STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 345 



«asy access of the city, and then to develop and heighten the charms which 

 nature has bestowed upon it, by tasteful and artistic arrangement, and the intro- 

 duction of artificial decorations of various kinds, such as fountains, bridges, statues, 

 vases, rustic work and ornamental structures. 



In arranging the routes for parkways or boulevards also, the primary object in 

 most minds is to secure a drive through the most attractive scenery that is access- 

 ible for such purpose. It is not unfrequently the case that tracts of land may exist 

 in the immediate vicinity of a city of a very picturesque character, which owing to 

 that very fact are not available for the purposes of residence sit-^s, because no 

 individual can afford the great cost of grading and draining them and constructing 

 the roads by which they can be made accessible. 



In such cases the Improvement of a large portion as a park, and the construction 

 of fine roads and ornamental avenues by which it may be easily reached, confers at 

 once such value upon the whole adjacent area that the citj' is more than paid for 

 the outlay by the addition thus made to the taxable value of the improved property. 



The Central Park of New York affords an eminent illustration of this truth. 

 Before its improvement by the city, it was simply a series of wild ledges, of barren 

 rocks with intervening valleys and occasional swamps, where no man could afford 

 to fix his residence on account of the great cost of putting even a small piece of 

 ground in habitable condition, and the fact that even when done there wculd be no 

 means of access to it. The consequence was that its only inhabitants were of the 

 poorest class of rag and coal pickers, whose wretched hovels were clustered here 

 and there under the protecting ledges in the midst of piles of ashes, giving to the 

 whole district such a drearj' and suspicious aspect of squalor that no stranger cared 

 to enter its precincts. I remember well that I felt doubtful of my personal safety 

 when I spent a day exploring it alone in 1856, when the first purchase was made of 

 a portion of it for a park. Now to summarize the effect of the work of improve- 

 ment of this area by the construction of the park, and making it accessible by fine 

 roads; the whole cost of the park, for the first twenty-five years, including original 

 purchase, construction, maintenance and interest was in round numbers $44,000,000. 

 During this period the aggregate amount of taxes collected in the wards im- 

 mediately adjacent to the park was $110,000,600. 



Estimating fifty millions as the utmost increase of value which could have accrued 

 from the ordinary extension of city improvements, there would be sixty millions 

 left, and de iucting from that the cost of the park we have the handsome net profit 

 of sixteen millions of dollars. 



This shows the wisdom of selecting areas for such improvements which from 

 natural causes are almost valueless until they are thus made habitable; but it by 

 no means proves that it is wise or desirable for the city to purchase large tracts for 

 parks which are already so attractive as residence sites, that the land has attained 

 a high value from the natural advantages it offers. Such tracts are not only very 

 costly at the outset, but there is no danger whatever that they will ever be occupied 

 for objectionable purposes. Instead of seeking only the most beautiful tracts for 

 such >ise, which already possess great value from their intrinsic advantages, the 

 aim should be to find the localities which from natural causes are avoided by the 

 most desirable class of population, and liable from their consequent low valuation 

 to be occupied for objectionable purposes, and by expending money in redeeming 



