THE METROPOLITAN PARK SYSTEM. 163 



long time to come be perfectly consonant with their maintenance 

 in their present condition, as for the most part a wilderness. They 

 will need little care beyond that of protection against wanton 

 injury and of access by simple roads similar to those which have 

 been constructed at a remarkably low cost in the Lynn Woods. 

 Therefore it is better that they should be regarded merely as 

 public reservations, held for improvement as future occasion may 

 demand. 



The word Park, moreover, is a term that has been subject to 

 great abuse. The expression has been used with such a wide 

 range as to seem applicable to almost anything short of a boot- 

 jack ! In actuality its meaning has been stretched to cover such 

 diverse things as a race track, a collection of artillery, of army 

 wagons, and even a commonplace city street. Here in Boston we 

 have only just got rid of the name as applied to a street upon a 

 large portion of which there was not a single tree, or even a blade 

 of grass, — I refer to Chester Park, etc., whose name has been 

 changed to Massachusetts Avenue. The term is convenient in its 

 use as a generic designation for public pleasure grounds of all 

 descriptions, and its application in that way may now be regarded 

 as legitimate ; but strictly speaking the name properly belongs 

 only to one type of pleasure grounds, of which our Franklin Park 

 may be regarded as a conspicuous example. That is, a landscape 

 is park-like in character when it consists of a country more or less 

 open, and interspersed with trees standing singly or in groups. 

 Beaver Brook Reservation, for instance, with its groups of grand 

 old oaks and other trees, is genuinely park-like, and might 

 properly be called a park. The great open valley spaces in the 

 Rocky Mountains are very appropriately called Parks. It seems 

 best, in the specific use of the term, to avoid its application as far 

 as possible to any pleasure ground which is not really park-like ; 

 as, for instance, a public garden, or a city square, and on the 

 other hand to reservations of a forest character, like those just 

 established by the Metropolitan Park Commission. 



The Beaver Brook Reservation, in Wajtham and Belmont, 

 within a few minutes' walk of the Waverley Stations on the 

 Fitchburg and Boston & Maine railroads, was the first to be 

 established in the work of the l^Ietropolitan Park Commission. 

 This was done largely with the generous aid given by the widow of 

 the late Elisha Atkins, of Belmont, and her son, Mr. Edwin 



