July 29, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



349 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office: Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. 



Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE TOST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JULY 29, 1891. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles :— The Use of City Parks 349 



Four Pictures of Gardens 350 



Notes from a Wild Garden Mrs. Mary Trent. 351 



Southern California Notes C.R. Orcutt. 351 



New or Little-known Plants : — Pinus cembroides. (With figure.) 352 



Iris Robinsoniana. (With figure.) W. Watson. 352 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter IV. Watson. 352 



Cultural Department: — The Strawberry Season E. Williams. 353 



Stray Notes from the Arnold Arboretum. — VI P.C. 354 



Some Native Plants F. H. H. 356 



Annuals New and Old J. N. Gerard. 356 



Iris Susiana, Cvpripedium Lawrenceanum M. Barker. 357 



The Forest : — Its Significance as a National Resource B. E. Fernow. 357 



Correspondence : — Our Neglected Native Flowers Mrs. Lora S. La Mance. 358 



A Redeemed Swamp G. 359 



Are Fungicides Abused? Professor Byron D. Halstcd. 359 



Exhibitions 359 



Notes 359 



Illustrations : — Pinus cembroides, Fig. 59 353 



Iris Robinsoniana, Fig. 60 355 



The Use of City Parks. 



A FEW weeks ago the Park Board of this city- 

 granted permission to hold a public meeting in 

 Battery Park. Whether or not the Board is clothed with 

 any authority under the law to grant a privilege of this 

 sort has been questioned, but it is not our present purpose 

 to discuss this point. The meeting, however, deserves 

 some mention,- not because the park was in any way 

 defaced or injured on that occasion, but because it was the 

 first time, at least for many years, that any such a gather- 

 ing has been held in any of the city parks proper. Man- 

 hattan Island is so densely inhabited, and its population 

 multiplies so rapidly, that the pressure for more room is 

 stronger here even than it is in most other cities. There is 

 not a foot of open space which is not constantly coveted 

 by some one for some purpose which seems a worthy one. 

 But our parks have never been in any serious danger of 

 invasion by public assemblies. Great efforts have been 

 made to turn Central Park at times into a parade-ground 

 for the display of our citizen soldiery, but we rarely hear 

 of attempts to convert it into an arena for public argument 

 and debate by civil or religious bodies. 



In some sister cities labor organizations have endeavored 

 to meet in pastoral parks to urge the enactment of an eight- 

 hour law or agitate some other subjects of so-called reform. 

 Religious organizations also have endeavored to secure the 

 same privileges ; and the arguments in favor of such as- 

 semblies are always the same. It is held, in the first place, 

 that the parks belong to the people ; next, that the people 

 have the right to public assemblage, and that, therefore, 

 they have the right to assemble on their own grounds. In 

 most cases, too, it is urged that the matter to be discussed 

 is of vital moment. Religious enthusiasts are convinced 

 that in some way the salvation of men depends upon their 

 efforts, and that their exclusion from the public parks means 

 practically the ruin of human souls. In the same way 

 agitators for some civil or political reform always feel and 



insist that the movement which they represent is one of 

 paramount importance. The present case is remarkable 

 in that the meeting in Battery Park was called for the ex- 

 press purpose of protecting it. The park is now contracted 

 and disfigured by a railway which is constantly threaten- 

 ing more serious encroachment. This corporation needs 

 room, and it could occupy to advantage the entire park 

 area. Having obtained a foothold, each new aggression 

 is more easy and natural, in spite of the fact that the bor- 

 der, which, is now covered and blackened by the roads, 

 makes a mute protest to every passer-by against the inva- 

 sion. It is a fact, however, that the road is there only on 

 sufferance ; that the contract under which its owners 

 have possession is a revocable one, and that it is in the 

 power of the Park Commission to order the corporation to 

 remove its structure. It was to advocate such a forcible 

 removal of the railway that the meeting was called by 

 some citizens, who felt that their rights had already been 

 trampled on, and are in danger of further violation. 



Here, then, was a singular case. If any one assemblage 

 could ever be tolerated in a city park it would assuredly 

 be a meeting of its defenders in the place they wished to 

 save from ruin ; and yet we cannot but feel that a prece- 

 dent like the Battery Park meeting is a bad one to estab- 

 lish. It is true that every man in the city has a right in its 

 parks, but he only has a right to them as parks, and no one 

 has a right to them as anything else than a park. It will 

 hardly be contended that there is only one justifiable 

 reason for a public meeting in an urban pleasure-ground. 

 If it is right to assemble to make a protest against invasion 

 by a railroad, it is right to meet there for other purposes. 

 Indeed, no sooner had this permit been granted than some 

 of the people in the other end of the city declared that they 

 would organize a meeting in Mount Morris Park for a 

 directly opposite purpose — that is, the people at the north- 

 ern part of Manhattan Island demand greater facilities for 

 rapid transit, and inasmuch as it is their opinion that this 

 can be more easily obtained by giving the Battery to the 

 railroads, some of them are willing to make this concession ; 

 if it is proper for one side to make its argument before an 

 assemblage in a park, it is equally proper for the other 

 side to have the same privilege. 



Of course, no city of any consequence should be with- 

 out provision for public assemblies, such as the large 

 open space in front of the main entrance to Prospect Park, 

 in Brooklyn, and the area north of Union Square in this 

 city, where preparation has been made for furnishing light 

 and other conveniences needed at popular meetings. But, 

 aside from the fact that such gatherings would be ruinous 

 to the verdure of a pastoral park, nothing more discordant 

 with the spirit of such a place can be conceived than an 

 indignation meeting or a public demonstration in favor of 

 some "cause' - or "movement," for these would bring into 

 the park the throng and stress and excitement and struggle 

 which are the very things from which such quiet scenes 

 are designed to offer relief. The only security which 

 urban parks can have against destructive invasions of one 

 kind or another is a universal public appreciation of the 

 truth that their real purpose is the refreshment of mind and 

 body which simple rural scenery alone furnishes. That 

 this is not generally understood is proved every year by 

 the efforts of many cultivated people to divert our parks 

 to some other use, which seems to them a higher and a 

 nobler one. But the truth is, that this distinctive function 

 of city parks is by no means trivial or insignificant ; in- 

 deed, it is quite as essential to the well-being of society, as 

 it exists in modern cities, as are hospitals or schools or 

 libraries or churches, and it is this serious estimate of their 

 value which impels us so often to urge upon thoughtful 

 and public-spirited men and women the duty of watch- 

 ing over them with jealous care, in order to prevent 

 them from being perverted to any illegitimate use, and 

 to protect them from every invasion which threatens 

 to diminish, in the slightest measure, their beneficent 

 influence. 



