BEAUTIFYING WORK.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 323, 12 July 1912, Page 7

BEAUTIFYING WORK.

THE BOROUGH WATERWORKS RESERVES. (By our Mangorei correspondent). The New Plymouth Beautifying Society, in its advocacy of healthful aesthetics, is not unrecognised by our community. There are many of us in coifdial accord with the Society's objects, and much care and discretion are shown in the neighborhood in preserving the beauty of native vegetation, and in enhancing its unique natural decorative value, clearing such from, deteriorating surroundings, and obtrusive noxious erotics. Jn a modest way we are mostly, more or less, aspirants to being planters, I and promoters of homely afforestation. Any agriculturalist or pastoralist who. finds time to do such work judiciously, with regard to scenic appearance as well as utility, really acts the part of a working member of the Beautifying Society, though not actually enrolled as such. Thus the farmer takes up the work amidst his own surroundings, where . the town and nearer suburban work finds its limit, so forming links of connection between town and country, a chain of continuance throughout the land; making roadsides and what can be viewed therefrom a source of endless and evervarying charm. And who would be so obtuse as to say that such condition could do other than have an exalting ■effect upon the intelligence of young and old? "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever." We may not all know, or be able to define why this, or that, pleases; we may not be conversant with the artistic laws or rules of ''composition" and "effect" —the why and wherefore of the i thing; but we all are (often, perhaps, unconsciously), influenced by the presence of 'what is decorative and beautiful, and influenced for th; 1 bo; tor every time.

One choice beauty spot for public benefit exists in Lower Mangorei, namely, the education reserve contiguous to the wellknown and popiilar" pleasaunce, the "Meeting of the Waters."' Here let me make a plea for the making of a 'beauty spot of another, local reserve. Approaching from New Plymouth, the half mile or so.of. .tha Junction rqajl.immediately preceding the education reserve, is simply beautiful. Within half a mile of this, nearer New Plymouth, is the Borough Council's waterworks reserve. Observe the contrast. The latter reserve, stationed on a corner of the cross roads, with frontages abutting on the Junction road and Mangorei road, its preponderating hillock rises obtrusively upon one's attention; a very clean and tidily kept knob of grazing, quite a credit, as such, to the careful official occupier (Mr. S. Hooker). From a scenic point of view, however, it is crude, callous and even aggressive. Bald, blank and repressive as it now is, the slopes of this prominent mound might easily, under a little fostering care, be rendered a superb mass of exquisite vegetation and wealth of foliage, whose ornamental value to resident, travellers and tourists would be difficult to assess. '

Now that the planting season has once mora come round, the work in the direction of beautifying the reservoir reserve is earnestly commended to the, borough councillors, who hold the property in trust for the public. We know that water —pure water—is the first object of the reserve. A water vessel, however, will hold none the less, or be none the less pure for being decorated externally.