340 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
vidual will go to the expense of making a thorough and fitting arrange- 
ment of such a tract for public use, and, on the other hand, those who 
resort to it can have no such assurance of protection, as is afforded in a 
public park of which every visitor feels himself to be a joint proprietor. 
No better proof of the superior estimation in which parks are held could 
be afforded, as compared with such resorts as are offered by private par- 
ties to supply their place, than the well known fact that the immediate 
effect of selecting any area for a public park is to enhance the value of 
adjacent property for residence sites; whereas,a private resort of the kind, 
however well it may be conducted, can never become so free from doubt 
and apprehension that its vicinity will be sought for such purposes. 
I need do no more than remind you of these simple facts to convince 
you, first, that wherever a community of a few thousand people is gath- 
ered together, there must be frequent demand for a place where a large 
number may assemble in the open air, or where individuals or small par- 
ties may seek relief and recreation from the toil and care which are the 
attendants of their daily life; and second, that this demand can be but 
poorly and insufficiently supplied by the efforts of private parties who are 
instigated only by motives of self interest. 
Is it not the part of wisdom to recognize the now well established scien- 
tific fact that rest and recreation are just as essential to the best develop- 
ment of manhood as sleep and food, and provide generously for their 
rational indulgence under such regulations as shall prevent their abuse, 
instead of ignoring the whole subject,as if the necessity implanted by na- 
ture was to be regarded as a weakness that should be conquered? 
Every intelligent man will give an affirmative answer; and the fact that 
all large cities have been forced by necessity to make such provision, af- 
fords such evidence of its existence,that the only doubt remaining is that 
of when the work should be coimenced, or how long the duty may be 
safely postponed. 
The idea is so generally prevalent that parks are of necessity costly 
luxuries, that people shrink from the thought of them as a needless addi- | 
tion to the burden of taxation. In fact, this apprehension is due to a 
mistaken conception of their requirements, and largely also to the fact 
that their construction has so often been attended with wasteful and un- 
necessary expenditure, that the idea has become fixed that the object can 
only be thus attained. A little reflection will serve to disabuse the mind of 
this mistaken notion. The parks of agreat and wealthy city may indeed 
be appropriately adorned in a manner that is in keeping with its architec- 
tural elegance; but even here the tendency is toa wasteful extravagance in 
tasteless and ostentatious display of artificial decoration, to say nothing of 
cheap imitations of works of art which betray vulgarity of taste as plainly 
as the wearing of imitation jewelry. 
The requirements of a small town are very different from those of a large 
city, and if a little common sense is applied, first, to the question of what 
is wanted, and next. to the means for its attainment, it will be found in ~ 
almost every case that they may be secured without any extravagant 
outlay. 
In selecting a site for a park, the mistake is often made of seeking an 
area possessing such naturally attractive features asrender it intrinsically 
valuable for residence sites, so that the first cost is necessarily large; 
