LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE. 61 



CHAPTER V. 



CITY PARKS LESSONS OF THE CENTRAL PARK DIFFI- 

 CULTY OF SELECTING A SITE FOR A PARK METHOD 

 OF RELIEF ADVANTAGES OF A PLAN PROPER MAN- 

 AGEMENT OF STREET PLANTING. 



CHIEF difficulty in all attempts at the creation of 

 a park in the vicinity of any city, has been that of 

 agreeing upon its location. The history of the 

 Central Park comprises some incidental features of inter- 

 est, which may not be apparent to the casual observers. In 

 the first place there was scarcely any room for dispute as 

 to locality. If New York was to have a park at all, it could 

 only be in that direction. Singularly enough, too, the Cen- 

 tral Park serves to some extent to corroborate what I have 

 heretofore said, of the effect of making ornamental use of 

 land which is valueless for other purposes. The land it 

 occupies was a series of barren ledges, of such forbidding 

 aspect that no one was tempted to incur the expense of 

 improving even so small a portion as was required for a 

 suburban residence, and its only inhabitants were the 

 hordes of squatters, whose shanties, clustering under the 

 shelter of the rocks, served only to heighten the dreary 

 aspect of the place. The land in the vicinity possessed 

 only a nominal value, anH the prospect of its settlement 



