Photo by Albert G. Robinson 



A WALK IN ROCK CREEK PARK 



"To Rock Creek Park there is nothing comparable in any capital city of Europe" (see 



page 738) 



fresh their souls with the charms of 

 Nature. All along the creek they will 

 see a great many water-loving birds — 

 kingfishers and ouzels and others too 

 numerous to mention. All along the 

 slopes and in the meadows by the stream 

 they can find a great many beautiful wild 

 flowers. I have found some quite un- 

 common and most lovely wild flowers 

 growing there in the spring. 



There are leafy glades where a man 

 can go and lie down on a bed of leaves 

 and listen for hours to the birds singing 

 and forget there is such a place as Wash- 

 ington and such a thing as politics within 

 eight miles of him. 



These things you have now still left, 

 though daily threatened, and what a pity 

 it would be to lose them! At this mo- 

 ment the value of the outlying land I 

 have referred to would not be very high. 

 A good deal of it is not very suitable for 



buildings. A good deal of it is not used 

 to any extent for agriculture. 



A NATIONAL, FOREST PARK NEAR THE 

 CAPITAE 



While on that subject I would like to 

 refer to still another matter which has 

 been mooted by those who are interested 

 in public parks. It has found some favor 

 in Baltimore and deserves to find favor 

 in Washington. That is the creation of 

 a large forest reserve between Washing- 

 ton and Baltimore, within, say, 25 miles 

 of this city. There are lovely pieces of 

 woodland on the Maryland side of the 

 Potomac, behind Cabin John Bridge and 

 above Cabin John, running along toward 

 the neighborhood of Rockville. There is 

 not much heavy timber ; so the woods, 

 though very pretty, cannot be of much 

 pecuniary value. 



The land is not very valuable for agri- 



742 



