April 21, 1906 



HORTICULTURE 



OUTDOOR ART 



ADDRESS DELIVERED AT CLEVE- 

 LAND, OHIO. 



October 6, 1905. 



Outdoor art is fine art. It is the art 

 of making and saving living pictures 

 that painters will paint. That person 

 who has a genuine appreciation of 

 nature, whether it be for the little 

 things that grow, or the great land- 

 scapes of sky and earth and water has 

 the instincts of an artist. He may 

 not have the technical skill to depict 

 upon paper the aspect and pose of a 

 fern, flower or tree, or to place upon 

 canvas the fleeting expressions of 

 nature that most appeal to him, but he 

 can recognize the beauties and de- 

 ficiencies of the common things and 

 common scenes about him, he can use 

 his influence to preserve the beauty 

 and supply the deficiencies, and the 

 measure of his success in this work 

 will carry his name as far down the 

 vista of time as will most of the 

 work that artists do. More people and 

 more generations of people may gain 

 a mental, moral and physical uplift 

 from the living picture of a really 

 beautiful landscape with its never end- 

 ing change with the procession of 

 the seasons than from any landscape 

 upon canvas. In no respect would I 

 belittle the work of the true artist. 

 He who has the power to place upon 

 canvas the brief periods of supreme 

 beauty that every student of nature 

 would like to preserve, or who can 

 depict the beautiful compositions of 

 mass, form, line, light and shade that 

 nature can, but seldom does produce, 

 without a blemish, speaks so command- 

 ing a note that the average man is 

 compelled to stop and look and listen 

 even though he does not understand. 

 The student of a picture-gallery crowd 

 can testify that while it will swarm 

 and chatter about the street Arab 

 story or home-parting scene, it will 

 linger quietly and thoughtfully before 

 the work of a master. You, who have 

 studied the Crowds in a public park, 

 will realize that while they will also 

 gather for a brief period about the 

 showy flower beds with expressions of 

 wonder and admiration, they will 

 spend the day where there are beauti- 

 ful landscapes. 



I believe the average taste of the 

 public is correct, and that it does ap- 

 preciate a really beautiful thing. In 

 evidence of this, I only need to point 

 to the tremendously rapid growth of 

 the sentiment and practice that is rep- 

 resented by the membership of this 

 Association. We need more teachers 

 who are competent to teach, and such 

 teachers are rapidly developing, more 

 disciples of outdoor art who will look 

 beyond the pretty flower bed and the 

 neat yard to the permanent improve- 

 ment of their towns on broader lines; 

 and who will set about to acquire the 

 fine trees, the beautiful passages of 

 landscape that will fit into the broader 

 scheme. You will say that public 

 reservations are expensive and that you 

 have not the means or influence to 

 secure them. I say that you are wrong 



AN D CR A FT 



m% 



in this assumption, for if you really 

 have the instinct of the artist, and a 

 real love for the beauty in nature 

 because of its beauty, and not becausa 

 the individuals or publications to 

 whom you look for your ideas assert 

 it, you will be able to sway others to 

 see as you do, at least enough to give 

 of the abundance of their land or 

 their money. 



Let me give you a few leaves from 

 my book of experience to show how 

 often a suggestion may fall in fallow 

 ground. A Park Commission having 

 an appropriation sufficient only to pur- 

 chase the park land of a proposed ex- 

 tensive park system was told that they 

 must acquire their park-ways by gift 

 from property owners. This was 

 unanimously declared impossible, but 

 an opportunity to divide into houss 

 lots a six hundred acre tract on the 

 line of the proposed park-way made it 

 possible to provide liberally for th's 

 park-way, and to secure the sixty acres 

 needed therein as a gift to the city. 

 Another unconvinced property owner, 

 after having seen the benefits and 

 beauty of park-ways in another city 

 was convinced, and now offers to give 

 with equal liberality. Three other 

 large property owners are doing the 

 same, and it now appears certain that 

 nearly the whole of the park-way land 

 will be secured thus, or from public 

 holdings established for other pur- 

 poses. 



In a small city of the northwest, a 

 large body of primitive pine upon the 

 shores of a beautiful stream much 

 used for pleasure boating was to be cut 

 for the last bite to a big saw-mill that 

 was about to be closed for all time, 

 owing to the exhaustion of its forest 

 supply. The suggestion made to a 

 member of the lumber company that 

 the preservation of lines of trees along 

 the bluff, and groups of trees at promi- 

 nent points would preserve the essence 

 of all the unique beauty of a stream 

 that would only be common-place after 

 the pines were cut. He was doubtful, 

 as it represented a large asset. At 

 another visit the same ground was 

 gone over, and the same suggestions 

 made to another member of the firm, 

 who seemed coldly non-committal. At 

 the next visit, the mills were dis- 

 mantled, and a million feet of lumber 

 had been saved to preserve the beauty 

 of the stream. Not only this, but 

 also a large number of splendid old 

 trees along the shore of the great 

 water-power pond, as well as on the 

 bluffs in the heart of the town, all of 

 which might have gone to the mills 

 had the owners so willed. 



In a small town in eastern Massa- 

 chusetts was a high hill-top, from 

 which the finest view in the town was 

 to be secured. The supposed owner, 

 the village grocer, was approached 



BEFORE AMERICAN CIVIC ASSO- 

 CIATION. 



By Warren H. Manning. 



with the suggestion that it be given to 

 an Association who would hold it open 

 to the public for all time. He assented 

 promptly, but found his land did not 

 take in the summit. He believed it 

 belonged to a hard-working, but well- 

 to-do farmer. This farmer was ap- 

 proached, first with the suggestion that 

 he save a fine old hemlock on the hill- 

 side. With a good deal of emphasis 

 he stated that he had been saving 

 that tree for nearly fifty years. He, 

 too, offered to give land at the summit, 

 but it was found that his holdings 

 did not reach it. The store-keeper 

 purchased sixty acres for the purpose 

 of carrying out his intention. Then 

 the project for a woodland reservation 

 one hundred feet wide and nearly three 

 miles long was suggested, with the ex- 

 pectation that the owners would give 

 the land. Already nearly one-third 

 of the land required had been promised, 

 and this in a so-called non-progressive 

 farming community. In this same 

 community it was the practice of the 

 lumbermen to cut to the roadside. It 

 was found only necessary in most 

 cases to call the attention of the lum- 

 bermen to the desirability of preserv- 

 ing all the road side growth to secure 

 its preservation, and one lumberman, 

 having no personal interest in the 

 town, saved a large and fine oak of 

 considerable commercial value upon 

 the suggestion that it would be a fine 

 thing for him to do, and because he 

 cared for the beauty of the tree as 

 well. The suggestion to individuals 

 owning particularly fine trees that 

 they deed these trees to the Village 

 Improvement Association, has met 

 with a favorable response, and papers 

 are being prepared for the preserva- 

 tion of several such trees. It has been 

 my experience that there are very 

 many land and tree owners who care 

 so much for such beauty that they 

 are willing to make a considerable 

 sacrifice to preserve it, if the agency 

 is provided, and if they are approached 

 in the proper spirit. Think how such 

 memorials will grow in beauty even if 

 neglected, for Nature is forever build- 

 ing her creations as fast as they decay, 

 and ruthlessly tearing down the 

 creations that man has made of 

 material gained by despoiling Nature. 



How many unendowed or endowed 

 memorial buildings, or other struc- 

 tures, in towns or on college campus, 

 erected fifty or more years ago, are 

 standing to-day, and how many are 

 likely to stand fifty years more, when 

 you consider the short period of a 

 building's usefulness, and the tendency 

 of towns and colleges to live so close 

 to their income as to only maintain 

 useful things, especially if the cost of 

 maintenance is a considerable item? 

 How many of the donors of fifty years 

 ago would be proud of their gifts were 

 they to see them associated with the 

 better work of to-day? 



There are many beautiful trees and 



