374 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 233. 



living, and the possession of land as it grows rarer will be 

 more dearly prized. Therefore, taste in the management 

 of estates will grow and improve along the lines that are 

 indicated for it, and it is important that such taste should 

 be guided in the right directions, and taught to seek for 

 the best models, rather than be allowed to grope wildly in 

 search of beauty, which, after all, though sometimes at- 

 tained by a happy chance, is really within the reach of all 

 landholders by careful planting and thinning of vegetation. 

 And we would urge upon women to address themselves 

 to the acquirement of solid knowledge on this subject, as 

 the best foundation for taste in the arrangement of their 

 grounds. It is a healthful, beautiful and useful pursuit, 

 far more valuable than the decoration of bits of china or 

 the production of amateur pictures of doubtful value, on 

 which they waste so much time that might be better em- 

 ployed. 



The same amount of thought and time and artistic per- 

 ception that goes to the production of a trifling sketch might 

 well be turned to account in the manipulation of growing 

 things, in the planning of a rustic dell, the preparation of 

 some pleasing surprise at the end of a shady walk through 

 extensive grounds, the discovery of a hidden point of view, 

 and skillful use of it, the construction of some dainty bit 

 of garden in an unexpected spot. All this would be of 

 value to feminine development, both physical and mental, 

 and by such exercise her taste would grow more secure, 

 her thoughts would be filled with natural objects in their 

 relation to each other, and a country life be made fruitful 

 in health, and in a growth of perception of true beauty. 



By Bicycle to the Waverley Oaks. — I. 



WHERE the roads are as good as those about Boston the 

 bicycle has provided those who keep no horses or 

 carriages an easy and delightful means of visiting the beauti- 

 ful spots in their neighborhood. The wheelman needs to 

 study no time-table, but is always ready to visit any pleasant 

 spot within a range of ten or fifteen miles, and in the course 

 of a season I have become familiar with all the aspects worn 

 by many such spots. Close at hand, for instance, are the 

 Middlesex Fells and the Pine Banks, coursed by several miles 

 of beautiful roads. Both are probably destined to become 

 important features of Boston's metropolitan park system. 

 The Lynn Woods are only a few miles away, and a most at- 

 tractive woodland and rural country intervenes, some of 

 which, in the valley of the Saugus River, is, perhaps, destined 

 to reservation for park purposes. The Lynn Woods, by the 

 way, have just been still further enlarged by the addition of 

 the hilly and well-wooded Ox Pasture region lying to the 

 northward of Glen Lewis and Walden Ponds. This tract in- 

 cludes the celebrated old wolf-pits built by the early settlers. 

 It adds about four hundred acres to the public domain, which 

 it increases to an area of something like a round two thou- 

 sand acres. As this tract is on the water-shed of the afore- 

 mentioned ponds, which form an important source of the 

 Lynn water-supply, it was taken by the Water Board to assure 

 freedom from possible pollution by future occupancy. A few 

 thousand dollars now spent in the way of precaution undoubt- 

 edly saves a future expenditure of many thousands by way of 

 remedy. This commendable step of the Lynn Water Board 

 is largely due to the wise counsel of Mr. Philip A. Chase, the 

 chairman of Lynn Park Commission, who has done so much 

 toward the realization of this noble public forest. 



It was a cloudless July day when I mounted my light road- 

 ster for a run to the Waverley Oaks. In spite of the exercise, 

 the wheelman who takes an easy pace on a hot day is little 

 troubled by the temperature. Indeed, he feels the heat less 

 than if he were keeping still. If the air is calm, the motion 

 fans him with a gentle breeze, and on returning home he is 

 often surprised to learn what a hot day it has been. The way 

 from Maiden to Belmont is full of interest ; and owing to 

 abundant rains, forest and field are delightfully fresh and green 

 this year. The first part of the way is over the historic old 

 Salem road, the first highway connecting the original settle- 

 ments of the Massachusetts Bay Coion}', Boston and Charles- 

 town, with Lynn and .Salem. A wild and solemn old road it must 

 have been at first, cautiously traversed by the early settlers, 

 haunted by fears of Indians and wild beasts. A large portion 

 of the way it still bears the name of Salem Street. At Med- 



ford it now becomes Main Street ; there it turns sharply to the 

 left from the old town square and crosses the Mystic River by 

 the single stone arch of tlie Cradock Bridge. This crossing 

 of the Mystic is the reason for the roundabout course of the 

 old Salem highway, which, on this account, makes a detour of 

 several miles from a straight course. For at this point, in the 

 old days, was the first practicable ford of the Mystic passable, 

 of course, only at low water — hence the name of Medford, 

 which, unlike most of the old towns, has no English name- 

 sake, but is derived from " Meadow Ford." The Mystic River 

 gets its name from the Indian "Mistuck," which means a 

 great tidal stream. 



The rocky heights of the Middlesex Fells trend off to the 

 north-westward, and Salem Street turns from their base across 

 the Medford plains. These plains were once covered with 

 noble great Oaks, whose existence near the river gave birth 

 to the now vanished ship-building industry, which made the 

 A No. I Mystic-built craft of Medford famous for their ster- 

 ling qualities all over the world. Here at Medford was built 

 the first vessel in the Colony, the Blessing of the Bay. These 

 Oaks of the Medford plains rivaled those of Waverley, as may 

 be seen by a fortunately surviving group on the beautiful old 

 Governor Brooks' place, at West Medford. All but a few trees 

 of the woodland that, until lately, still remained on the plains 

 have vanished before the Gypsy Moth crusade, and new 

 suburban streets are covering the territory. 



Through Medford we pass by a number of interesting old 

 colonial houses, up the hill over High Street, overlooking the 

 Mystic. The stately old Unitarian church, where John Pier- 

 pont used to preach, stands at the top of the hill, and just be- 

 yond, on the other side, is the picturesque Episcopal church, 

 one of Richardson's early designs in Gothic, built of field 

 boulders and mantled with both English and Japanese Ivy. 

 If the Metropolitan Park Commission lays out a Mystic Valley 

 Park, as has been suggested, this hill-slope of old Medford, 

 with its old-fashioned tree-embowered houses, and its two 

 characteristic church spires — old Colonial, in wood, and Eng- 

 lish village, Gothic, in stone — will make a notable feature in 

 the landscape. 



The road to Arlington passes by the lower part of the 

 Governor Brooks' place and crosses the Mystic by a wooden 

 bridge near the mouth of the lower Mystic Pond, up which 

 there is a lovely vista of blue waters, backed by the high 

 slopes of the Woburn, Lexington and Arlington hills. Arling- 

 ton and Belmont are in the land of market- gardens, which 

 place some of the Boston suburban towns in the foremost 

 rank of Massachusetts agricultural communifies. On the left 

 we pass a row of greenhouses bordered by a line of electric 

 arc-lights, the scene of what I am told is a very successful ex- 

 periment in the commercial application of electricity to hasten- 

 ing the growth of plants and market vegetables. The air at 

 intervals along our route through these two towns is redolent 

 with the pungent odor of growing cabbage, cauliflower and 

 onions. 



Arling-ton is the historic Menotomy of the revolutionary 

 days. 'The old Cooper's Tavern, where two of the Minute 

 Men were killed by the British on their retreat from Lexing- 

 ton, still stands on the corner as we turn info the wide main 

 highway that comes from Cambridge. It bears the old name 

 on its brick sides, with suitable inscriptions concerning its 

 history, but in front there is the commonplace designation of 

 "Arlington House." It would be well to drop the new name. 

 A house with such a history should not cheapen itself with 

 an alias. 



We pass but a few rods along the famous highway down 

 which the sadly harassed British troops came back from Lex- 

 ington on that memorable 19th of April, a day as hot and 

 beautiful as this July day. Beyond the railway station we turn 

 into the Elm-arched road to Belmont, which resembles a long 

 Gothic cathedral nave, and its solid macadam surface has been 

 rolled to pei-fect smoothness. Thisstreetiswell worth the trib- 

 ute paid it by Trowbridge, one of the most genuine of Ameri- 

 can poets, in his poem called "Pleasant Street." On the left, 

 occasional glimpses of Spy Pond, one of the beautiful lakes of 

 the Boston suburbs, are caught through intervening trees and 

 dwellings. As with most of the other suburban lakes, no at- 

 tempt has been made to give the public the advantage of a 

 landscape feature such as many a city in the Old World would 

 give hundreds of thousands of dollars to possess. Spy Pond 

 forms a charming and valuable feature of the estates whose 

 fine grounds border it. But, as the population in the metro- 

 politan district becomes denser, and land increases in value, 

 the shores of all these ponds are likely to become disfigured 

 with unsightly dwellings and skirted by various nuisances, un- 

 til they are transformed from public adornments into eyesores. 



