320 AMERICAN FORESTRY 



On approaching the height of land between the Anacostia and the 

 Patuxeut watersheds, there are hills of considerable height. Thence one 

 descends rapidly to the Patuxent River valley, across which the forest still 

 continues, reaching out towards the Patapsco, whose twenty miles of lovely 

 nature extend from the harbor of Baltimore to Relay, thence to Ellicott City, 

 six miles, and continues beyond between Baltimore and Howard counties, all 

 of which is designated as a part of the parking system of Baltimore. 



To render the forest available for use as a pleasure ground it must be 

 opened to access. Intersecting alleys should be planned concentrating, per 

 haps, at some quiet pool or pretty refuge, and the roads which traverse it 

 should be improved and the system extended to connect by way of the 

 Potomac, the Anacostia and Rock Creek with the parking system of the District 

 of Columbia, and with that future pantheon of American greatness, the "Mall," 

 which will one day rival the most splendid examples of formal landscape 

 design of the old world. 



The undertaking of such a scheme will not only be the glory of our beau- 

 tiful capital, but it will ofifer to a dense urban population and to countless 

 transient visitors every form of sylvan pleasure which the inheritance of past 

 ages can suggest from periods when the joy of life and pleasure in beauty went 

 hand in hand. 



For these reasons the purchase of a large tract of forest land at a cost of 

 from two to three million dollars by the United States government is advo- 

 cated. Had another site been chosen for the capital it is likely that the 

 problem of its surroundings would have been entirely different, because the 

 existing conditions are unique, and the suggestion of a forest background 

 might have been chimerical and impractical. 



Fortunately, however, for the project, both as to its direct bearing upon 

 the adornment of the capital and its value in assisting in the promotion of 

 forest cultivation and protection whether private, state or national, all the 

 circumstances illustrate the wisdom and even necessity of prompt provision 

 for the need of the near future. 



Its value for experimental and demonstration purposes can hardly be 

 overestimated. The product of an average acre of such land planted in forest 

 at a cost of eight dollars and cared for at an almost negligible annual expense, 

 at the end of a period of forty years is about two hundred dollars, which 

 represents a handsome profit from otherwise valueless property. Large tracts 

 in private hands throughout the eastern states are available for this purpose 

 only, and their almost universal neglect constitutes at once a great menace 

 through their injurious influence upon climate and water supply and an 

 immense financial loss, while to demonstrate the possibilities of this branch 

 of agricultural industry and science should be a great advantage to the nation. 



If the United States government desires to regard it simply as an object 

 lesson it may look forward to a handsome revenue without contemplating such 

 extensive cutting as to materially diminish its beauty and attraction. 



Nearly all the great forests of Europe pay large profits, and the example 

 of some of our great railroads in reforesting tracts to produce railway ties, 

 telegraph poles and other timber, shows that the time has come when the 

 original forests must be replaced by artificial means. The plan here outlined 

 has been widely approved by societies interested in the public welfare and 

 by the press. For the sake of brevity an editorial of the New York Evening 

 Post, which appeared also in the Nation, is quoted as follows: 



"Probably the first impulse of nine persons out of ten, on reading the 

 proposal that the government shall create a national forest of 100,000 acres 

 immediately adjacent to Washington city, will be to say that it is nonsense. 



