RECREATION PARKS 



Washington have been found to be of especial value in keeping the 

 polo fields well cropped. 



Botanical gardens are more difficult than zoological gardens to make 

 a part of parks, the demands of plant identification and orderly display 

 being incompatible often with landscape design and composition. It 

 is best to keep them a separate feature from park design, as the Jardin 

 des Plantes, in Paris. The Kew Garden in England is more of an 

 arboretum than a botanical garden, which allows greater leeway of 

 landscape design and should not be confused with the true interpreta- 

 tion of a botanical garden. The introduction of botanical gardens in 

 park areas, unless the areas are so very extensive that land may be 

 contributed without appreciable loss, must be regarded with doubt, 

 for, like playgrounds and " recreation centres," the chances are that 

 they will absorb rather than embellish the park land. 



A MUSIC CONCOURSE 



Music pavilions and concert courts should be considered as indis- 

 pensable to all large parks ; they should be designed as an integral part 

 of the park, located with reference both to acoustic and landscape char- 

 acter of the surroundings, and placed to serve as large a number of 

 people as possible. There may be an extensive entourage of prome- 

 nades and walks with seats to provide for the comfort of the many 

 people who attend the concerts. The regular Sunday afternoon con- 

 cert in the Public Garden on the Pincian Hill in Rome, and that given 

 in Hyde Park in London, have become institutions of those parks, and 

 great congregations of people gather on foot, in carriages, and auto- 

 mobiles to enjoy them. In many European parks the concert feature 

 is frequently combined with al fresco restaurants where the people 

 gather while listening to the concerts, sometimes furnished daily by the 

 lessees of the restaurants. In the zoological garden at Leipsic there is 

 a curious combination of open-air restaurant and music concourse over- 



136 



