House and Garden 
AMERICAN PARK SYSTEMS 
HE existing and proposed outer park systems 
of American cities form the subject of a re¬ 
port just issued by the allied organizations of Phila¬ 
delphia. The text, which has been prepared by 
Mr. Andrew Wright Crawford and Mr. Frank Miles 
Day, sets forth in a most lucid and interesting way 
the recent extraordinary growth of public sentiment 
and accomplishment in the matter of public parks 
throughout America. Numerous maps, printed in 
colors and photographs, abundantly illustrate the 
schemes of the various municipalities, and the well- 
deserved success of this report is indicated by the 
extraordinary demand for copies. The first edition 
is exhausted and orders for hundreds of additional 
copies are now being met. 
BEAUTIFYING NEWARK 
LOT of good work has been done by the muni¬ 
cipal tree planting commission of Newark, New 
jersey, which was appointed last year. Its report 
shows that more than 750 trees have been planted. 
Besides planting trees, the commission has seen to 
it that the fine elms in the several small parks in the 
centre of Newark are not devastated by scale or 
insects. The length of street planted on both sides 
is estimated at five miles. The cost of the trees was 
assessed on the property owners. None of them 
objected, and all appeared to like the idea of having 
good shade trees in front of their buildings. Prop¬ 
erty owners who desired to plant trees on their own 
responsibility were encouraged and assisted in making 
selections by the commission. About one-third of 
the entire number of trees set out are elms, either of 
the American or Norway sort. There were many 
linden and poplar trees planted also. 
PRESERVE THE REDWOODS 
HE proposition has been made that the Redwood 
Canyon, which lies at the foot of Mt. Tamalpias 
and within easy reach of San Francisco, containing 
about six hundred acres, two-thirds of which are 
covered with magnificent redwood trees, great ferns, 
and the beautiful undergrowth peculiar to California 
forests, should be made into a natural park for San 
Francisco. The suggestion has a double significance. 
In the first place, because it will increase the park 
facilities of the city and change private ownership 
of an unusually beautiful spot into public ownership, 
and, secondly, because it will preserve the handsome 
redwood trees now growing on the tract. As a 
Sacramento paper recently said: “Such action would 
be right in line with the policy followed by the State 
and numerous cities. The State has purchased the 
Great Basin of the Santa Cruz Mountains for a State 
Park; Los Angeles has numerous tracts lying out¬ 
side the city limits, one of them, at least, containing 
3,000 acres, which are used or being prepared for 
park purposes; San Jose has a beautiful natural 
park at Alum Rock, several miles outside the city 
limits. There are plenty of precedents to govern 
San Francisco in acquiring the Redwood Canyon 
property, and if the purchase be made the city will 
have one of the most beautiful parks in the world.” 
GROUP PLAN 
^'~ > HARLES CARROLL BROWN, a former city 
engineer of Indianapolis, has submitted ten¬ 
tative plans for making a “City Beautiful” of Indian¬ 
apolis to the civic improvement society of that city. 
I his organization has had under consideration the 
propriety of the city’s regulation of the height of 
buildings hereafter to be erected in Monument 
Place, and Mr. Brown’s recommendations and plans 
are the result of the work of the committee appointed 
to consider the subject. His report considers first 
the group plan for public buildings and then makes 
certain definite suggestions for the establishment of 
a group of important buildings in Indianapolis, 
taking the Circle at Monument Place as the basis. 
HOW TO HAVE GOOD ROADS 
HE best possible way to interest people in a good 
roads movement is to manage to get a good 
sample of good roads made in the middle of the worst 
bit of bad road you can find. I have in mind the 
experience of my friend Hale, many years ago, at 
the beginning of the good roads movement in Con¬ 
necticut, where, after several years of fight, he secured 
permission to put a few rods only of good road as a 
sample. He selected the middle of a very muddy 
section of road, and the next season’s experience 
convinced everybody of the value of good roads, 
and there was no more trouble in that region.—J. 
Horace McFarland. 
STREET SIGNS 
HE editor of an advertising trade journal in com¬ 
menting on the agitation in New York over the 
signs in the Subway has called attention to the in¬ 
difference of the public to the mission of street signs 
in New York, saying: “In no other civilized collec¬ 
tion of streets in the world is so helpful and necessary 
a device as the street sign so wofully neglected as 
it is in this greatest metropolis of the western world. 
This absence not only delays business * * * but it 
aids criminality. In spite of all this the chimera of 
business legends underground has the floor for oppo¬ 
sition and hostility as much as if they were proven 
germs of disease.” 
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