NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 83 



New Jersey, and the Boston Metropolitan system extends into four 

 counties. There are also many state parks, water supply, irrigation and 

 forestry reservations of a thousand acres more or less, national military 

 reservations of various kinds some of six thousand acres or more, 

 and the national forest reserves of 140,000,000 acres. 



The engineers, civil, railroad, hydraulic, army and others ; the for- 

 ester, the landscape designer, industrial concerns, real estate men and 

 many men in business and professional life, who have urged or directed 

 movements for public reservations have been responsible for much 

 of this. 



The horticulturists have generally taken an interest in this work 

 and the profession^ that have been especially identified with the devel- 

 opment of public reservation systems ; such as the designers of land- 

 scapes and foresters, have been quite largely recruited from the horti- 

 culturists' ranks. Dr. John A. Warder, who first warned against 

 forest destruction and organized one of the first national forestry 

 associations, was a horticulturist. The Honorable J. Sterling Morton, 

 who established Arbor Day, was a farmer. Frederick Law Olmsted, 

 who established the modern practice of designing landscapes, went from 

 his farm to plan and build Central Park in New York. 



I have indicated progress already made toward a national system 

 of public reservations, that will include and connect the present isolated 

 holdings, as well as a large share of land having great natural beauty, 

 but from which little revenue can be produced from crops or industries 

 under private ownership. It is such land of little value that should be 

 included in public reservations, rather than that having a high produc- 

 tive and taxable value. 



The permanent value of such work in any locality is greatly enhanced 

 if the town and the individuals direct their efforts toward the ultimate 

 completion of a comprehensive plan that has been carefully studied out 

 in advance. Such a plan ought to be made to fit the surface, that is, 

 to take advantage of the natural beauty of surface, contour, rock out- 

 crop, water and vegetation, transportation lines, drainage, buildings and 

 other artificial structures, and provide for the future development of 

 such features in a way that will gain for the community the maximum 

 of convenience and beauty, with a minimum of expenditure in con- 

 struction and maintenance. Such plans should, of course, be sufficiently 

 elastic to provide for the contingencies of time. Generally in such a 

 plan upon an irregular surface, roads would follow valleys, gradually 

 climb the slopes on curving lines and easy grades with a minimum of 

 cut and fill, while on flat lands they would be straight with diagonals 

 running from centres on lines of greatest travel. 



This outline of the broader aspect of civic improvement should lead 

 to a greater appreciation of the importance of civic horticulture. Each 

 horticulturist, and you will note that my definition may include about 

 every one who can control a piece of land or a window box, should 

 be vitally interested in and help to advance the civic improvement move- 

 ment of his own locality. The work of landscape and ornamental gar- 

 deners, employed by towns and commissions, is planned and executed 



