TWENTY-FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT 89 
us to give a more satisfactory service to the thousands of chil- 
dren to whom this is such an improvement feature of the Park. 
During the year an opportunity was offered to add to the 
number of animals available for riding purposes and at the 
same time give us some new blood for breeding purposes. Four 
attractive new ponies were purchased and shipped in from 
North Carolina. 
The riding animals, as the receipts show, are becoming more 
popular each season and serious consideration should be given 
to providing a new location for their operation where it will be 
unnecessary to use a roadway so greatly crowded with foot 
traffic as the Service Road is at this point. 
DEPARTMENT OF FORESTRY AND CONSTRUCTION 
HERMANN W. MERKEL, Chief Constructor and Forester; E. H. CosTaIn, Asst. 
Forester; MICHAEL O’KEEFE, Head Gardener. 
Continued shortage of labor and the difficulty in obtaining 
materials when ordered have made it impossible to carry out the 
ambitious program of repair and replacement that had been 
laid out for the year 1920. Were it not for the fact that a decided 
change has taken place in the labor and material market, the 
outlook would be gloomy. 
Maintenance. 
The routine maintenance work was carried on as heretofore, 
with the exception that it was carried on more successfully than 
during the previous three years, and that this Department has 
been able to catch up with work which it was compelled to neglect 
in former years. In spite of the fact that the exceedingly hard 
winter and the great snowfall made extraordinary demands upon 
the force, the Maintenance Department was able to improve sub- 
stantially the general appearance of the park, and to look after 
the most urgently needed repairs to the buildings and other in- 
stallations. 
At the Large Bird House, the entire glass roof was reset and 
many leaks repaired, and the roof structure, which in some in- 
stances had become so dangerously weak as to cause*the heavy 
glass to drop several inches, was put in safe condition. 
