State Parks of Wisconsin 



Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 



Metropolitan Park Commission, 



Boston, January 12, 1909. 

 Mr. John Nolen, 



1 382 Harvard Square, 

 Cambridge, Mass. 

 Dear Mr. Nolen: — The value and need of large park reservations 

 is likely to be overlooked until it is possible that the best results can- 

 not be obtained either on account of availabletracts being broken into 

 by building operations, or because the expense involved by reason 

 of increasing values make it a greater burden than the community is 

 willing to bear. The Metropolitan Parks District of Boston was 

 fortunate in following the lead of far-seeing and public-spirited men, 

 and in acquiring two large wooded parks at reasonable prices while 

 it was still possible to establish natural boundaries. Blue Hills Res- 

 ervation, of 4,900 acres, in the southern section, and Middlesex Fells 

 Reservation, of 3,000 acres, in the northern section, are both easily 

 accessible to the thickly populated portions of the Metropolitan Dis- 

 trict, which already numbers over 1,200,000 people. When the 

 park movement began in Massachusetts there were many tracts of 

 private woodland practically open to public use. This is changing 

 rapidly with the increase of population, and consequent activity in 



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