1906.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT No. 73. 139 



While these are notable instances, nearly every city and 

 large town in the State has labored to the same end to a 

 greater or less degree. Above all, born of the brain of the 

 late Charles Eliot, is the magnificent scheme of a metropoli- 

 tan park, with its thousands of acres of wild woodland, 

 intersected with drives and bridle paths and connected by 

 improved parkways, where one may drive for miles with 

 constantly changing vistas of tangled hill and dell. Thus, 

 by the wisdom of our legislators with the hearty co-opera- 

 tion of the citizens, has the city of Boston been surrounded 

 by a chain of parks, where its people can recuperate their 

 energies, breathe the air and observe the beauties of nature 

 at first hand. 



A park system without trees is an anomaly. There is no 

 pleasure in visiting a park denuded of its vegetation, show- 

 ing in summer, instead of refreshing shade, only naked 

 trees, bare fields and rocks exposed to the scorching sun. 



A portion of our great park area has already been 

 scourged by the gypsy and brown-tail moths ; Lynn Woods 

 has had over 100 acres killed by this means, while a larger 

 area has been defoliated. Many of the stately trees of Pine 

 Banks Park have been killed, and numbers of those which 

 remain are in a dying condition. A hundred years will be 

 required to bring back the former beauty of the place. The 

 vast area of the Middlesex Fells is already thoroughly in- 

 fested and the southern half has been seriously injured, in 

 spite of the vigorous efforts of those in charge of the park 

 to suppress the pest. 



The Blue Hills Reservation has been inspected, and some 50 

 places discovered where the gypsy moth has obtained a foot- 

 hold, and a very few nests of the brown-tail moth have been 

 found and removed. The findings here, in most cases, have 

 been of single nests, generally remote from each other, but 

 in a few instances more serious infestations have been found. 

 These offer no special difficulties if promptly and thoroughly 

 treated. This infestation in the largest park south of Bos- 

 ton, and one of particular beauty, while not severe at 

 present, is potentially of gravest significance. This reser- 



