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taken title and has done no iniproNenient work, and it is a 

 convenient resort for anyone who has an old car whose pres- 

 ence is emharrassinp; and which he wishes to discard painlessly. 

 But on another of this j^roup of kettle hole ponds, to the north, 

 I saw a beautiful sight, thousands of the bright yellow, bonnet- 

 shaped blooms of the Common Bladderwort, in prime condition 

 about July 1. Boy Scouts still camp in the woods about these 

 ponds, and the timber is one of the best remaining natural stands 

 in the Greater City. Much of it has been cut to clear new streets 

 for a real estate development east of the park, and the logs 

 are being sawed at a sawmill nearby; a strange sight to see in 

 the city and probably the only sawmill operating in the field 

 in Greater New York. 



Those who know and love these little ponds, which are 

 typical of hundreds of others along the moraines of Long 

 Island, but are the nearest to the city in a fairly natural state, 

 wonder what is to become of them when the city begins to 

 develop this new park. Will the steam shovel and grader 

 attack their beautiful smooth outlines, made by the Glacial 

 Period, and conventionalize them? Will the splendid trees 

 be cut to give place to a golf course? There was never a better 

 landscape architect than the ice sheets of the Pleistocene, and 

 not a thing needs to be done to the existing contours to pre- 

 serve beauty in the new park. Cannot the scientific societies 

 and lovers of natural scenery persuade the Queens borough 

 and the cit>' park authorities to go easy on this pleasant terrain 

 and to save a' few of these little ponds (after removing the dis- 

 carded automobiles and other junk) as they are, as preserves 

 for plants, insects, microscopic water life and birds? 



Raymond H. Torrey 



