62 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 207. 



IN the report of the Honorable Thomas H. Carter, 

 Commissioner of the General Land Office, for last year, 

 attention is again invited to the rapidity with which 

 the most valuable timber on the public lands is being ex- 

 hausted, and it is once more shown that the land laws are 

 inadequate to protect either the public forests from unlaw- 

 ful appropriation or the interests of settlers in their legiti- 

 mate use of public timber. The laws passed last year will 

 help to remedy some of the evils, but there is need of a 

 general law to ensure equal rights and uniform privileges 

 without any discrimination as to localities or industries. 

 Mr. Carter suggests that one provision of such a law might 

 be to empower the legislatures of the several states and 

 territories to enact laws not in conflict with the act of Con- 

 gress to govern and control the cutting and disposition of 

 timber on the public domain. He thinks this would bring 

 the local government to the aid of the general Government 

 in such a way as to be helpful. He also holds that there 

 should be provisions in the general law to facilitate the 

 acquisition of title by actual settlers on agricultural land 

 to a limited area of timber-land, so that each individual 

 -could guard his own timber. Provisions of this nature 

 should certainly be made cautiousl}'', for there is nothing in 

 our experience to show that either the states or individuals 

 will exercise any care in preserving the woods. It is true 

 that the general Government itself has never done any- 

 thing to inspire confidence that there is any promise of 

 safety for the forests while under national control, but 

 the proposition that some carefully considered general 

 law relating to public timber should be enacted is one 

 that ever)'- intelligent man in the countr)' will admit with- 

 out argument Such a law will not be fully enforced until 

 there is a thoroughly educated public sentiment behind 

 it, but the passage of the act will be one of the most 

 potent influences in developing this sentiment. 



The Boston Metropolitan Park Movement. 



THE park system of the city of Boston, though far from 

 complete, has educated the public to the value of parks, 

 and a definite movement for a metropolitan park system has 

 at last been set on foot. Chief among the factors that have 

 aroused popular interest in the subject are the agitation in 

 behalf of a public forest-reservation at the Middlese.x Falls, 

 the agitation relating to the Blue Hills, instituted through 

 the medium of Garden and Forest, the example of Lynn in 

 creating its noble public forest, the incorporation of the Trus- 

 tees of Public Reservations, together with the quickened con- 

 sciousness of the need of extensive provision for breathing- 

 spaces and the preservation of features of landscape interest 

 throughout the region over which an urban population is 

 rapidly spreading. 



Throughout the state of Massachusetts there is now a 

 marked interest in park-improvements. A large number of 

 the cities and several of the towns have taken action under 

 the general park law. The majority of the cities and towns 

 within an eleven-mile radius of the IJoston City Hall have ac- 

 cepted the provisions of the act by popular vote, as required, 

 and have either appointed park commissioners, or are about 

 to do so. 



But even if all these neighboring cities and towns should 

 be favorably disposed, they could hardly act co-ordinately for 

 a single park system without special legislation. 



The Trustees of Public Reservations, in their efforts to gain 

 possession of the beautiful tract in Belmont containing the 

 Waverley Oaks, found that it was impracticable to obtain title 

 by purchase, owing to the complicated ownership. The pres- 

 ervation of these noble trees could be assured only by exer- 

 cising the right of eminent domain, and the metropolitan park 

 system offered the best method to meet the case. 



Therefore, by co-operation with the Boston Board of Park 

 Commissioners, the Trustees of Public Reservations invited to 

 a meeting the park commissioners and other leading officials 

 of the several cities and towns in the metropolitan region, to- 

 gether with other persons interested. At this meeting Mr. 

 Charles Eliot, Secretary of the Trustees of Public Reserva- 

 tions, made a clear statement, showing how little use had been 

 made of the remarkable natural advantages of diversified 

 scenery offered by harbor and sea-shore around Boston. 

 The growth of the metropolitan population to nearly a million 



people, and its rapid increase, made it essential to adopt prac- 

 tical measures for setting aside more ground for the public. 



The conference was unanimous that action should be taken 

 in a comprehensive way. A committee was appointed to pe- 

 tition the Legislature and to devise some plan for a permanent 

 organization. Governor Russell is known to favor the object, 

 and the Mayor of Boston endorsed it in his inaugural, and the 

 appointment of a metropolitan park commission seems 

 probable. 



The most desirable points to secure will be the reservation 

 of large tracts for public forests like the Blue Hills and the 

 Middlesex Fells ; the preservation of the sylvan and rural 

 character of the river margins, and of the beautiful salt- 

 marshes and the neighboring uplands of the tidal basins of 

 the Charles, Mystic and Neponset rivers, so far as practicable; 

 the taking of picturesque and historic spots and points of view 

 like the Waverley Oaks, and the holding of the sea-shore for 

 the public. 



One gratifying fact made known at the conference was that 

 Nahant Beach and the beach between Little Nahant and the 

 main peninsula are the property of the town, and Mr. Fred- 

 erick Law Olmsted has been requested to make a design for 

 their improvement. These beaches form long and narrow 

 necks of sand, connecting the two portions of Nahant with the 

 mainland, like islands witli a gigantic mooring. On one side 

 beats the surf of the open ocean, on the other are the quiet 

 waters of Lynn harbor. The highway runs along the crest of 

 the beaches, and that is the reason why they are town prop- 

 erty. The views from these beaches form one of the most 

 beautiful, varied and extensive panoramas to be seen along 

 the Atlantic coast. Lynn, with its background of rocky wooded 

 hills, is particularly beautiful from these beaches. It was at 

 his summer home at Nahant where Longfellow wrote "The 

 Bells of Lynn." 



The Park Coinmissioners of Lynn, besides the great Lynn 

 Woods and the improvement of Aleadow Park, which they are 

 converting from a mud-hole into a playground in the heart of 

 the city, also propose to give the Nahant beaches improve- 

 ment a worthy terminus by laying out an ocean-side plaza at 

 the point where the Nahant Drive meets the mainland. 



A proposition was made to restore the forest-mantle, so far 

 as practicable, to the islands in Boston harbor. The islands 

 and mainland shores were originally well wooded. The trees 

 were cut away, and the hope of any renewed growth was de- 

 stroyed by pasturing the islands. Except on the southerly 

 shore, the beauty of the harbor is marred by the bald, inhos- 

 pitable look of the islands, with their hard, moiiotonous con- 

 tours. 



The Park Commissioners considered the question of refor- 

 esting these islands several years ago, and Air. Olmsted made 

 a valuable report on the matter. It was found that an expendi- 

 ture of a few thousand dollars a year for a few years would 

 restore the woods, so as to give agreeable diversity to the har- 

 bor landscape. A majority of the islands are owned by the 

 city, and most of the owners of the others promised co-opera- 

 tion. The proposition was received with great favor, but it 

 was killed at the City Hall. This result of municipal politics is 

 to be lamented, for even one or two seasons' growth would 

 have worked a transformation in the islands, and bv this time 

 their beauty would have been established. 



The securing of the Middlesex Fells region as a public forest- 

 domain will be made easier from the fact that various towns 

 have enlarged their public holdings here in order to protect 

 from pollution the historic Spot Pond, which furnishes their 

 water-supply, and these, with other water-basins secured, 

 amount altogether to something like 1,000 acres of picturesque 

 land, much of it well wooded. The town of Stoneham has 

 taken Bear Hill, the highest elevation in the Fells, and pro- 

 poses to take Taylor Mountain, a continuation of the Bear Hill 

 ridge. Finally, the Trustees of Public Reservations have re- 

 ceived as their first trust the Virginia Woods, a fine tract of 

 twenty acres, covered with an old growth of Hemlock and 

 White Pine, lying between the Ravine and Wyoming roads 

 that approach Spot Pond from Melrose, and a fund of $2,000 

 has been raised by subscription to care for it. 



Finally, Mr. Walter Wright, a son of the late Hon. Elizur 

 Wright, who was the father of the Middlesex Fells project, pro- 

 poses to give for public uses, in accordance with his father's 

 intention, as an experimental forest, a handsome tract, mostiv 

 of White Pine, on Pine Hill, in Medford. 



Altogether there are between 1,300 and 1,500 acres, out 

 of 4,000 in the entire region, now assured to public use 

 in the Middlesex Fells. What is needed is to connect the 

 various scattered public holdings, make them convenient of 

 access, secure certain important features that still remain pri- 



