(305 ) 
It is expected that work under this contract will be com- 
menced early in the spring. A further balance to the credit 
of this appropriation remains, which may be utilized in ad- 
ditional road building. 
Care of the Grounds. 
Although the grounds have been visited by many thousand 
people no depredations worthy of serious attention have been 
committed. The plantations have been watched by the 
gardeners on Sundays and holidays in addition to the police 
patrol. The Hemlock Forest has been guarded by a keeper 
nearly throughout the season, who has also gathered up the 
papers and other refuse which still continue to be scattered 
by picnic parties, in spite of posted notices and verbal re- 
monstrance, and this is the only nuisance that we have had 
to contend with; we do not know how to curb or control this 
vicious habit of people who are otherwise neat and orderly ; the 
placing of receptacles for them to place refuse in has been 
seriously considered, but the experience elsewhere where this 
has been tried is not encouraging, inasmuch as it could not 
be enforced without filling the woods with guards. 
Inasmuch as the picnicing of many more persons than 
those who have hitherto used the Grove for this purpose will 
be a menace to the natural undergrowth, and from the prox- 
imity of the tree-roots to the surface, a danger to the trees 
themselves, it now appears to me desirable to forbid picnicing 
in this forest. This will be no great deprivation to visitors, 
because there lies, just to the south, and on both sides of the 
river, over one hundred acres of forest land of the park, 
which might well be regarded as a pleasure grounds. 
The grass of the tract was cut by our gardeners and labor- 
ers and stacked for fodder for our horses. 
Lawn-mowers have been used immediately around most of 
the plantations. 
The Surroundings of the Range of Horticultural Houses. 
Plans for the detailed development of the grounds in the 
vicinity of the Range of Horticultural Houses have been ap- 
