The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

Landscape Gardening

One often hears it argued, how nice and proper it would be to grow flowering plants of economic interest on the school grounds. There is a very sufficient multitude of reasons why this is seldom possible, but the idea is admirable and one to be encouraged. If such good things seem to be within reach, the garden beds will best be put along the back and side borders. It is possible in such situations, and under favorable conditions, to cultivate narrow beds, laid out in a manner to be out of the way of most of the romping play which occupies the main grounds.

But for all such plantings the hardy perennials are to be recommended above the annuals, other things being equal.
The great difficulties in the way ought not to deter school boards, teachers and patrons from using their best efforts to ameliorate, as much as possible, the uninviting blankness of the ordinary school grounds, especially in view of the very manifest desirability of such improvement.

Something About Public Parks

One principle should, above all, underlie the art of park design; namely, the creation, from the material in hand, out of the place as it stands, of a concentrated picture having Nature as its poetical ideal; the same principle which, embodied in all other spheres of art, makes of the true work of art a microcosm, a perfect, self-contained world in little.
Pueckler-Muskau

There seems to be a very considerable misapprehension concerning the uses of a public park. In fact, a majority of people would probably say, if pressed to express their true feelings, that, personally, they could do very well without the parks. Parks and public gardens are generally felt to be a luxury, and suitable for the edification chiefly of people of leisure. On second thought, however, anyone must see the error of such views, though it is still very difficult to demonstrate the practical utility of public parks to the skeptic.

First of all, city parks have been likened to lungs, which help to purify the air and so make breathing less hazardous. Those who know how difficult it is in the city to get pure water or pure air will know how real such a benefit is. Perhaps the country visitor, who is used to clean air with plenty of oxygen in it, is most oppressed by the snuffy, dusty, filthy stuff he has to breathe when occasionally he comes to town. But such air is doubtless quite as harmful to those who are accustomed to it as to those who notice it more. It must be regarded as a prolific source of disease. Such air, however, when it has room to circulate, purifies itself with comparative rapidity; and the usefulness of even a small open space may extend to a considerable cir cumference. The hygienic value of park spaces in considerable.