It seems only right at this time to speak of the great and modestly
contributed services of John McLaren. He, with his wide experience and
unceasing energy, created the garden setting which ties all the
buildings into a natural harmony. Hardly ever have trees, shrubs, and
flowers been used in such profusion in an Exposition. Conventional in
aspect, all great expositions in the past have been lacking in the
invigorating elements, no matter how naturalistic the site may have
been. The few scraggly pines of St. Louis looked more like undesirable
left-overs of a former forest than like a supporting feature of the
Exposition picture.

The stony look of many former expostions is not evident at San
Francisco. Considering the fact that the exposition is largely on made
ground, it is amazing what has been accomplished. With the exception of
the few scattering remains of an old amusement park - the Harbor View
Gardens - so charmingly utilized in the courtyard of the California
building, practically all the trees and shrubs had to be brought in from
the outside. How well Mr. McLaren succeeded in moving whole gardens "en
bloc" to the Exposition is shown by the fact that with the exception of
a few Monterey cypresses on one of the lagoon islands, not a single tree
has died. It was no small task to transplant eucalypti forty feet high,
and aged yew trees, and the tradition that it is impossible to
transplant old trees has again been demonstrated as in the same class
with other old sayings based on the experience of the past, but applying
no longer to our own conditions.

The stately rows of palms on the south avenue contain some specimens of
the Canary Island palms which must be nearly forty years old, and some
of the yews in the colonnade between the Court of the Four Seasons and