PARKS FOE THE SMALLER TOWNS. 313 



makers and cemetery makers have to contend with, that everything 

 is laid out in checkerboard lines without regard to the aesthetic side. 

 So it may be that in order to secure the location desired we will have 

 to disregard the surveyed lines and rearrange them in conformity 

 with the contours of the grounds. Very often a village plat might 

 have been arranged in the beginning so that these park sitet would 

 have been provided and much useless expense in street grading 

 avoided. I recall one small city in this state where diagonally 

 through the village flows a small stream in a wooded ravine. The 

 streets cross the ravine, and the people have hung the ends of their 

 stables over the brow of the bluff and when high water comes in the 

 spring the scavenger work is attended to, and the lake is there to 

 receive the refuse. A little thought in the laying out of that village 

 would have made that ravine a center of beauty, and the lots and 

 streets along the banks would have afforded frontage for the most 

 attractive residences. All that was overlooked, however, which with 

 a little additional expense would have made this the most beauti- 

 ful portion of the village. 



The treatment of the site, of course, is the next question that 

 naturally arises in this connection. I think I can safely say this, 

 that it is always wise not to attempt too much. If we have an 

 ordinary square or city block some artificial feature may be intro- 

 duced, and all the rest should be a setting for it. A fountain or 

 foliage bed might be the central feature of the design. A lawn 

 should also be provided with plantings of flowers and shrubbery — 

 but one great danger is the tendency, as has already been remarked, 

 of overplanting. I remember visiting a city in Iowa a short time 

 since, and while waiting for the train I looked over the city park 

 of four or five acres, which had been "improved." These improve- 

 ments consisted mainly in planting it so it appeared like a young 

 forest, and they were continuing the work by planting some elms in 

 a diminutive lawn that was still left in the center of the park. If 

 we have one of these natural sites great care must be taken not to 

 obliterate any of its native attractiveness. Artificiality must be kept 

 in the background, and pains taken not to interfere with the natural 

 beauty. 



In closing I would like to say a word in regard to what I have 

 already referred to, and that is the question of close planting. Of 

 course, we hear it preached that the windbreak must be planted 

 thickly (and it is generally thought necessary to plant close in our 

 parks), but still it is a dangerous expedient to adopt, and you may be 



