STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 347 



sought for the erection of tine public or private buildings and splendid shops for the 

 display of the most costly wares. 



The whole location thus becomes an elegant and rich quarter, which but for 

 these improvements would never have been other than a monotonous series of 

 streets and blocks, offering no attractions to visitors, whether citizens or strangers. 

 It is obvious, however, that great care is necessary in locating these areas and 

 especially the lines of boulevards so that they may become integral portions of the 

 thickly populated city instead of mere external pleasuie drives, and this can 

 only be attained by securing the laud at an early stage of the city's growth. Chicago 

 affords an illustration of the danger of delay, for althongh she has arranged a more 

 extended system of boulevards than any other city in the country, they are all at 

 such a distance from the present thickly peopled districts that a drive of several 

 miles is necessary to reach the nearest of them, and many years must elapse before 

 they can be regarded as city avenues. They are in fact only country roads mag- 

 nificently arranged for driveways, with here and there a costly residence fronting ' 

 upon them, but except at fashionable houses, having a deserted appearance instead 

 of the constant throng of equipages and pedestrians which render the boulevards 

 of Paris so attractive. 



The obvious importance to the new and growing towns of this section, of timely 

 forethought and action in arranging for these future wants which can never be 

 supplied if we wait till they are felt, has led me to dwell upon the subject in the 

 hope of impressing it the more forcibly upon the minds of all who have it in their 

 power to influence civic authority. No one who reflects upon it can fail to per- 

 ceive that much of the ultimate beauty, healtli and welfare of every town which 

 ever aspires to be anything more than a village must depend upon arrangements 

 which can only be secured by the exercise of timely and judicious forethought. 

 And yet how rarely do we see it exercised. There is hardly a city of 100,000 inhab- 

 itants in the western country in which the expenditure of very large sums might 

 not have been saved, and millions secured for the future city treasury by early 

 attention to natural topography and adaptation to future wants in its first arrange- 

 ment. In the course of thirty years' experience as a landscape gardener, I have so 

 often witnessed the almost inestimable losses resulting from neglect of opportuni- 

 ties, the value of which was not realized till too late, that I cannot express too 

 strongly my sense of the danger of delay, or condemn too earnestly the "penny 

 wise and pound foolish economy" which can never look beyond immediate necessity 

 and rise above the meannesses of petty trading. 



There is, however, another aspect of the question which is of. scarcely less im- 

 portance, and is certainly of wider significance than the one I have thus far con- 

 sidered. I allude to the reservation for public use, of large areas which from 

 special, natural or other causes possess such interest to mankind at large that the 

 whole world has a claim upon them, as a gift from almighty power which should 

 be held sacred from the modifications to which the greed of man might subject 

 them. The national government has recognized this principle in the reservation 

 of the Yellowstone Park, and the State of New York has followed suit in securing 

 Niagara Falls and a large area of the Adirondack region to be forever preserved as 

 public domain. 



Some action has been taken in the Minnesota legislature towards securing an 



