OUR LOCATION AND GROUNDS.
The California building, though some distance back from the main entrance, was on high ground and eligibly located as to attractive surroundings and accessibility. The grounds for so large a structure were necessarily extensive, and the work of clearing, leveling, sodding and planting these grounds involved an expenditure much greater than at previous expositions, where the grounds were smaller and required less preparatory work.
Mr. Geo. C. Roeding of Fresno, our Superintendent of Horticulture, giving his talents and time, as did Miss Withrow, for the love of the work and the good he could do the State, collected from different nurseries in California two car loads of fruiting trees, flowering plants, palms and shrubs, and traveled to Seattle to personally superintend the work of converting these grounds into a typical California park, with clusters of palms, geranium beds and orange groves. It gave to the Exposition a semi-tropic feature which visitors greatly enjoyed, and which was highly appreciated by the Exposition management as a rare and valuable acquisition to their already beautiful landscape effects. It might be said, however, that the citrus trees and other tender plants did not thrive well even in the Seattle summer, and though the grounds thus planted, as a side attraction and subject of favorable comment, were perhaps worth all they cost, yet they were not so beautiful as they would have been under more favorable climatic conditions. Mr. Roeding’s work in the department was prompted by love of his art and pride in his State. He contributed liberally from his own nurseries and gave time and technical assistance that money could hardly have bought, and for his unstinted services, not only your Representatives, but all Californians, owe him a debt of lasting gratitude.