Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 162, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 July 1915 — HOME TOWN HELPS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HOME TOWN HELPS

PLAN FOR A GARDEN CITY Cleveland Citizens Are Beginning to Recognize the Value of Trees and Flowered Spots. Reminiscence and a measure of hope are combined in the suggestion of one of the women entered in the Plain Dealer vacant lot and, home gardening movement. "It is a grand idea," she writes, “to get Cleveland back to what it was when I remember it first —the forest and garden city of the state.” Many memories span the same stretch of Cleveland history, and many residents are welcoming the opportunity to do their share in restoring, as far as practicable, the conditions that existed half a century ago. Much of the change wrought in this period cannot now be remedied; yet a good deal can be done in the direction indicated. An industrial city, growing by leaps and bounds, cannot expect to retain all the sylvan beauty of its younger days. Shade trees are poisoned by elements in the atmosphere that should not have escaped the chimneys, and by poisons in the soil that should have been confined to pipes. Tillable vsr cant lots become fewer in number and the old-fashioned garden of roses is likely to give way to other, less pic-. 1 turesque devices. Yet, the city really needs this companionship of cultivated trees and gardens more than the village did, for the country moves farther afield and the more highly organized urban life becomes the greater is the need of such, relaxation as home gardens afford. The Cleveland of earlier days was a town of trees and flowers, of home plots blossoming in copious measure to match the earnestness of their owners. “To get Cleveland back to what It was —the forest and garden city of the state.” Plenty of loyal residents, young and old, will second the suggestion. —Cleveland Plain Dealer.