560 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



thought to their effect as part of the 

 landscape. The whole of this could be 

 made into a coherent composition if 

 anyone would pay for it, and so could 

 each scene that the eye can separate for 

 itself. This is what is done in Central 

 Park; each successive part into which 

 the uneven surface naturally resolves 

 itself is treated according to its own 

 suggestion, with thoroughness and re- 

 serve. Buildings and other subordinate 

 objects are carefully set where they will 

 do least harm to the general composi- 

 tion. The ragged countryside planting 

 is arranged in groups or masses or bor- 

 ders with due regard to the habit of the 

 trees, texture, and color of foliage, sky- 

 line and so on. For the rough or divi- 

 ded surface of land is substituted the 

 smooth and continuous lawn, display- 

 ing the best contours of the ground, 

 and preserving them unbroken to their 

 logical end. In fact, an informal park 

 is mostly constructed of endless vari- 

 ants of these two features of lawn and 

 planting, of open spaces surrounded by 

 covered ones, as a room or a building is 

 composed of voids and solids. 



We should not forget that this com- 

 position of voids and solids, of open 

 lawn and enclosing foliage, is not a 

 natural thing, is not even an imitation 

 of nature, as it has been so often called ; 

 even its prototypes, the meadow and 

 woods, are not natural. The meadow 

 is browsing land cleared and cultivated 

 by man, and the woods themselves, in- 

 digenous though they may be, have 

 their extent and outline from the axe 

 of the farmer. Then what of the lawn 

 set in artificial planting, it may be, of 

 exotic trees and bushes? It is but a 

 paraphrase, a conventionalizing of an- 

 other artificial thing, and is itself as ar- 

 tificial or constructed a thing as any 

 building or statue; in fact, it resembles 

 the works of nature, much as a statue 

 or painting resembles its original. Yet 

 the general impression conveyed by a 

 well designed, large city park is that of 

 being in the country. 



If it is desirable to produce the im- 

 pression of being in the country, one 

 would expect that the easiest way 

 would be to imitate the country as 

 closely as possible. But the curious 



contradiction here is that, if we did, we 

 should not produce the effect of being 

 in the country at all. If we were 

 to cover the area of Central Park 

 with fields of corn and potatoes, with 

 grazing land, casual buildings, woods, 

 swamps, and crowded or scattering 

 trees, it would merely look like a piece 

 of unkept city land which remained 

 open because it was held at too high 

 a price, or because it belonged to the 

 estate of someone deceased, and could 

 not be sold. Even if you should ar- 

 range your agricultural features with 

 regard to their artistic effect, like the 

 "ferme ornee" of Shenstone, you 

 would not get the feeling of the coun- 

 try. The city park is not an imitation 

 of the country, it is a paraphrase of it; 

 and if you want to create in the city 

 the country feeling, you must not imi- 

 tate the country, you must paraphrase 

 or conventionalize it. You must repro- 

 duce not its accidents and incidents, its 

 roughness and casualness and disorder ; 

 you must reproduce its essentials, its 

 openness, its vitality and its verdure, 

 its contrast of the surfaces of the 

 ground and the masses of woods, of the 

 light greens of the grass and the dark 

 of the trees, their freedom and grace 

 and benignity. 



Central Park, in view of its extent, 

 its cost, its location, is perhaps the most 

 important and interesting thing of its 

 kind in the world. It is one of the 

 best-loved and one of the worst-hated 

 public recreation grounds in the world. 

 It is admired without reserve by vast 

 numbers of people of all kinds, and it 

 is condemned with as little reserve by 

 some others. Among its friends are 

 east-side Hebrews, west-side million- 

 aires, New York's blue blood, aliens 

 who came over in the steerage but a 

 few months ago, and everything in be- 

 tween. Among its enemies are the 

 type of self-styled "practical" man who 

 cannot see that a piece of city land is 

 doing any work unless it is covered 

 with a pavement or a building, some 

 real estate men who see fine possibili- 

 ties of a boom in their business were 

 the park cut into lots, and a certain 

 class of artists who see no merits in 

 its present plan, and think it should be 



