February 8, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest. 



61 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Officb : Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by » . 



Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1893. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles : — Boston's Proposed Metropolitan Park System 6i 



The Value of the White Mountain Forests and the Dangers which 



threaten Them 62 



Notes of a Summer Journey in Europe. — XXIII J. G. Jack. 62 



Some Texas Plants in a Texas Garden J. Reverchon. 63 



Notes on the Forest Flora of Japan.— IV. (With figure.) C. S. S. 64 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter W. Watson. 65 



Cultural Department :— Black Hamburg Grapes in the Open Air, 



Charles L. Jonss. 68 



Seasonable Notes W. H .Taplin. 68 



Notes from the Harvard Botanic Garden M. Barker. 68 



Correspondence :— Orchids at Short Hills, New Jersey J. N. G. 69 



White Pine in Massachusetts David Pingree. 69 



Legislation against Insects Walter C. Wright. 69 



Meetings of Societies: — The Western New York Horticultural Society. — II.: 70 



Shade-trees in City Streets William McMillan. 70 



Fertilizing Orchards Professor I. H. Roberts. 71 



Brevities 71 



Notes 72 



Illustrations :— Magnolia Kobus, Fig. 11 66 



Magnolia salicifolia. Fig. 12 67 



Boston's Proposed Metropolitan Park System. 



OUR readers v\^ill remember that last summer we called 

 attention to the appointment of a Metropolitan Park 

 Commission by the Governor of Massachusetts to inquire 

 into the needs of the towns and cities in the vicinity of 

 Boston in the way of open spaces. This commission has 

 just submitted a report, which, with the accompanying 

 papers, forms a volume of exceptional value and attrac- 

 tiveness, with its numerous maps and plans, and its hand- 

 some illustrations depicting- various features of the charm- 

 ino- natural scenery of the Boston basin, together with a 

 few graphic examples of things as they should not be, and 

 some corresponding examples of things at home and 

 abroad to show what they should be. 



The commissioners have followed the lines which, on 

 the occasion of their appointment, we indicated should be 

 followed, and which, indeed, in an intelligent consideration 

 of the question, they could hardly help following. The 

 report of the commissioners themselves is a brief elucida- 

 tion of the legislation they recommend. For full details 

 of the results of their investigations and the studies based 

 thereupon, they refer to the elaborate reports of the secre- 

 tary and the landscape-architect of the commission, Mr. 

 Sylvester Baxter and Mr. Charles Eliot, respectively. 



Every one who has had occasion to consider the ques- 

 tions involved in a proper administration of the affairs 

 that mutually concern a great city and its surrounding 

 coiTimunities, must be impressed with the need of an 

 effective form of political organization to deal with these 

 matters. The commissioners are thus very naturally im- 

 pressed with the necessity of some definite plan of metro- 

 politan organization. One of the most important "features 

 of a common metropolitan interest is that of parks and other 

 open spaces, the utility of which cannot be determined 

 upon arbitrary political boundary lines. Boston, for instance, 

 has been enabled to create a magnificent park-system 

 within its own limits, but the needs of the remaining por- 



tions of the metropolitan community have, with a few ex- 

 ceptions of very recent date, been almost entirely neglected. 

 To remedy this difficulty the commissioners recommend 

 the establishment of a ''metropolitan parks district,'' com- 

 prising twelve cities and twenty-four towns, containing 

 to-day about 900,000 inhabitants. The proposed legisla- 

 tion provides for the appointment by the Governor of a per- 

 manent Metropolitan Parks Commission, the members to 

 serve without pay, and appointed respectively for terms of 

 one, two, three, four and five years, annually thereafter, one 

 member to be appointed each year for a term of five years. 

 To enable the acquiring of the various sites that might be 

 agreed upon the state is to advance its credit to the amount 

 of one million dollars, to be paid by the accumulation of a 

 sinking fund, the charges for which, together with those 

 for interest, are to be met through apportionment, by sepa- 

 rate commissioners appointed for the purpose at intervals 

 of five years, among the various cities and towns, accord- 

 ing to the degree of their benefit. Boston's proportion for 

 the first five years is fixed at fifty per cent. As the present 

 commissioners have simply advisory functions, they wisely 

 leave this matter of the selection of sites to the permanent 

 commission, and content themselves merely with two defi- 

 nite recommendations : the reservation of the Middlesex 

 Fells and of the Blue Hills, both of these cases appearing 

 to them urgent. For the guidance of the permanent com- 

 mission in its work they feel it sufficient to refer to the 

 studies of the landscape-architect and the secretary. In the 

 proposed act ample power is given to act in harmony with 

 local park commissions, water boards, etc., and to make 

 arrangements for the common administration of lands held 

 by various public authorities. 



In addition to the commissioners' bill the secretary 

 recommends, as the result of his studies, three other 

 measures. One of these is an addition to the General Park 

 Act of the commonwealth, in substance the same as the 

 Boulevard Act of Illinois, enabling park boards to take and 

 improve, by consent of local authorities and of the owners 

 of a majority of their frontage, streets or parts of streets lead- 

 ing to parks. The second is a General Playground Act, 

 which in substance meets a general want by enabling 

 cities and towns to exceed their debt limits in procuring 

 lands for playground purposes. The third is to encourage 

 the building of tenement dwellings about enclosed play- 

 ground and garden spaces by practically exempting such 

 spaces from taxation through leasing them at a nominal 

 rental to the local authorities for a term of years. 



Subject for comment in many numbers of G.\rdex and 

 Forest might be found in the various aspects of the problem 

 considered in the reports of Messrs. Eliot and Baxter. Mr. 

 Eliot treats the subject from the standpoint of a profes- 

 sional adviser as delightfully as he does instructively. 

 How thoroughly he is grounded in his art is shown in 

 this concise paper, which impresses one with the feeling 

 that he might have devoted a volume to the subject 

 without exhausting either it or the reader's interest. 

 In a summary of the physical and historical geography 

 of the district he tells the story of the rock founda- 

 tion, the glacial rubbish, the fresh waters and the sea, 

 and how these have given it the strikingly attractive 

 shape it presented until its human occupancy marred much 

 of nature's handwork, while it has respected and added to 

 the charm of other portions that point the way how to 

 deal with the whole. He then studies the way in which 

 this peculiar geography of the metropolitan district ought 

 to govern the selection of the sites of recreation-grounds 

 and open spaces for public use, lying as it does, even at 

 this late day, between two wildernesses, "on the one hand 

 the untamed heights of the rock-hills, on the other the un- 

 tamable sea." And he says : "Thus has nature placed 

 and preserved, at the very gates of Boston, riches of scenery 

 such as Chicago or Denver or many another American city 

 would give millions to create, if it were possible." 



In accordance with the governing considerations laid 

 down in this study, Mr. Eliot reviews the opportunities 



k 



