22 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 308. 



white pine remains it will be used to the extent of its avail- 

 able supply, but the average size of standing Pine is dimin- 

 ishing, and that means that the percentage of good lumber 

 is depreciating. In other words, the gross supply is not 

 only getting smaller as years pass, but the time is at 

 hand when "the amount of finishing-stock which can be 

 obtained from a given quantity of logs will be exceedingly 

 small. 



Since large supplies of timber must be carried for gen- 

 eral house-finishing, it will not do to depend on woods 

 withascatteredandlimitedsupply. Cherry, birch, sycamore 

 and butternut can all be employed to a certain extent, but 

 they cannot be depended upon for general factory work be- 

 cause of the difficulty of accumulating any quantity of such 

 lumber. Besides this, the factory lumber for general use 

 must comprise a large portion of wood which is soft enough 

 to be easily worked, and although the tendency is to use 

 hard woods in the better class of houses, and altogether in 

 structures of the highest class, nevertheless, in the majority of 

 dwellings for the people, and in cheaper kinds of business- 

 buildings, woods which are easily worked must be used, 

 and the material must be readily obtained and furnished 

 to the market in large quantity. To the question which is 

 thus forced upon builders, as to what will be the main de- 

 pendence for sash, doors and interior trimming, The Lum- 

 berman answers that experience has already proved that oak 

 will lead among the deciduous woods, because it is most 

 abundant and widely prevalent, adaptable and cheap. It 

 is the only wood of which no one complains, and fortu- 

 nately the supply is still abundant, and it can be had at a 

 much lower price than good pine. If it were not for the cost 

 of working, oak would be the cheapest good finishing- 

 wood for a house, but the contractors who wish to hurry 

 buildings and slight their work under strong competition, 

 do not like to work oak because it must be handled with 

 more care than softer woods. Nevertheless, it will continue 

 to lead as a finishing-wood when substantial work is re- 

 quired. Yellow pine is now largely used for finishing 

 in the place of northern pine. It is abundant and cheap ; 

 the mills and factories take kindly to it, and it is suscepti- 

 ble of finish in natural color or to receive paint. Treated 

 with shellac and oil, it is almost as hard as oak. It is 

 taking the place of white pine as a general factory wood, 

 and, with oak, it will be the principal wood for years to 

 come for house-finishing. Freight rates are too high to 

 bring the fir, spruce, cedar and red-wood of the Pacific 

 coast in competition with yellow pine. But southern cypress 

 will probably be used more and more. It is light, it runs 

 wide, transports at a reasonable cost, has much of the work- 

 able quality of white pine, can be finished with little waste, 

 and is a handsome wood. Ash, poplar, gum, maple and 

 other woods may be utilized for special purposes, but it 

 remains true that the three woods which will be used for 

 finishing houses as the white pine becomes more scarce 

 are oak, yellow pine and cypress. 



Boston's New Metropolitan Parks. 



WHEN the report of the Boston Metropolitan Park- 

 Commission was outlined in these columns less 

 than a year ago, it seemed like an ideal project ; so com- 

 prehensive, so well considered, and so far-seeing as to be, 

 like most ideals, beyond prospect of any speedy attain- 

 ment. Yet some of its most important features have been 

 already realized, and others are assured. Public sentiment 

 in relation to park improvements appears to have 

 developed here to a most enlightened degree in the past 

 few years. It was only in 1891, that the first suggestion 

 was made for a system of parks adequate to meet the 

 needs of the great cluster of cities and towns that, 

 with the city of Boston, forms practically one metropolitan 

 community. The next year, the preliminary Metropolitan 

 Park Commission was appointed. The suggestions made 

 in its important report last winter were embodied in the 



form of law, and to carry out its objects the sum of one 

 million dollars was placed at the disposal of the permanent 

 commission appointed for the purpose. 



This commission has been actively at work since its 

 organization. Mr. Charles Eliot, who was the landscape- 

 architect to the preliminary commission, having become 

 associated with the Olmsteds, in the new firm of Olmsted, 

 Olmsted & Eliot, that house was appointed to hold the 

 same relation to the permanent commission. The plans 

 involved work of the most interesting and attractive kind 

 tor the landscape-architect, and Mr. Frederick Law 

 Olmsted has pronounced the various features of the 

 scheme as presenting the finest opportunity that has come 

 before him of dealing with lands specially fitted by nature 

 for public recreative uses. 



The first reservation that has been made by the com- 

 mission is a minor one in respect to area, but of great 

 importance as to its natural features. This is the tract 

 containing the famous group of ancient Oaks, latterly 

 known as the " Waverley Oaks," but more properly 

 designated as "the Beaver Brook Oaks," situated near 

 Waverley station on the line of the Fitchburg and the 

 Central Massachusetts division of the Boston & Maine 

 Railroads. This place was described and the Oaks 

 figured in Garden and Forest (volume iii., page 85). 

 (See also the articles in volume v., pp. 371, 386.) The 

 reservation taken by the commission makes a charming 

 recreation-ground of fifty-eight and a half acres, situated 

 in the city of Waltham and the town of Belmont. It 

 includes not only the lovely pastoral trast occupied by the 

 noble old Oaks, the finest trees of the kind in New England, 

 but also the beautiful Beaver Brook cascade sung by 

 Lowell, and the two small ponds above. Altogether, the 

 Beaver Brook Reservation, as it is called, is one of the 

 most delightful spots in the Boston neighborhood. Mr. 

 Edwin F. Atkins and Mrs. Elisha Atkins, of Belmont, 

 generously gave $12,500 toward the expense of the taking, 

 the contribution of the former amounting to $10,000. 



For its second taking the commission has had the most 

 extensive feature of its scheme. The beautiful mountain- 

 like range of the Blue Hills, whose reservation as a " Mas- 

 sachusetts Forest" was urged in an article in Garden and 

 Forest (vol. iv., p. 362), is now a public domain for almost 

 its entire length, from its high western summit to its east- 

 ern foot-hills. This reservation, with a length of about five 

 miles and an area of 4,000 acres, is the largest single park- 

 space possessed by any American city. It is only to be 

 compared with the broad forest-domains in the neighbor- 

 hood of the great European capitals, and in many respects 

 is superior to London's famous Epping Forest. 



Like the Lynn Woods, the Blue Hills revert to public 

 ownership after a lapse of nearly two centuries. In 171 1 

 the town of Boston sold its "Blue Hill lands" in Braintree, 

 3,000 acres in extent, to four persons for a few thousand 

 dollars. The cost of the present taking will probably be 

 at least §200,000, but the public advantage will make that 

 a cheap price. The lands are almost as wild to-day as 

 they were when Boston sold them. 



This great reservation will include eleven prominent 

 summits, wild and rocky, but gently undulating for the 

 most part, and forming many enchanting prospects from 

 the city, the bay and the surrounding country. The great- 

 est elevation, the Great Blue Hill, has a height of 635 feet 

 above sea-level, and being seen from near the level of the 

 sea it has the aspect and dignity of a goodly mountain. It 

 is the highest land near the sea on the entire Atlantic and 

 Gulf coast, from the Piscataqua, where Agamenticus rises 

 in southern Maine, to the Rio Grande. The prospect is a 

 glorious one, commanding a wide stretch of the coast and 

 a vast expanse of Boston and Massachusetts Bays ; clus- 

 ters of cities, towns and villages containing a third of the 

 population of Massachusetts ; broad inland views, from 

 Mount Wachusett to more than a dozen prominent peaks 

 in southern New Hampshire ; and, southerly, a sylvan ex- 

 panse that seems almost as unbroken a woodland wilder- 



