June 12, 1895.] 



Garden and Forest. 



231 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



rUDLISIIED 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 12, 1895. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Editorial Article : — Tlie Defacement of City Parks 231 



The Live Oak at Dmyton Manor. (With figure.) 232 



The Wholesale Flower Markets of New York City .1/. B. C. 232 



Foreign Correspondence; — The I'emple Show IV, Watson. 233 



Plant Notes 234 



Cultural Department: — The Russian Tree Fruits in America.— IT. 



r. H. Hoskins, il.D. 236 



Shall we Irrigate Orchards in New York? Professor L. H. Bailey. 236 



Me.Kican Water-lilies W. Trickcr. 237 



Cladrastis tinctoria, Papaver orientale G. IV. O. 337 



Correspondence : — Notes from Brookline, Massachusetts T. D. Hatfit-hL 237 



Trees and Shrubs at Madison, Wisconsin Pro/t-ssor E. S. Goff. 238 



An Enemy ot the Larch on the High Alps Dr. H. Christ. 23S 



Phlox divaricata on the Prairies Professor F. A. IVaiig-k. 239 



Does Poison Ivy Discriminate? /. Ten Bosch. 239 



When is Rhus toxicodendron Most Active? 



Professor Jolin IV. Harshberger. 239 



Recent Publications 239 



Notes 24° 



Illustration : — The Live Oak, Quercus Virginiana, at Drayton Hall, South 



Carolina, Fig. 35 235 



The Defacement of City Parks. 



A FEW weeks ago the Board of Park Commissioners in 

 this city thought they could safely throw open to the 

 pubhc a few smaU areas of turf in Central Park. They 

 gave notice of this fact, and the reporters of the various 

 newspapers at once began to interview them on the sub- 

 ject. The statements of the commissioners were guarded 

 and cautious. They said nothing which could fairly be 

 interpreted as an indication that any rigor of administra- 

 tion was to be relaxed. They simply said that inasmuch 

 as on certain days some of the lawns were free they pro- 

 posed to try the experiment with a still larger area of turf. 

 But the bare hint that visitors were to be allowed freedom 

 of access to portions of the park from which they had hith- 

 erto been excluded, seemed to arouse a spirit of lawless- 

 ness in many visitors which had hitherto slumbered. Tes- 

 timony is abundant to the effect that the park has suffered 

 serious defacement since this permission was granted, the 

 chief injury being done to shrubs and herbaceous plants in 

 bloom. Branches of shovi'y bushes, like the Snowballs, for 

 example, were carried away by the armful in spite of the 

 police. 



A significant fact was stated by a park policeman, who 

 said that for the first few days after the lawns were thrown 

 open people could hardly be persuaded to walk on them. 

 Those who frequented these portions of the park had 

 become so accustomed to walking on the paths and sitting 

 on the benches that they had to be invited to walk in and 

 sit down on the grass before they would accept what was 

 considered such a favor. Of course, it did not take long to 

 educate people up to their new privileges ; but the fact that 

 they had already been educated to keep off the grass is 

 certainly worth considering. But, really, it is no greater 

 hardship to keep on the walks in a park than it is to keep 

 on the sidewalk and out of the front yards along the city 

 street. The people who argue that "the parks are made 

 to use and not to look at," may not be aware' of it, but 

 their statement is deceptive. The fallacy is exposed the 

 moment we consider that the beauty of a park is its highest 

 use, and, therefore, to destroy that beauty is not to use but 

 to abuse it. When walking by a wildwood border thought- 



less people often enjoy themselves by breaking off the 

 branches of flowering Dogwood and other trees and shrubs 

 when they are in bloom, but no sensible person would con- 

 sider it an inhospitable restriction if visitors were forbidden 

 to mutilate the shrub border of a park after this fashion. 

 Nor is it any hardship in a park which is well planned to 

 insist that people should keep on the gravel when a free 

 use of the grass would destroy it, for the grass is just as 

 essential to the beauty of a park as the shrubbery. 



It is pleasant for children, both old and young, to roll 

 on the grass at times, but this is provided for in every well- 

 managed pleasure-ground. The large meadows in Pros- 

 pect Park are thrown open most of the time, great areas in 

 Central Park are open to the public whenever the grass will 

 permit it, and there are days when as many as 30,000 peo- 

 ple have special permits for picnics in Central Park, and 

 often 100,000 people can be seen on the grass at once. It 

 is necessary to keep the players away now and then in 

 order that the lawns may grow green again, and there is no 

 question, taking the season through, that there is more 

 real enjoyment on the grass than there would be if all the turf 

 were always thrown open to every one without restriction. 

 It must always be borne in mind that the primary use of a 

 city park is to rest and refresh the spirit, and for this pur- 

 pose the grass and shrub borders make a strong appeal to 

 the imagination through the eye and not through the soles 

 of the feet. Of course, where the ratio of visitors to the 

 number of acres is small there need be fewer restrictions, 

 but in populous cities the supreme value of the turf is its 

 restful beauty, and when this beauty is trampled out the 

 park not only loses its charm, but visitors lose their respect 

 for it and are easily induced to deface it by breaking down 

 the shrubbery and in other ways. 



The point which we wish to emphasize is that the people 

 of New York have never felt it to be a hardship to keep off 

 the grass, but as soon as there was an indication that this 

 restriction was to be removed lawless persons began to 

 destroy the shrub-borders. If this state of things should 

 continue for a year or so, people would feel that they had 

 quite as much right to break down shrubbery as to walk on 

 the grass. We have been much interested in some of the 

 so-called arguments which have been used by certain 

 papers in Buffalo vvhich are opposed to the building of a 

 fence about one of the parks in that city. These papers 

 have long articles with scare-h^^s, in which it is asserted 

 that the arrogant Park Commissioners wish to keep the 

 people out of the park and turn it into a hay-field and a 

 nursery for shrubs, or else make it as exclusive as the pri- 

 vate grounds of a monarch. On looking at the plan it is 

 evident that most of these so-called arguments are based 

 on absolute misrepresentation. The proposed fence had 

 openings for entrance at all the leading lines of travel. 

 Four of these entrances were made to the full width of the 

 abutting streets, while four more were made for foot-travel. 

 Walks were then proposed on lines which were so direct 

 that there would have been no temptation to leave them 

 Tor general travel, and we can imagine no reason for the 

 outcry against the fence unless the abutting property-own- 

 ers should have the notion that it benefits them to have the 

 park seem to be a portion of their own private grounds. 

 So far as we can see from the ordinances there has been no 

 intention of the Park Board to restrict ball-playing or the 

 usual picnic recreations in this place. .A disinterested wit- 

 ness to whom we have written on the subject informs us 

 that there are twenty beaten trails across this paratle- 

 ground in every direction, and these trails are evidently 

 not worn by people who v\'ish to use the park as a park, 

 but who simply want to use it as a thoroughfare, and insist 

 on being allowed to make the shortest cut to their destina- 

 tion. No one considers himself oppressed because he has 

 to turn a corner in a city instead of walking through a 

 block. Why should it be a hardship to follow a good path 

 when the distance is almost as' short as an absolutely 

 straight line across the grass, which will soon become a 

 beaten track and utterly destroy its beauty } 



