Because it would be entirely out of the question to attempt an article of the
length to which this must necessarily be confined to give even a smattering of
what the American cities are doing in park improvements, only two examples
will be used. One of these recites how a park was secured in a small town in
Iowa and the other tells of the manner in which the park and boulevard system
of Kansas City, one of the most beautiful in this country today, was financed, a
problem of interest to nearly every city, large or small.
Every small town should own a park. The Woman's Club of a small town
in Iowa decided that a certain most untidy public square could be made over into
a beautiful little park. They accomplished this achievement without expending
a dollar. They secured permission to plant shrubbery and the Town Marshal
donated the labor of a prisoner.
The committee put in three days with that man with a wheelbarrow. At the
end of the time enough shrubbery had been brought from neighboring lawns
and planted in the park to satisfy every one of them. Some flower beds too,
had been spaded up and made ready for planting.
For its next meeting of the Club at the school-house, a diagram of the flower
beds, was made on the blackboard, and donations of plants were solicited.
