COUNTY PARKS. 369 



COUNTY PARKS.* 



Br Prof. THOMAS H. MACBEIDE, 



OF TUE STATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA. 



THE title of this article would seen to require little definition. 

 By county parks are meant simply open grounds available 

 for public use in rural districts as are city parks in towns. There 

 is nothing new in the idea ; it is simply an effort to call back into 

 public favor the once familiar public " common." This does not, 

 however, refer simply to public land, such as Government land, to 

 be claimed and plundered by the first comer, nor indeed to land to 

 be used by the public indiscriminately at all, but to land devoted 

 to public enjoyment, purely to the public happiness, a holiday 

 ground for country and city folk alike. 



The general features which should characterize such public 

 playground as is here discussed will also quickly suggest them- 

 selves to any one who chooses at all to consider the matter. In 

 the first place, the county park should be wooded, that it may 

 afford suitable shade and shelter for those who frequent it; it 

 should be well watered, to meet other patent needs ; it should be 

 romantic, in order by its attractiv^eness to be as far as possible 

 efficient. Above all, it must be under wise control, be at all times 

 suitably warded and kept, that its utility be transmitted from 

 generation to generation. All this is plain enough and will be 

 disputed by nobody. It is the intention here to show that such 

 parks are needed, that they are needed now ; that they should 

 have the highest scientific value ; and that in the eastern United 

 States, at least, they are everywhere practicable. 



The necessity for such parks seems to me to be threefold : 



1. As directly affecting public health and happiness. 



2. For proper education. 



3. To preserve to other times and men something of primeval 

 Nature. 



Let us consider these points briefly in the order named. 



All of us in one way or another know something of the mo- 

 notonous grind which makes up the lifelong experience of by far 

 the larger number of our fellow-men — on the farm, in the shop, 

 in the mine, day after day, one unceasing round of toil, into which 

 the idea of pleasure or freshness never enters. How many 

 thousands of our fellow-men, tens of thousands of our women, see 

 nothing but the revolving steps of labor's treadmill, day in, day 

 out, winter and summer, year after year, for the whole span of 

 mortal life ! This is especially so in the Western States, where the 



* Read in part as a paper before the Iowa Academy of Science, January 2, 1896, 



TOL. XMX. — 31 



