THE .PROTECTION OF NATIVE PLANTS.* 

 Though it may seem like a lapse into barbarism, I believe the 



wealth of plants and flowers either wild or cultivated, is to thor- 

 oughly enclose and police them ; to exclude all but their guar- 

 dians during the long dark hours of the night and to kill that 

 darkness with an abundance of light. This applies almost entirely 

 to the larger parks, their rugged character and denseness of 

 native growths, which add so much to their charm, making them 

 exceedingly difficult to protect. 



The smaller parks are generally level surfaces devoted to lawns 



kept under surveillance. They contain but little that can be de- 

 stroyed or seriously injured and during the heated terms, they 

 are places of refuge and relief for an overcrowded people. They 

 have a mission peculiar to themselves, giving glimpses of green- 

 ery to many whose lives are as hard and gray as the hives they 

 inhabit and the stony streets they tread. They may prove to 

 be the kindergarten of the greater schools in which it is fondly 

 believed people will eventually learn to enjoy and not destroy. 

 Their character and uses indicate that they should be left free of 

 access at all hours. 



perience is admittedly an excellent teacher. Let us then briefly 

 review what experience has taught are the needs of our greater 

 parks. 



Central Park is enclosed with a low, neatly-capped stone fence, 

 ornamental, expensive, but totally ineffectual as a bar to ingress 

 or egress. For years the park was guarded by keepers called 

 by courtesy park policemen but having very little police au- 

 thority, while the city policemen were considered off post if they 

 ventured within the park. These arrangements proved of ma- 

 terial advantage to malefactors of all sorts and many a chase 

 from the outside ended abruptly at the park wall, so easily 



