Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1903-11-12
BEAUTlFYiNG A RAILROAD
One Mans Idea and Another's Work.
Result of the Boston & Names Gar
dening Plan.

| nCoaie " ZIG SoSIOn q
| dening Plan.
| 1t is hardly possible to make some
thing out of nothing, but it almost
amounts to that when some heretofore
unused thing is seized upon by WIDE
awake man and turned to good account.
So when the Boston & Maine Railroad
| transformed piece OF unused lana IN
to a fertile acre, put it in the hands OF
one of its officials who had natural
| taste for gardening, and gave him Tor
| gardener a man who had previously
been q day laborer, but VINO surely
proved to be born plant grower, thal
was almost as good as making some
thing from nothing writes Allen Cham-
| berlain in the Boston Transcript
| 1t all grew out of the theory OF one OF
the roads supervisory engineers that
| the matter of planting station grounds
and bits along the right of way, could
be handled more economically II the
| corporation owned a nursery and col
lected it's own plants cuttings and seed
1t was his idea that the work coulu be
| largely done by the regular labor or
| the road at odd times, and the cost held
! uON III W llltic llllie IlC la siiei $3.50 =
wished to see a change made in the old
practice of decorating station grounds
with nothing but grass and perishaple
summer bedding plants. The bedding
! plants and incidental expenses for the
roads many divisions made a really
costly item, not far from $4,000 a year.
| This sum invested in hardy shrubs ana
| herbs would make a most credltable
showing, would be a permanent work
and therefore more economical in the
end
| The management was attracted by
| the plan and authorized q beginning by
way of experiment. An acre of good
sandy loan in the railroad yard at
South Lawrence, the headquarters of
the roadmaSter of the Western division,
was fenced off and cultivated. Right
here at the very outset one of the
economies of the plan was proved.
Manure was needed with which to
dress the new nursery. The roadmas-
ter sent to the terminal at Mystic
wharf, where the cattle trains arrive 20
have the car cleanings shipped to him
at South Lawrence. Previously all
that material had been thrown away.
The cars had to be cleaned in any
event, and the manure hauled off
somewhere. Since then the dressings
for the nursery have been drawn from
this source of supply.
Next a man was needed to carry on
the work of collecting the stock for the
nursery and to grow it until such time
as it should be ready for use in a per-
manent place. AS the plan was to buy
| l1,,f To
collect chiefly native hardy plants, a
man must be had who knew at least
something about the subject. Such
man, Mr.. Desmond, was at hand on
the regular crew employed to take
care of the grass and flower beds about
| the stations. He was not employed as
a gardener, but it was discovered that
| he took q good deal of interest in
plants and often knew the botanical
names of some even when he was ig-
norant of the cOmmoner ones. SO he
| was assigned to the nursery as a part
| of the experiment, and under the
careful coaching of the roadmaster he
| has since been growing with the estab-
| 1ishment. That piece of ground and its
contents is as the apple of pesmond's
eye today, and it's thriftiness and
tveedlessness would be q credit to any
professional nurseryman.
A fter the first year the road built a
SINAI II glass house of about $1,000 plants
capacity for propagating purposes.
This was great joy to the gardener.
In collecting his material, as he must,
from the countryside all over the Bos-
ton & Maine system, it is not always
possible to secure the plants them
selves, root and branch, for transplant
ing. In some instances cuttings are
taken, in others seeds, and from these
plants are developed in the glass
house. Desmond, with all the en-
thusiasm Of q true botanist, scours the
fields and woods and wades the
swamps, q popular book on native
wild flowers in his dinner box to help
him in identifying strangers, and re-
turns with pockets full of seeds and
cuttings. and notes of locations of de-
sirable plants. During the growing
season out of doors the gardener has
the use of the men who cut the grass
about the neighboring stations when
ever he has wedding to do, and these
men. also. do the planting-out under
Desmond's eye whenever q stations
grounds are to be embellished. Plant
ing plans are prepared by Mr.. Lou
vile Curtis, the roadmaster and while
he disclaims any pretensions to a
mastery of the art of landscape gar
dening, he must be credited with being
d clever amateur.
In this way, at an expense which |
practically amounts to no more than
the wages Of the nurseryman, the
nursery has been established and has |
so expanded that it has been necessary |
to transplant some of the stock to an |
overflow ground of quarters of |
an acre ir extent. Eight stations |
along this division have already been |
planted with stock from this nursery, |
Wyoming, Melrose, Greenwood, Wake
fnld I11nctinn Pnadinu Wilmin zion [