14 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



&he Forest Reserves of Our Cities. 



' ' I have just come from a visit with ' mine 

 own people,'" said the woodsman. "For 

 days I wandered in the great forests of east- 

 ern Tennessee holding, intercourse only with 

 the trees that I love. Under their sheltering 

 branches, listening to their soft whispers, or 



CHurr OF COTTOXWOODS — MAY. 

 even trembling when in clarion tones they 

 hurl back defiance to the storm, I always feel 

 I am truly with mine own people." 



"Come over to the park then, and make 

 the acquaintance of some of your neigh- 

 bors, ' ' his friend begged. 



' ' There are no real trees in the parks, ' ' 

 contentiously remarked tin' woodsman. 

 "The forest tree will not bear transplanting 

 in civilization anymore than the Indians. In 

 the great forests it is always the survival of 



the fittest. Only the 



strongest shoots above 



its fellows out of the 



clinging underbrush 



that would kill it 



even while it caresses. 



'TJp, up toward the 



light,' it seems to say, 



as tall and straight 



is proudly ascends 



i<>.:ird heaven and 



spreads clustering 



branches whose leaves 



open to the sun and 



drink eagerly the 



rain. Then it is a 



tree, a part of ' God 's 



first temple' and it 



holds an estimate 



quite apart and even 



greater than its com- 

 mercial value. ' ' 



irdless of the 



man spoke so slightingly of the park, the 

 tired denizen of the city will feel that there 

 is nothing so restful or so full of the real 

 essence of content as to lie under the trees 

 of one of our cities' forest reserves on a 

 hot summer day. We are getting over our 

 puritanical ideas that joy and beauty must 

 of themselves be sinful. President Roosevelt, 

 Charles Wagner and others are teaching by 

 preaching and practice that the busy man 

 can get something from the trees besides 

 lumber that can be coined into dollars and 

 cents. Each year finds more money set aside 

 for Nature's breathing places, and the nearer 

 one gets to the great Mother from time to 

 time, the more vigor he takes back to the 

 heat and struggle of every-day life and worry. 



This is perhaps what the Philadelphians 

 had in view when they set aside the largest 

 city park area in the world, and loft in much 

 of its wild luxuriance beautiful Fairmount 

 to be forever the forest reserve of the Quaker 

 City. Years and years before, William Penn 

 had. in each of the four corners of the town, 

 a play ground and a place of rtest and recrea- 

 tion. In one of then I ogan Square, alas, 

 he erected his gallows tree. Afterward this 

 u.-is cut down and o met :>! commemorat- 

 ing the red cross movement in '(II was erected 

 on the site. The Puritan forefathers also 

 i beautiful Boston Common by 

 hanging the poor unfortunates who were 

 thought to be witches within its confines in 

 the early days of Boston town. Central Park 

 in New York has no such memories, but it 

 stands in its beauty as a memorial that some 

 good was done by Tammany in spite of its 

 many steals and scandals. Druid Hill Park 

 is one of the show places of Baltimore, and 

 Washington is so full of trees and quiet that 

 when there one feels as did the southerner 

 who visited it for the first time. 



' ' I sat on the doorstep, ' ' he said, ' ' and 



the odor of the trees and flowers permeated 

 the air. Softly the twilight came shutting 

 down, and as the branches overhead nodded 

 and kissed each other good-night, I felt that 

 over there where the odorous mist of the sum- 

 mer night shut out the distance, I should 



A BEAVTY SPOT IN WASH [XCTi >N I'AIiK. rniCACO. 



GROl I' OF I "I rONWOODS— DECEMBER. 



find the cows coming home, just beyond the 

 hill." 



Cincinnati has a beautiful forest reserve 

 in Burnet Woods, where many of the trees 

 arc as Natun planted them, while Eden Park 

 shews more the hands of man and the taste 

 of the landscape gardener. 



Belle Isle Park in Detroit was once named 

 Hog Island, but it has been reclaimed and 

 made one of the most beautiful parks in the 

 United States. 



Lincoln Park in 

 Chicago has lost some 

 of its restfulness with 

 the introduction of 

 the zoo and the recre- 

 ation fakes which are 

 supposed to appeal to 

 the children of all 

 ages. Washington 



Park, however, is still 

 a spot given over en- 

 tirely to Nature and 

 lier handiwork, with 

 occasional coaching 

 from the landscape 

 gardener. Here came 

 the woodsman in De- 

 cember, to look at a 

 (lump of elms, bare 

 and cheerless. 



' ' They are not 

 elms," he said, "but 



el Idiiwnods. ' ' ] lira 



