186 



THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE OF AMERICA. 



(Continued from page 173. j 

 maintenance and operation of that district in all respects, 

 nothing is left uncovered. Of course, the districts will 

 be altered, combined, subdivided, and otherwise changed 

 from time to time as circumstances render advisable, just 

 as the foreman in charge will be occasionally shifted from 

 district to district; but at any one time the responsibility 

 of each foreman should be complete and exclusive as to 

 his own district and the limits of the district absolutely 

 definite. His discretionary power must be limited by 

 instructions from the superintendent, but it should be 

 made clear to him that it is his dut_\- to call the attention 

 of the superintendent specifically to any limitation or ad- 

 verse condition which in his opinion needlesslv and un- 

 reasonabl}' interferes with his getting the best possible 

 results. If there is anything in his district which is not 

 as it should be, and which is beyond his power to cor- 

 rect, either through lack of means or lack of authority, 

 he must put the question squarelv up to the superintendent 

 or it will remain up to him. 



. It is obvious, however, that where such a large varietv 

 of technical questions are involved as in park work, sucli 

 a simple territorial division of duties ancl responsibilities 

 is not in itself sufficient. It would imply a range of 

 specialized technical skill within each division which it is 

 impracticable to secure. Such specialized skill must be 

 concentratetl in centralized staiif departments, each 

 specializing on a certain class of functions, regardless 

 of locality, but all working through or in collaboration 

 with the foremen of the local districts. In so far as 

 any staff department works through a local foreman, it 

 transmits to that foreman all the necessary orders con- 

 cerning the functions under its charge, and inspects his 

 execution of the same : thus the engineering department 

 transmits to a local foreman the instructions of the super- 

 intendent as to the building of a road, in the form of 

 stakes set in the pro])er locations and at the proper grades, 

 and ins]jects his work to see that it conforms to the in- 

 structions. In so far as any staff-department works nut 

 through a local foreman, but in collaboration with him, 

 it relieves him of the direct performance of a part of 

 the work of his district ; thus the engineering dejiart- 

 ment not only sets stakes for a pipe line in a park as 

 the local foreman is not equipped to do the work but the 

 engineering de])artment ma\- also furnish a special pipe 

 gang working entirely under its orders, and transferred 

 by it from one district to another as occasion requires. 

 In thus superimposing a functional division of duties 

 and responsibilities upon the basic territorial division 

 with which we started, there is a real danger of confusion 

 and of weakening the clear sense of personal respon- 

 sibility on the part of the local division foreman neces- 

 sary to efficient service. This danger is the more obvious 

 w'hen we consider that, in addition to the engineering- 

 staff department, there must be departments specializing 

 on other subjects, such as the improvement and care of 

 lawns, plantations, etc., the repair of buildings, etc. : and 

 that it is impossible to define the scope of sucli functional 

 departments exactly, as can be done with a territorial divi- 

 sion, so that there is always more or less overlapping and 

 conflict of authority between them. In order to minimize 

 this danger, it should be made absolutely clear that, while 

 the local division foreman must presume any instructions 

 received from a staff-department to be a proper inter- 

 pretation of the intention of the chief executive, yet, if it 

 appears to him that any instructions in regard to his 

 territory issued by any staff-department tend to conflict 

 with those issued by another staff-department or lead 

 toward results for which he is unwilling to accept re- 

 sponsibility, then it is his duty to report the situation to 

 the superintendent. In the absence of such report, he 



should be held responsible for anything going wrong in 

 his division. 



The general responsibility for all classes of work in 

 his entire district which is thus recentralized upon each 

 local division foreman provides a means for insuring 

 in each locality the proper coordination of the work of 

 the several staft'-departments without assuming a super- 

 human personal watchfulness on the part of the general 

 superintendent. The inevitable vagueness of the limits 

 v/hich separate the duties and responsibilities of staff- 

 departments in charge of dift"erent classes of operations 

 in the same territory will lead, in spite of the best in- 

 tentions, to conflicts of jurisdiction, to action bv one de- 

 partment in ignorance of or in disregard of the con- 

 flicting purposes of another department ; and. what is 

 perhaps more serious, there are bound to be matters which 

 are ignored by ever}- department on the assumption that 

 it is the business of some other department to look after 

 them. The resjjonsibility for finding these defects and 

 iiridging these lapses can be carried personally by the 

 general superintendent for a small or concentrated terri- 

 tory, but for a widely scattered system of parks it must 

 be delegated by him and squarely placed upon the 

 shoulders of the division foremen. 



In order to bring home these responsibilities definitely, 

 and also as a desirable check upon the propriety of all 

 expenditures, the charging up of the cost of any work 

 done and supplies or materials furnished for a local 

 division under the instruction or supervision of any staff- 

 department should be approved both bv the local division 

 f(_ireman and by the head of the staft'-department in 

 question. The charging up of such of the expenses of 

 a staft'-department as are not chargeable against any local 

 division, but are properly overhead charges against the 

 whole park system, should be approved by the head of 

 the department. The charging up of expense for a local 

 division not incurred under the supervision of any staff- 

 dejiartment should be approved by the foremen of the 

 divisi< m. 



.\othing can be done without incurring cost, and the 

 approval of cost entries involves assumption of re- 

 sponsibility for having the work done, and for its reason- 

 able efficiency. The approval of both the local division 

 foreman and a staff-department to each cost entry, or 

 the refusal of either of them to give such approval, brings 

 home the responsibility more definitely and more uni- 

 versally than anything else can. 



I believe that a division foreman, instead of being 

 kejit in ignorance of the state of the appropriation for 

 his work, instead of being required to execute blindly 

 from week to week the detailed orders of the superin- 

 tendent without knowing when his force may have to be 

 cut down, should be required to know how the accounts 

 of his division stand, and should be encouraged up to the 

 limit of his cajsacity to plan his work ahead for himself 

 with a view to accomplishing the utmost possible with 

 the available funds and saving on all the unessentials 

 for the sake of the more important things. To repose 

 this confidence in the foremen and place this responsibility 

 upon them not only tends to relieve the strain upon the 

 superintendent but develops the self-respect and self-re- 

 liance of the foremen, increases their intelligent interest 

 in their work and makes for efficiencv all along the line. 



Under a proper budget system of estimates and ac- 

 counts, the superintendent, well in advance of the first 

 of the year, would direct the preparation of detailed 

 estimates of the cost of all the contemplated ojierations, 

 both of maintenance and improvement, for each park. 

 .So far as practicable, these would be made by the re- 

 sponsible foren^en in consultation with the several staff'- 

 departnients. These estimates, together with those for 



