The daily Alaskan., 1914-09-11
RAILWAY GARDENS

A 4ah gNsAAH eae AA N--A| ~@AS an eye for the artistic and beauu- ful had, suggested the planting aud cultivation of flower gardens around the passenger depots and the parking of the sidewalks and ap- proaehes thereto wherever pracIc- able and the further parking Of roadbeds between the rails and alOn side. 1t would have simply raised a smile of pitying contempt and they would have been told that the plan was utterly impracticable and out of place.
 A Yerificatiop of the truth of this was furnished recently in the town of skagway. When President O. l.. DickesoR asked permission from the council to park the rail- way track on Broadway, between Second and Eleventh streets, howl of derlsion went up from cSr- tain mosSbacks of the town who are now and always have been in'- mlcal to the railway company and "forninst" anything that it looked upon with favor The improvement when 1t was put in, for it was de- cided improvement notwithstanding it's crudity, was even commented up on in a satirical manner by the humUFist of a neighboring public1- ton, who saw no beauty in it but Iikened it's effects upon the appear ance of the town to those described in Grey's Elegy of "A Deserted Fll- lage.'
 We do not pretend that Mr. Dick eson was the originator of the idea Of gardens and parking plots fo; railroads, but that be should be ap- preciatiYe enough of it's value as business asset in the attracting of tourists and other travellers is prob ably all the commendation that he wishes or anticipates receiving.
 That this matter of beautiying as much as possible that which would otherwise be unsightly and uual tractiye is not confined to tn W. P. EY. R. Is shown by the steps that are being taken by all the big rais- way lines ot the country in the samu direction, most of which have regularly constituted crews Of railway gardeners who are deemed almost as necessary as are the en- ploye5 in other parts of the system.
 President and General Manager W G. BesIer of the Central Railroad of New Jersey, speaking at the Hotel Bresllu before a convention or rail way gardeners, men maintained by the railroads to beautify station grounds and rights of way, and who are able to make patches or black cinders blossom with roses and Canterbury bells, said that he remembered the first time he ever heard Of the Idea Of beautifying railroad grounds.
 He said he was private secretary Co a western road official at the time when a visiting railroad man told Of Beelng the grounds about Q certain station in the East laid out in flower beds. The visitor was Boston man and the Idea Of a flower bed in connection with a railroad waa accepted by Mir. Besler and his associates as being rather too ad- Yaneed for western railrOading.
 But" said the speaker, "imes change. There Is now no railway too humble to do something in the way of beautifying stations and rights of way"
 Sodded banks, green hedges and flowers, the speaker said, relieved strain and stress and nothing brought from the public such eX- pressioRs Of approbation as the ef- fort on the part of a railway to beautify its property.
 Patrick Foy, chief gardener of the Norfolk & Western, has lately re- turned from Ireland. Most of the Irish railways he Says run between well-kept hedges, with sodded slopes and cuts, free from slides.