200 PUBLIC PARKS OF IOWA 



community with community, and neighborhood with neighborhood, com- 

 bine to the accomplishing of a purpose so beneficent, so absolutely essen- 

 tial to the continued prosperity of our people? 



Some of us have seen county after county almost across our state 

 pay a heavy assessed tax for the construction of a railway deemed nec- 

 essary to the country's development. A movement such as here con- 

 templated would be cheap in comparison, as regards the first required 

 outlay, and would return dividends not, as too often in the other case, in 

 vexation, litigation and disappointment, but in ever-increasing profit, 

 pleasure and benediction upon ourselves and our children. The cost 

 would be wholly inconsiderable. 



The people would act today if the situation were clearly understood. 

 The question is whether we do the right thing now or wait until the ex- 

 pense shall be increased a hundred-fold. The preservation of springs and 

 streams and forests will one day be undertaken as freely as the building 

 of fences or bridges or barns. When that day comes, Iowa, once so fair in 

 her virginal beauty of wild-flowered meadow and stream-washed grove, 

 now so rich in all that comes from tillage and toil, will put on yet an 

 added splendor, in that all her toil and filth shall yield to wisdom's guid- 

 ance; forest and meadow receive each in turn intelligent and appropriate 

 recognition; beauty become an object of universal popular concern, and 

 once again across the prairie state the clarified waters of a hundred 

 streams will move in perennial freshness toward the great river and the 

 sea. Iowa Academy of Sciences, Vol. 5, pp. 16-23. 



RELATION OF STATE TO NATIONAL PARKS. 

 By Frank H. Culley. 



In this magnificently conceived national park system of ours there has 

 been reserved a very definite and a very valuable place for the state 

 parks. Before discussing the relation of the state parks to the national 

 park system, it is quite essential that we understand fully that the public 

 lands which go to make up this system are owned and controlled in the 

 main by three distinct political units; first, the nation; second, the states; 

 and third, the municipalities. 



Under the control and ownership of the nation we have such ^ public 

 lands as the national parks, the national forests, the national monu- 

 ments, Indian reservations, military reservations and the great national 

 highways. The state, generally speaking, has more or less direct con- 

 trol of all the public lands in the political units that go to make up 

 their rural communities.. The state then controls such public lands as 

 state parks, state forests, local scenery reservations, water shed reser- 

 vations, roadways, school grounds, cemeteries and church grounds found 

 in the rural districts. While the municipalities have within their own 

 boundaries park systems containing rural parks, on their outskirts; 

 large city parks; neighborhood parks; school grounds and play grounds; 

 cemeteries; waterfront developments; town commons and squares; all 



