LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 



1463 



brought into better picture by removing all tree growth 

 in the neighborhood. 



There must be sections in the national forests which 

 have little economic and great scenic value and such 

 sections could be treated in this way. Especially near 

 towns and cities or places of easy access from trans- 

 portation points this treatment could be carried out. In 

 a general way the national parks could be improved this 

 way. Road lines should be laid out with due regard to 

 engineering problems of course; poor grades and lines 

 are inexcusable no matter how beautiful the scenery. 

 After the roads are built a skeleton of the park is there, 

 and the work of encouraging nature can begin. In places 

 where wild flowers have been largely destroyed through 



bines are already becoming scarce, and if you have seen 

 the auto loads of these flowers taken from their shady 

 nooks to be wilted away in some tourist's care, this will 

 not surprise you. If our national parks are to fulfill their 

 primary purpose of preservation, they must be saved from 

 the danger of overcrowding, and this again can be best 

 done by putting at the disposal of visitors other areas 

 outside of the real gems we want to save. 



I should like not to be misunderstood on this point. 

 These parks should be for recreation and recreation of 

 the masses. I would even willingly sacrifice the last 

 flower, be it columbine or painter's brush, or Mariposa 

 lily, if these flowers aided in adding interest to the life 

 of some poor tenement child. But it is not these very 



OBSERVATION" TOIXT ON PIKE'S PEAK. 

 Looking down Ute Pass, in the Pike National Forest, from the automobile highway, a magnificent panorama . spreads out before one. 



natural processes or by tourists, they can be reintroduced 

 by sowing their seed. In other places where the flower 

 varieties are limited or crowded out by undesirable weeds 

 the former can be encouraged by keeping down the 

 weeds and plants which are not wanted. 



To a certain extent these recreative areas in the national 

 forests have an advantage over the national parks. For 

 we must not forget that the recreational work is as much 

 a sideline for the national park as it is for the forests, 

 and that the parks were not created for the monetary 

 benefit of hotels and transportation companies, but pri- 

 marily to preserve their unique scenic beauty to pos- 

 terity. There lies a danger in too great a popularity for 

 these parks. In some parts of the Rockies wild colum- 



needy we bring out by extensive advertising, and expen- 

 sive hotels. They only attract the leisure class, the class 

 which can enjoy nature everywhere on earth, who sit on 

 hotel porches and have the scenery brought down to them 

 at so much a dozen. 



Easy transportation to our nature reserves for those 

 who need them the most is the essential problem in this 

 respect. Cheap transportation ; auto roads, well built, 

 are of immense value. But not even they reach the 

 poorer class. And there again is the danger of the auto 

 fiend, who grinds out the scenery at so many miles per 

 hour. He can pass the same road a dozen times and 

 never notice the little beauties you had anxiously pre- 

 served, but also never failing to grumble over the little 



