480 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 511. 



Bend, however, is in no sense a playground; it does not 

 contain even a sand garden, the crowning joy of little 

 children in whom the digging instinct is always strongly 

 developed ; no manly games can be allowed for there is 

 no room for them ; and if the fences which surround the 

 lawns were taken down, the beauty and value of the turf 

 would be destroyed in a single day. Green grass, trees 

 and flowers, with plenty of opportunity to sit and look at 

 them, are needed in all crowded city districts. There can- 

 not be too many such open places ; they add to the beauty 

 of cities and to the health and enjoyment of their inhabi- 

 tants, and by increasing the value of adjacent real estate 

 increase municipal income. Who can figure in dollars 

 and cents the value of Union Square in this city, or place 

 a money estimate on Boston Common ? But parks, large 

 and small, useful as they are, are not the only metropoli- 

 tan outdoor equipment needed for the best development of 

 a city population, and for the children at least real play- 

 grounds are even more important. These should be of 

 two classes : first, small open spaces, if possible adjacent to 

 or near school-houses, where small children can play in 

 safety such games as suit their age and in which sand 

 gardens and a simple gymnastic apparatus can be properly 

 established ; and second, larger grounds of at least an acre 

 in extent where boys can play rough games in freedom. 

 In these larger playgrounds no elaborate and expensive lay- 

 ing out and subsequent costly maintenance are needed. The 

 best possible playground is a piece of perfectly level ground 

 with nothing whatever on it to interfere with the games. 

 A good covering of turf would be desirable if it could be 

 maintained on a city playground, but as this is impossible 

 a surface of fine gravel or sifted coal ashes answers the 

 purpose. A row of border trees gives dignity to the place, 

 and affords shade to spectators who always gather to watch 

 the sport of boys, and where trees do not interfere with 

 the real purpose of the ground they can be advantageously 

 used. In every city there should be a number of such open 

 playgrounds used only for rough games and so situated 

 that boys need not be obliged to make long journeys to 

 distant suburbs in order to enjoy those outdoor sports 

 which develop a manly spirit of healthy rivalry and are 

 the best safeguards of youth against the temptations which 

 come from idleness and the lack of opportunity to enjoy 

 proper rational pastimes. 



The necessity of municipal action in securing play- 

 grounds is more urgent in this country now than it has 

 ever been before. All American cities are growing rapidly 

 in population and pushing far out over their suburbs. 

 Private land within a reasonable distance of crowded cen- 

 tres of population, on which boys are often able to play, 

 is fast being covered with buildings, and land suitable 

 for playgrounds is everywhere increasing in value. The 

 American city which sets the example of a really compre- 

 hensive plan for the healthy recreation of its boys and 

 girls will have contributed something valuable to the civili- 

 zation and materia] properity of the nation ; and the Mayor 

 who is fortunate enough to be in a position to carry out 

 such a plan need not fear the ingratitude of his contempo- 

 raries and the forgetfulness or indifference of posterity. 



Nothing has so discouraged persons who believe in the 

 value of urban parks and realize the importance of their 

 development along the lines of greatest utility as the action 

 of the city of Philadelphia in allowing a corporation to 

 establish and operate a trolley line into the heart of Fair- 

 mount Park. It seems incredible that ten Park Commis- 

 sioners could have been found in Philadelphia so ignorant 

 of their duties or so indifferent to their trust that a thing 

 like this could have been possible, or that if the Park Com- 

 missioners had been captured by specious corporate argu- 

 ments the intelligent and public-spirited people of the city 

 could have permitted it. The most beautiful sylvan glades 

 of the park are now noisy with the buzz of street cars. 

 Trolley wires destroy every idea of country scenes ; and 

 the hideous iron bridge, built specially to carry this line 



across the Schuylkill into the park, is a serious injury to the 

 beautiful river drive which it crosses, and stands squarely 

 in the middle of the fine picture which was obtained 

 from Belmont, the commanding and most interesting point 

 of view in the park. There are between four and five miles 

 of trolley road in Fairmount Park, and the city has obtained 

 nothing for the franchise which has been given to a com- 

 pany to destroy the greatest value of one of the largest and 

 most beautiful of all urban parks. 



It is not surprising after such an indication of public in- 

 difference to parks to find that, although more than half a 

 million dollars is appropriated annually by the city for 

 park maintenance and improvement, the roads in Fairmount 

 Park are washed by gullies and often covered with weeds, 

 that the turf is everywhere in a wretched condition, that 

 the boundaries are unprotected by plantations, and that the 

 trees are dying from neglect or are being ruined by over- 

 crowding. Nor is it, perhaps, surprising that the artistic 

 value of the wonderful Wissahickon drive, which might be 

 made one of the most interesting park drives in the world, 

 has been sadly marred by the hideous wooden road-houses 

 built on city land, which appear at every turn, with no 

 other screen before them than that afforded by the white- 

 washed trunks of a few trees, or that its beauty is impaired 

 by the tree-weeds which have sprung up along the banks 

 of the river, and long neglected, are now ruining many of 

 the noble Hemlocks for which the Wissahickon is famous, 

 and shutting out from the drive charming bits of sylvan 

 beauty and long reaches of sparkling waters. 



If Fairmount Park and the Wissahickon are thus allowed 

 to fall into decay, little is to be hoped from the manage- 

 ment of Bartram's Garden on the Schuylkill, now one of the 

 small city parks. A few years ago botanists and horticul- 

 turists in every land applauded the intelligence and public 

 spirit of Philadelphia when it purchased this piece of 

 ground, a spot of remarkable historical and scientific in- 

 terest, for here was established the first botanic garden in 

 the New World, and here was the house built by the hands 

 of John Bartram and many of the trees which he had 

 planted. The interest in this spot is more than local, for 

 the name and achievements of Bartram are known and 

 respected wherever botany is studied or trees are culti- 

 vated, and it is therefore more than a local misfortune that 

 his garden is allowed to suffer from ignorant or indifferent 

 management. The great Cypress, the glory of the garden, 

 brought by Bartram 160 years ago from the lower county 

 of Delaware in his saddle bag, and a vigorous tree a few 

 years ago, is now barely alive, and many of the other trees 

 planted by him show unmistakable signs of insufficient 

 nourishment and excessive draining. Trees die sooner or 

 later ; but the lives of many of these might have been pro- 

 longed, the garden might have been spared the " clearing 

 up" which has eradicated the herbacous plants and many 

 of the shrubs which added to its charm, and the old stone 

 house might have been saved from the Japanese Ampe- 

 lopsis which now hides its most picturesque side and seems 

 as much out of place and as foreign to the scene as the 

 yellow Japanese Retinosporas planted by the tomb of 

 Washington at Mount Vernon. 



Notes on Cultivated Conifers. — X. 



PICEA, the Spruce, is a well-marked genus with flat or 

 angular sessile leaves articulated on prominent bases, 

 which become woody and are persistent on the stout 

 branchlets, stalked terminal or axillary staminate flowers, 

 and terminal, often elongated pendulous cones, with per- 

 sistent, entire, or more or less notched scales always longer 

 than their bracts. The Spruces are large, often gregarious 

 forest trees with scaly or rarely furrowed bark, and pale, 

 straight-grained, soft wood. The genus is widely and 

 generally scattered over the northern hemisphere with 

 about eighteen species, seven of them being inhabitants of 

 the United States ; it is well represented in Japan, and 

 probably also in the interior of China. One of the species, 



