PUBLIC PARKS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS. 287 



THE LARGE PARK SYSTEM. 



If there is one lesson more valuable than any other 

 to be learned from the park system of Paris — and con' 

 firmed by the experience of other cities also — it is that 

 cities should depend upon boulevards, squares, circles, 

 and moderate-sized parks for town gardens, rather than 

 exclusively upon large, and, as they often prove to be, 

 enormously expensive parks. The inborn American 

 love for doing great things, may easily lead to the error 

 of laying out large parks, when smaller ones would bet' 

 ter serve the purpose. In many cases a small park of 

 five, ten, or forty acres, well arranged and cared for, is 

 capable of more fully serving every true want which calls 

 for a town garden, than a large one of hundreds of acres. 



The desire for large parks for large cities need not be 

 an unworthy one, but discrimination should be made 

 between such as are largely made up of artificial decora^ 

 tive garden work, and very costly in construction and 

 maintenance, and those of such a nature that a large 

 degree of a natural kind of park attractions and benefits 

 are secured for a comparatively small outlay. 



In the vicinity of ahnost every town there are sites not 

 far distant, possessing natural beauty in landscape, wood, 

 and water, well suited for a park, and which may be 

 bought at a moderate cost. One or more new tracts of 

 such land, of almost any extent, may be secured and con^ 

 verted into a park or system of parks, on some simple, 

 well considered plan, having in view the presenting of 

 nature in her most attractive moods. Such a park, 

 if so managed as to leave it mainly in a wild state, 

 both now and in the future, may be made most de- 

 lightful as a ground for public recreation, either alone, 

 or as a part of a system embracing some more highly 

 improved gardens in the town. The wet places must be 

 drained, some graceful driveways with a natural appear- 



