The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1909-08-25
NEWS OF THE DAY
IN SOCIETY WORLD.
Movement for City Beautiful
Advanced In Other Cities
NOTES HERE AND THERE
Music at the Country cIub-Personal
Observation-Disclosures Issued-A
Quiet Wedding-Bits
of News.
NOTES HERE AND THERE
BY MYRTLE MILES.

The City Beautiful movement, which
was productive of so much good in I'M
proving conditions in our city from the
standpoint of both health and beauty,
has some ardent followers in other places.
A magazine of the month tells of the
work, giving as its originator a quiet
unassuming woman whose home Is in
Springfield, O.-Miss Jessie M. Good. She
was the assistant in the Springfield
library, and one day in glancing over a
periodical, noted that Massachusetts
village had, in order to attract summer
tourists, formed a local Improvement so
ciety to clean the town. This inspired
the passion for civic improvement which
has since become a national ideal. The
thought came to her. Why should not all
towns be clean? Why were dusty
streets, Uttered sidewalks, disfigured va
cant lots and unsightly back yards neces-
sary? And why should not every town
have public parks? AS these ideas took
shape in the mind Of Miss Good she
wrote articles for a Horticulture magazine
which were answered by hundreds, the
final result of which was convention
of those interested, to form an American
League of Civic improvement. This con-
vention took place in July, 1901, and the
next year met again in Buffalo, N. Y,
merging with the American Park and
Outdoor Art association, under the title
of the American Civic associations which
now has members in all states.
Hundreds of cities have been beautified
through the improvement societies. The
cities and towns of Alabama last year
responded TO- the suggestions going out
from Birmingham, and in many of them
public parks and well-kept homes are
monuments today to the work introduced
here. In our city, fences, where prac-
ticable, have been replaced by the mora
ornamental hedges and one sees these
in several varieties surrounding gardens
in every locality. peculiar experience
in garden making, by the way, was dis
cussed this month in Country Life, which
tells of the removal of 100-year-old
hedge. An old estate near Philadelphia
was bought and remodeled by its new
owner. He discovered that quantity
of lockwood growing in the garden had,
the flower beds that nothing would grow
there and had even overlapped the walks.
1t had been brought to this country by
the first owner of the estate, Count Du-
Barry, a French exile, over 100 years ago,
and in the meantime the place where II
was planted had become veritable will
derness of box, so that the owner, Mr..
| Taylor, planned to remove.t. There were
1900 feet of box and as very curious
root growth had occurred and an excava-
ton of eight feet had to be made In
order to remove the plants one may
imagine the difficulty of the task. The
work began in March and was completed
in November with from 20 to 80 men and
one to seven horses employed during the
time. Boxwood is a priced possession, as
it requires in some sections of the country
2b years to grow eight inches. 1t makes
a beautiful hedge and is regarded as a
great treasure by the owners of old
world gardens. The roots of this century
old hedge had become SO firmly fixed in
the soil that the process of moving the
1900 feet of 1t cost the owner $4,000.