As the work proceeded, W. B. Faville, the architect, of Bliss and Faville, made a suggestion for the building of a fence that should look as if it were moss-covered with age. The result was that developing the suggestion McLaren devised a new kind of hedge likely to be used the world over. It was made of boxes, six feet long and two feet wide, containing, a two-inch layer of earth, held in place by a wire netting, and planted with South African dew plant, dense, green and hardy and thriving in this climate. Those boxes, when piled to a height of several feet, made a rustic wall of great beauty, Moreover, they could be continuously irrigated by a one-inch perforated line of pipe. In certain lights the water trickling through the leaves shimmered like gems. In summer the plant would produce masses of small purple flowers. McLaren found his experiment so successful that he decided to build a hedge twenty feet high, extending more than a thousand feet. He also used the hedge extensively in the landscape design for the Palace of Fine Arts. The Sculptors The department of sculpture was placed under the direction of one of the most distinguished sculptors in the country. Karl Bitter, of New York, whose death from an automobile accident took place a few weeks after the Exposition opened. He gathered around him an extraordinary array of co-operators, including many of the most brilliant names in the world of art, with A. Stirling Calder as the acting chief, the man on the ground. Though he did not contribute any work of his own, he was active in developing the work as a whole, taking special pains to keep it in character and to see that, even in it its diversity, it gave the impression, of harmony. Calder welcomed the chance to work on a big scale and to carry out big ideas. With Bitter he visited San Francisco in August, 1912, for a consultation with the architectural commission. Minutely they went over the site and examined the architectural plans. Then they picked the sculptors that they wished to secure as co-operators. In December, 1912, Bitter and Calder made another visit to San Francisco for further conferring with the architectural commission, bearing sketches and scale models. Bitter explained his plans in detail and asked for an appropriation. He was told that he should be granted six hundred thousand dollars. The amount was gradually reduced till it finally reached three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars. It was at this period that Calder submitted his plan for the Column of Progress. He had worked it out in New York and had the scale models made by MacNeil and Konti. It won the approval of McKim, Mead & White, who declared that it made an ideal feature of the approach from the bay side to their Court of the Universe, then called the Court of the Sun and Stars.