152 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



MEETING FOR DISCUSSION. 



Saturday, March 10, 1894. 



A Meeting for Discussion was holdeu at eleven o'clock, Vice- 

 President Francis H. Apfleton in the chair. The following 

 paper was read by the author. 



The Metropolitan Park System. 



By Sylvester Baxter, Ex-Secretary of the Metropolitan Park Commission, Maiden. 



The realization of a system of metropolitan parks for Boston, 

 within three years of the time when the first definite suggestion to 

 that end was made, furnishes one of the most striking instances of 

 the remarkable responsiveness of public sentiment under modern 

 conditions, when the right chord chances to be struck at the right 

 moment. 



The establishment of the metropolitan park system makes a 

 decisive step in the organization of an adequate form of govern- 

 ment for the great cluster of separate communities that properly 

 form one great urban community, constituting what has come to 

 be commonly known as the " Greater Boston," embracing today 

 well nigh a million inhabitants. This was recognized by the pre- 

 liminary Metropolitan Park Commission in its memorable report of 

 a year ago: — "The time for this is distinctly come, and for 

 several years legislation has been shaping itself to that end," said 

 the commission. "The great increase of rapid transit facilities 

 since the railroad system was originated, and their more recent 

 development through electricity, has already made every town 

 Avithin nine miles of Boston a close suburb of that city. Those 

 towns may in fact be said to be the bedchambers of the city 

 countingroom. To Boston a great and always increasing propor- 

 tion of those living in the surrounding municipalities now go daily 

 to pursue their business or make their purchases ; and from 

 Boston they daily return to their homes. In everything but in 

 name they are inhabitants of both places ; and, in everything but in 

 local government and in name, the two places are one. Each new 

 appliance of rapid transit gives an additional impetus to this 

 phase of development ; and new appliances ever crowd upon each 

 other. 'J'here is in tlie development, also, much that is good and 



