April 3, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



159 



moteness and inaccessibility to railroad communication, 

 for it must be remembered that they are composed largely 

 of hard woods, which cannot be made to float down the 

 streams to the mills. The Pine and Spruce has been cut, 

 or ig rapidly disappearing, but the removal of these trees 

 does not destroy the forest, unless fire, fed by the debris 

 from the evergreens, is allowed to follow in the track of the 

 lumberman. As long as the hard-wood trees which form 

 probably nine-tenths of the Adirondack forest are not cut 

 and are not allowed to burn up they will continue to per- 

 form those services which make these forests valuable to 

 the people of the state. But if railroads penetrate the 

 wilderness, every stick of hard wood which these forests 

 contain will, in a surprisingly short space of time, be 

 brought to market ; while the danger of fire will increase 

 in proportion as they are built. Fires will spread from the 

 railroad locations far into the forest, and, as the region be- 

 comes more accessible, the number of fires set by hunters, 

 campers and log-cutters will necessarily increase. 



ing the White Pine shown in our picture, page 163, a clump 

 of old White Willows, a branch of which is seen near the 

 Pine, and a symmetrical American Beech that stands in the 

 centre of the lawn opposite the carriage entrance. An- 

 other American Beech, the leafless form of which shows 

 at the extreme left of the picture, stands in the grounds of 

 a neighboring residence, which, of course, the landscape- 

 gardener took care not to conceal from view. In other 

 directions, as may be seen from the plan below, masses of 

 foliage border the grounds. On the other side of the track, 

 as at Auburndale, is a narrow strip of grass, edged with 

 trees and hardy flowering-shrubs, and everywhere these 

 masses are neither stiffly arranged nor scattered without 

 purpose, but carefully grouped so as to secure variety 

 in unity, interest, grace and harnnony. 



The extreme size and solidity of the arches which form 

 the porch of the station have been criticized as inappropri- 

 ate in so small a building. But we may recall what was 

 lately said of Auburndale — a station is essentially a 



Plan o£ the Chestnut Hill Station Grounds — Boston and Albany Railroad. 



The creation of railroad lines over private property can- 

 not be prevented, but the state is able to protect its own 

 property, and it is not wise to maintain an administration 

 to protect these forests, and then to give to private cor- 

 porations the right to destroy them. 



The Railroad-station at Chestnut Hill. 



THE station at Chestnut Hill, near Boston, like the one 

 at Auburndale, which we recently described, was 

 built by the late H. H. Richardson for the Boston and 

 Albany Railroad Company, and the grounds were laid out 

 by Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted, and are cared for by 

 Mr. E. L. Richardson. 



This is perhaps the prettiest and most picturesque of all 

 the great architect's rural stations, nor are its grounds 

 equaled in beauty by an y others. The road descends some- 

 what steeply towards the entrance of the grounds, and then 

 more steeply after they are entered, while the building 

 itself stands a little higher than the tracks, and is connected 

 with them by a flight of steps extending across its whole 

 length. Several fine trees ornament the grounds, includ- 



shelter, not a dwelling-place, and its roof is therefore of far 

 more importance in giving it the right expression than its 

 walls. These arches sustaining only a roof, would indeed 

 be inappropriate in a house, but they can be permitted in 

 a station even by the most exacting of purists, if he re- 

 members the true purpose of the design. Nothing could 

 be more beautiful than their vigorous, simple curve, and 

 nothing could be more hospitable and protecting than the 

 air they give the building. Nor is it a misleading air, for 

 the comfort supplied by this great porch in wintry weather 

 can hardly be exaggerated. In judging of these stations, 

 it may be remarked, the same standards cannot be applied 

 that would be justly applied in many other parts of the 

 country. They are small because freight-traffic need not 

 be accommodated; yet their approaches must be capacious 

 and their porches must afford protection to considerable 

 numbers of people at once, as the local passenger-traffic at 

 certain hours of the day is very large. They are suburban 

 stations, and everyone knows what that means in the 

 neighborhood of a busy American city. And for the same 

 reason it was appropriate to build them in a more costly 

 manner than might have been wise in a really rural stop- 

 ping-place. In this station, again, Richardson used granite 



