Garden and Forest. 



[Number 358. 



Utility and Landscape. 



ONE of the most important of problems in landscape- 

 art is the reconciliation of structural utility with the 

 beauty of scenery. It would seem that the problem would 

 solve itself if every structure could be built so as to be 

 in the highest degree both durable and practical. The 

 Romans were not an artistic people, and in their great 

 engineering works, like bridges and aqueducts, it is prob- 

 able that they gave little thought to' the sesthetic effect 

 which such constructions would produce. But the rules 

 that experience has shown to be the proper ones to follow 

 in masonry are those that combine substantial construc- 

 tion with harmonious relations of parts to each other and 

 to the mass, so that good proportions in line and form are 

 always secured. Hence, the Roman works which survive 

 in many parts of Europe, by reason of their stable en- 

 gineering qualities, are almost invariably picturesque and 

 beautiful features of the landscape. And to-day even the 

 rudest stone bridges in the New England countryside, 

 whether dating back for a century or of recent origin, 

 never fail to delight the eye by fitting naturally into the 

 elements of the landscape. 



Doubtless the reason that the average wooden building 

 is so ugly is that we have not yet learned the requirements 

 for the most suitable forms of wooden construction, and 

 the same may be said of such engineering works of iron 

 and steel as the hideous railway bridges that mar the land- 

 scape of this country from ocean to ocean. The old-time 

 farmhouse, with walls shingled and weather-beaten, seems 

 to belong to its surroundings as naturally as a lichen- 

 covered rock, and where curved lines are employed in 

 metal construction, as in the great buildings of the World's 

 Fair at Chicago, the effect of aerial grace in the fine, light 

 springing lines is often fascinating in its charm, and the 

 magnificent scene-building of that dream of one summer 

 demonstrated its possibilities for artistic agreement with 

 classic forms in architecture. 



It is so frequently the case that the simple expression 

 of the inherent purpose of a structure in the most 

 direct way produces the most agreeable artistic results, 

 that this may be said to be the rule to be observed in 

 aiming for those results. One of the most familiar 

 examples is that offered by the great coal-sheds, which 

 are such prominent features of the water-front in our 

 maritime cities. Beauty is the last thing regarded 

 in their construction. Yet they form elements of 

 remarkable interest in the waterside landscape ; built to 

 perform a certain necessary service, everything about them 

 is planned to meet the requirement in the most straightfor- 

 ward way. The huge bulk of the structure, designed to 

 contain enormous masses of coal, is impressive in its own 

 enormous mass ; the projections, towers and scaffoldings, 

 built just where they are wanted, are often highly pic- 

 turesque in their effect, lined sharply against the sky, and 

 reflected in the water ; the surfaces, grimy as they are, are 

 not offensive in their hues, and are marked by rich plays 

 of light and shade in the shifting sunshine, and by beauti- 

 ful atmospheric effects, varying with the conditions of haze 

 and mist, or of crystalline air ; and the steamers, barges 

 and sailing vessels, always lying alongside, complete the 

 picturesque interest of the scene. 



The way in which maritime commercial conditions may 

 enter into the charm of a landscape is exemplified in a 

 scene like that at the head of navigation on the Neponset 

 River, in the Boston suburbs, where the fresh water of the 

 stream comes tumbling over a dam into the placid salt 

 flood of the estuary and furnishes motive-power to a fac- 

 tory on the bank ; on the other side the long slope of a hill 

 is covered with handsome suburban villas, and at a busy 

 wharf the slender spars of vessels rise against the back- 

 ground of a bit of woodland close by the water, and wide 

 levels of salt-marsh border the distant reaches of the river 

 in its course to the bay. This incident of commercial 

 utility in a landscape of exceptional beauty, far from form- 



ing a disturbing element, gives a heightening accent to the 

 tranquillity of the scene. 



There is a pseudo-sestheticism that affects to regard 

 elements like these as vulgar and commonplace. But 

 genuine artists take them seriously into account as of 

 positive value in a landscape. When the question 

 of designing the Strandway, the handsome shore-drive of 

 two miles, now under construction, along the Old Harbor 

 shore of Dorchester Bay, came before the Boston Park 

 Commission a serious ol)stacle presented itself in the 

 shape of a great coal-wharf, with an elaborate modern 

 equipment. Mr. Olmsted reported that such a feature 

 was by no means an undesirable thing ; it properly 

 belonged to the maritime spectacle, which the drive was 

 designed to command, and would lend interest to the 

 scene. In consequence, instead of taking the wharf, at a 

 cost of probably more than $200,000, the drive was designed 

 so as to pass outside and cross by a drawbridge a channel 

 giving access to an enclosed dock. In the design of the 

 esplanade and drive for the Cambridge bank of the Charles 

 River, a similar problem of dealing with an interval of 

 wharf property is solved by carrying the vi^ay behind the 

 wharves in a manner that does not interfere with conve- 

 nient access to them. 



A problem of utility more difficult to solve is that of the 

 windmill. The old-fashioned windmill of four arms, like 

 those of Holland, which occasionally survives along the 

 New England coast and on Long Island, is always a pic- 

 turesque element in the landscape. Two of these mills 

 form attractive features of the beautiful "Anlagen" which 

 have taken the place of the ancient fortifications at Bremen. 

 But these clumsy old contrivances are of small efficiency 

 beside the modern devices which have made wind-power 

 of such a varied utility that their sales in the United States 

 are numbered by the hundred thousand each year. Un- 

 fortunately the too definite circles which their lines present 

 make it impossible for them to be beautiful features of the 

 landscape. With their enormous tails, or rudders, they 

 give the effect of some form of prodigious insect hovering 

 about the country. 



In many parts of the United States the modern windmill 

 is now as distinctive a feature of the landscape as its pro- 

 totype is in Holland, and is even more numerously repre- 

 sented. It ministers to the convenience, and lightens the 

 labors, of millions of people. In certain villages on Cape 

 Cod, for example, almost every house whose owners are 

 fairly prosperous has its windmill and is supplied with all 

 the conveniences in the way of running water that a city 

 family enjoys. And in Winchester, a Boston suburb of 

 several thousand population, the high service division of 

 the municipal waterworks is supplied by a large windmill 

 at a very considerable annual saving over steam. 



With the perfection of the storage battery its power to 

 generate electricity for domestic and other use will insure 

 for the windmill a much wider employment in the future. 

 It furnishes the cheapest form of all motive-power. With 

 a device of such extraordinary value, effecting as it does 

 now an economy of many millions of dollars annually, it 

 would be folly to think of discouraging its use because of 

 ajsthetic shortcomings. The true course is to see what 

 may be done to improve it in this respect and give it a 

 form which will unite efficiency with artistic character. 

 To attain this end, economy of construction must be 

 kept in view as the main consideration, for without 

 this popularity could not be looked for. In existing 

 devices a remarkable economy is already reached. But, 

 owing to its inconstancy, wind-power has not been 

 studied as other forms of mechanical energy have been, 

 and it is not unlikely that forms may yet be devised that 

 at a given cost may develop a much greater amount of 

 power than is obtainable from devices now known. The 

 hope is that the ends of use and beauty may be reconciled 

 in the shape vi'hich these more efficient forms may take. 

 The artist and the engineer should cooperate for this pur- 

 pose. If a windmill, acting in a horizontal plane, could be 



