June 7, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest. 



241 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : 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, JUNE 7, 1893. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles: — Military Parades in Central Park 241 



Thomas Meehan and the Small Parks of Philadelphia 242 



Botanical Notes from Texas.— VII E. N. Plank. 2<|2 



Notes of Mexican Travel.— V C. G. Pr ingle. 242 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter W. Watson. 243 



New OR Little-known Plants:— Bismarckianobilis. (With figure.). W. Watson. 2a,i, 



Cultural Department :— Spring Protection E. F. Po-msU. 244 



Ornamental Currants J. G. Jack. 245 



Plants in Flower J. N. Gerard. 245 



The Hardy Plant Garden E. O. Orpet, T. D. H. 246 



Correspondence : — Spring Flowers at Short Hills, New Jersey G. 247 



The Small Parks of Philadelphia C 5. yl/. 248 



Conifers at Dosoris, Long Island C. A. Dana. 248 



The Columbian Exposition ;— Azaleas Professor L. H. Bailey. 249 



Notes 249 



Illustration :— Bismarckia nobilis, Fig. 37 > , 246 



TT- 



Military Parades in Central Park. 



NTIL last week no serious effort to divert the 

 y_) meadows of Central Park from their legitimate use 

 and transform them into parade-grounds for military drill 

 or display, has been made for the past six years. In the 

 early history of the park such attacks were made almost 

 every year, but, with one sHght exception, they were 

 always defeated by the watchfulness of the people. At 

 last, however, in the spring of 1887, a bill was rushed 

 through the Legislature at the closing days of the session 

 which granted to the National Guard the privilege of drill- 

 ing in Central Park, and practically took away .from the 

 Commissioners the right to exclude them. A storm of in- 

 dignant protest at once broke forth. Mayor Hewitt wrote 

 a characteristic letter to General Fitzgerald, who favored 

 the law, in which, after reminding the General that Van 

 Cortlandt Park had been placed at the disposal of the 

 military, he stated in a convincing way the arguments 

 against what he aptly characterized as a desecration of the 

 city's garden. On the same day the Mayor and all the 

 heads of the various departments of the city government 

 united in a remonstrance, which was sent to Albany, with 

 the request that Governor Hill would veto the bill. At last 

 the will of the people was expressed so emphatically through 

 the press and otherwise that at a meeting of the officers of 

 the National Guard a resolution was passed to the effect 

 that it was not advisable to ask the Governor to sign the 

 bill, so that when the day arrived which had been appointed 

 for a hearing on the matter not a voice was raised in favor 

 of the bill, and the Governor withheld his signature. 



This signal victory was gained by the active help of 

 the Mayor and all the Park Commissioners. Last week, 

 however, it was once more proved that the authorized 

 guardians of the park may be its most dangerous 

 enemies. At the request of the Mayor, the Park Board 

 promptly voted to allow a regiment of soldiers to parade 

 on the green beside the Mall in Central Park, where they 

 were to pass in review before the Infanta of Spain, who 

 was the guest of the city. Of course, no such permission 



would have been granted if any time had been allowed for 

 a public discussion of the matter, but the Commissioners 

 acted quickly, quietly, and so plainly within their powers, 

 that the park seemed turned over beyond hope to the mercy 

 of a mob. The Green, to a casual visitor, has a spacious 

 look, thanks to the skill of the designers in masking its 

 boundaries. The visitor who drives by it catches several 

 different views of it from various points, so that he does 

 not realize that there are scarcely ten open acres in it alto- 

 gether. A thousand soldiers would find little more than 

 room enough to go through their evolutions within its 

 limits, and even if the hoofs of horses and the march- 

 ing of men did not destroy the greensward, the hundred 

 thousand people who would gather on a bright day to see 

 the glittering spectacle would trample the surrounding 

 shrubbery into desolation, and it would require the slow 

 growth of years to heal the wounds of a single holiday. 

 Fortunately, the people have begun to learn that every 

 one of them has a right to the park, and they know that 

 from this it follows that no one has a right to it for any 

 other purpose than that of a park, and their determination 

 in this matter was expressed at once through the press and 

 in various other ways so firmly to the advisers of the 

 city's royal guest, to the Princess herself, it is whispered, 

 and to the officers of the regiment, that the invitation of 

 the Park Board was respectfully declined. 



Now, it is not strange that our citizen soldiers should con- 

 sider it a privilege to march across the Green, although 

 there is little doubt that if they stopped to consider the 

 matter these defenders of our public property would hesi- 

 tate before they helped to destroy the noblest work of art 

 which the city possesses. So long as human nature is what 

 it is we may expect men to be moved more strongly by 

 their personal interests and inclinations than they are by a 

 desire for the public welfare, and, therefore, the park will 

 constantly be attacked by worthy persons who imagine 

 that some purpose which they have at heart warrants an 

 exception to the general rule. But no such excuse can be 

 offered for the action of the Park Board. These men are 

 charged directly with the care of the park. The one man 

 in the city who should be the very last to look with any 

 toleration upon the slightest encroachment upon the peo- 

 ple's park privileges is the President of the Commission, 

 who is paid $5,000 a year to stand between it and harm. 

 But these officials not only failed to protect the charge 

 entrusted to their keeping, but the ver)' power which was 

 delegated to them for protecting the park was used to mu- 

 tilate and mar it. The Park Board is clothed by law with 

 power to prevent all destructive invasions of the park; it 

 is a breach of trust when they use this power to invite 

 such invasion. The attempt, six years ago, to take away 

 from them this right to exclude the military was the occa- 

 sion of a popular uprising that has only been equaled by 

 the indignation aroused by the proposed speed-road through 

 the park, and now, in the face of the often expressed will 

 of the people, and in opposition to the repeated utterance and 

 action of their predecessors, they make haste to throw down 

 the safeguards which it is their first duty to preserve and 

 strengthen. If the Park Commissioners do not know that 

 military displays are entirely out of character with the pur- 

 pose of the park, which is to afford quiet and refreshment 

 to the people, if they do not know that in this especial case 

 the admission of the military would be utterly destructive 

 of the beauty of the park, and that it would cost thousands' 

 of dollars and years of time to restore it, they are incompe- 

 tent. If they did realize the danger from this review, 

 both in itself and as a precedent for future attacks, they 

 are worse than incompetent. 



It should be added here that one of the Commissioners, 

 Mr. Paul Dana, opposed the resolution to allow the parade 

 in the park. He also stated to his colleagues the objec- 

 tions to this proposed invasion, and predicted its certain 

 consequences, with such force and clearness, that their 

 action in the face of this instruction and warning is still 

 harder to understand or excuse. 



