June 2, 1897.] 



Garden and Forest. 



-13 



sides of a railroad or important city street if it is possible 

 to avoid it, for even if the landscape could be made to 

 seem continuous across the gap the noise would almost 

 destroy the desired seclusion of a considerable part of it. 

 An extent of natural scenery sufficient to afford the sense 

 of quiet and seclusion so beneficial to the city worker can 

 only be secured where the grounds are ample, and there- 

 fore this should be the essential characteristic of a large 

 park. It is the one vital reason for the existence of such a 

 park. No number of small parks can possibly answer the 

 same purpose, however useful and even necessary they 

 may be for other reasons. 



Even if the true purpose of a large park has been kept in 

 view during the process of selecting the land, determining 

 upon its landscape features, designing its necessary con- 

 struction and plantations, it is too often lost sight of subse- 

 quently, and there is a marked tendency to artificialize the 

 landscape. But whenever it is thought wise for a munici- 

 pality to provide special attractions, these should be limited 

 in kind and number and be carefully devised. It would 

 not be wise or economical for a city to destroy or injure 

 broad and beautiful park scenery by introducing artificial 

 attractions into it when these could perfectly well be pro- 

 vided in the smaller squares or in special amusement 

 grounds, which could usually be much nearer the centre of 

 population than a large park, and therefore could be used 

 by more people more frequently and more cheaply. It is 

 customary for cities to provide for certain kinds of amuse- 

 ments which are healthful and innocent, and for certain 

 objects that are instructive and entertaining and for some 

 that are artistic and inspiring, and which cannot be or are 

 not usually supplied solely by private effort. Such, for 

 instance, are formal gardens, statuary, conservatories, 

 botanical and zoological gardens, concert groves, electric 

 and other fountains, fireworks and the like ; also popular 

 athletic grounds, parade grounds, ball grounds for boys, 

 and facilities for boating and bathing. From motives of 

 expediency it is customary to include arrangements for 

 some of these purposes in large public parks, but they 

 should be placed in their borders, and in such a way that 

 they will do the least possible injury to the more secluded 

 parts of the scenery. Great discrimination is necessary in 

 selecting among these objects those which will least inter- 

 fere with the primary purpose of a large public park. Those 

 forms of amusement or instructive entertainment requiring 

 large buildings or implying much noise, or which draw 

 large and careless crowds that would be liable to injure 

 the grass and shrubbery and trees of the park, should be 

 excluded. It is good policy to secure suitable lands adjoin- 

 ing a large park which can be held in reserve as sites 

 for public museums, grounds for parades, fireworks, pub- 

 lic speaking, baseball and (by flooding in winter) for skat- 

 ing and so on. The park in Brooklyn is exceedingly 

 fortunate in having two very commodious public grounds 

 adjoining it. It is greatly to be desired that other cities 

 should do likewise. 



If there were a well-established and clearly recognized 

 custom controlling what artificial features might and what 

 should not be introduced into large public parks, such 

 customs would develop into rules of common law. Or 

 if there had been carefully drawn and detailed statutes 

 passed upon the subject, or if there had been a series of 

 decisions of courts as to what buildings and other objects 

 could legally be introduced into public parks, their true 

 purpose would be more clearly understood. It is true, there 

 has been for years a statute in New York state forbidding 

 the erection of buildings above a certain size not strictly 

 for park purposes in any public park, but the principle 

 upon which this law is based is so little understood that a 

 few generous individuals recently had no difficulty in get- 

 ting a special law passed which enables them, with the 

 consent of the Park Commissioners, to introduce a great 

 museum of history into one of the most beautiful land- 

 scapes of one of the most perfect large public parks in the 

 world. The usual arguments in support of this desecra- 



tion have been urged, namely, that the building is for a 

 worthy semi-public object ; that the collection it is to con- 

 tain will be interesting and instructive to the public, and 

 that the building itself will be handsome, and consequently 

 that it will be an ornament to the park. If this argument 

 is sound for one such building it is equally sound for others. 

 In that case a large public park is little more than a 

 tract of beautiful vacant building lots which the pub- 

 lic is temporarily enjoying as a playground until it 

 shall be gradually required for one public or semi- 

 public building after another. If there is no principle 

 upon which the advocates of the first semi-public building 

 can be refused a site, there is no logical reason for refusing 

 sites to any subsequent projects of a like sort. The bars 

 once let down, there will be a stampede to secure beautiful 

 building sites free of cost for natural history, art, botanical 

 and other museums ; for armories, normal colleges, high, 

 grammar and primary schools, and so on almost indefi- 

 nitely. 



Proposed Enlargement of the Missouri Botanical 

 Garden. 



THE project for enlarging the Missouri Botanic Garden 

 is about to be realized, and Professor Trelease has 

 kindly described the main features of the plans now in the 

 hands of the Messrs. Olmsted. In providing for the future 

 of the garden the Director says the three principal objects 

 to be kept in view are "beauty, instructiveness and adapt- 

 ability to research." He further says of the grounds and 

 plant-houses, " extensions and changes should be con- 

 ducted on lines decided upon definitely in advance and be 

 adhered to as closely in detail as the ever-changing condi- 

 tions may permit, so that each step taken shall be part of a 

 definite, carefully considered general plan, the aim being 

 to develop experimentally along all lines, so that inevitable 

 mistakes can be easily detected and promptly rectified." 

 It will be the aim to make the beauty of the grounds a dis- 

 tinct factor in the collection without sacrificing any of its 

 value as an institution of scientific research. 



A tract of between eighty and eighty-five acres of farm 

 land, belonging to the Shaw estate, that adjoins the present 

 grounds on the south-west, will form the addition. After 

 reserving space for the necessary farm-buildings, nurseries 

 and compost grounds, the tract is to be divided into three 

 parts. About one acre will be set apart for developing 

 such transient synopses as are found necessary or desirable. 

 Twenty acres will be used for a synopsis of the North 

 American flora, and sixty acres for a general synopsis of 

 the flora of the world. 



On the first division certain small synoptical collections 

 will have place as they are required, no one of them being 

 maintained longer than a few years. These collections 

 may represent medicinal, fibre, forage and other economic 

 plants, or they will illustrate certain botanical works or ex- 

 plain various interrelations between plants and animals, 

 such, for instance, as the pollination of flowers ; or they may 

 illustrate the dissemination of seeds or the sleep of plants ; 

 or they may show how plants climb, how they catch 

 insects and the like. 



The second division lies south of the arboretum. Here 

 it is intended to establish and maintain a synopsis of the 

 flora of the United States, arranged as an attractive piece 

 of landscape-gardening. Every order found in the United 

 States, except parasites, will be represented in this 

 section. It will, of course, be impractical to use all the 

 species, but typical genera of each family can be repre- 

 sented by a few hardy, characteristic species, including the 

 most effective, most interesting and most easily cared for. 

 In this synopsis the so-called natural system of classifica- 

 tion, as used in Gray's Manual, will be followed in the 

 grouping or sequence of the orders. And the main walk- 

 will be the thread connecting the groups, some lying along 

 it, others farther back, but all systematically arranged 

 in relation to it, and easily found when the method is 

 understood. 



