no ROUND ABOUT CHICAGO 



nature. The lagoons look stiff and artificial, and 

 the flower beds are in awful geometrical patterns 

 and of conglomerations of plants which were 

 never made to grow together. Only when they 

 flame with tulips and hyacinths in the early 

 spring, or with geraniums and cannas in the late 

 fall, are they endurable. 



In other respects Washington Park does not 

 suffer by comparison. Indeed, the finest thing 

 in all our park system is here, the great meadow, 

 stretching for a good quarter of a mile in every 

 direction, just green, open space, close mown 

 of late summers by a picturesque flock of fine 

 sheep. In the middle of the day it is a great 

 playground where boys, big and little, may en- 

 joy wholesome athletic sports. Some May morn- 

 ing when the lilacs around its border are in full 

 flower and fragrance, walk across it and bless 

 the artistic genius who laid out the park and left 

 this open space where the long far view rests 

 the eye as the solitude rests the ear. I heard 

 lately of a prominent man who was being urged 

 to assist the project of the outer park belt. After 

 seeing the meadow, he declined, saying, "What 

 do you want of any more parks when all this 

 isn't planted yet?" From such may the South 

 Park Commissioners be delivered ! 



