
a little study of the use of trains and 
may often lead to the putting in of 
overtime when train connections are 
poor or weather conditions are bad for 
any length of time, thus destroying for 
the time being the regular schedule or 
plan of work. Pride in his work and loy- 
alty to his chief, who may perhaps get 
all the credit from the general public, 
will lead to the keeping up of all the 
places in first-class condition. 
It may be found that the area of 
ground allotted to the local gardener is 
more than he can properly take care of. 
He should be the first one to find this 
out, and after thinking the different de- 
tails over he should present them to his 
chief in a simple, dignified statement 
without exaggeration; he should do this 
for his own sake, for the reputation of 
his chief and for the general good looks 
of the grounds in his charge. His su- 
perior officer is not infallible and does 
not pretend to be, and cannot be ex- 
pected to know exactly how his plan of 
division of work can be carried out in 
detail. 
A careful study of the tools that are 
now on the market which make it possi- 
ble to do work quicker and better should 
always be in the gardener’s mind. After 
the tools are furnished they should be 
kept in perfect order; a rusty tool can 
never do the efficient work that a pol- 
ished one can, and it is surprising how 
little time it takes if it is done sys- 
tematically. 
The chief is not supposed to think out 
the details of the daily work of his sub- 
ordinates, that is the subordinate’s part. 
A wise chief will leave his helper to do 
CEMETERY CHAPEL OF 
Oakwood Cemetery, Rochester, Minn., 
has recently erected a very fine type of 
chapel that is illustrated on this page. 
This building will seat about 150 and 
has a lifting device in front of the pulpit 
by which the casket is lowered into the 
basement and then taken into the vault 
in the rear. This vault has 48 crypts. 
This chapel is built of New Hampshire 
this for himself and it should cultivate 
self-reliance and self-respect. 
The local gardener is supposed to be 
a walking encyclopedia of horticultural 
and agricultural knowledge. This often 
means quite a little reading of various 
papers, books and government bulletins; 
in other words, of his being posted on 
what is going on in the various lines of 
working soils, treatment of manures, use 
of fungicides and spraying apparatus, not 
only on his own lines, but outside of his 
particular line of work. 
Now, if he can cultivate a genial dis- 
position and a considerate treatment of 
the people he has to meet, he can often 
head off disagreeable, annoying letters to 
headquarters. 
In closing, one can repeat that the du- 
ties of a railroad gardener are those of 
supplementing the general plans of his 
chief in the treatment and care of the 
station grounds entrusted to his charge, 
thinking out and working out the details 
by observation and by careful planning 
of each day’s work; by also being well 
stocked with general information on hor- 
ticultural information and having a pa- 
tient and genial way of imparting it to 
those who may ask for this information. 
GOOD ARCHITECTURE. 
granite and is fireproof in every respect, 
with tile floors and tile wainscoting and 
finished inside with cathedral oak, in- 
cluding the seats. It is electrically light- 
ed. The chapel was erected as a me- 
morial chapel to the late George Healy, 
who left the residue of his estate to 
Oakwood Cemetery, and it cost about 
$30,000. The architects are Long, Lam- 
ereaux & Long, of Minneapolis. 
GOTHIC CHAPEL, OAKWOOD CEMETERY, ROCHESTER, MINN. 
