34 PUBLIC PARKS OF IOWA 



development, its culminating traces and just as one begins to tire 

 of it, it passes away and a radical change comes, with new witch- 

 eries and new glories in its train. And I think that, to one in sym- 

 pathy with Nature, each season, in its turn, seems the loveliest. 



No land with an unvarying climate can be very beautiful. The 

 tropics are not, for all the sentiment that is wasted on them. They 

 seem beautiful at first, but sameness impairs the charm by-and-by. 

 "The Innocents at Home." 



OUR PLAYGROUNDS WITHOUT RIVALS 



By Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of Interior. 

 To build a railroad, reclaim land, give new impulse to enterprise, 

 and offer new doors to ambitious capital these are phases of the 

 ever-widening life and activity of this nation. The United States, 

 however, does more; it furnishes playgrounds to the people which 

 are, we may modestly state, without any rivals in the world. Just 

 as the cities are seeing the wisdom and necessity of open spaces for 

 the children, so with a very large view the nation has been saving 

 from its domain the rarest places of grandeur and beauty for the 

 enjoyment of the world. 



OUR RICH NATURAL SCENERY 



By Stephen T. Mather. 



This nation is richer in natural scenery of the first order than any 

 other nation; but it does not know it. It possesses an empire of 

 grandeur and beauty which it scarcely has heard of. It owns the 

 most inspiring playgrounds and the best-equipped native schools in 

 the world and is serenely ignorant of the fact. In its national parks 

 it has neglected because it has quite overlooked, an economic 

 asset of incalculable value. "The National Park Portfolio." 



GIVE BEAUTY ITS RIGHTFUL PLACE 

 By Thomas H. Macbride, President State University of Iowa. 

 Iowa once a park of splendor from river to river will be so again 

 when ten million fortunate people, on some future day, shall each 

 give beauty rightful place in the conduct of all successful living. 

 Hail Iowa ! Greetings to Iowa Forestry and Conservation Associa- 

 tion. 



