5 66 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 197. 



was Thomas Motley, the father of the historian, whose 

 country-place joined the land on which it stands. It had 

 been doomed to swell its owner's wood-pile, but Mr. 

 Motley gave him ten dollars, and the Oak was spared. 

 This wise action of a public-spirited man deserves to be 

 generally known, and some public record of the fact should 

 be made, so that every one who passes by the tree may be 

 moved to follow so good an example. No one can see 

 this great tree without being impressed by its grandeur and 

 charmed by its beauty, and every one who knows the story 

 of its rescue will feel more profoundly grateful that it is 

 still standing. 



The Dedham Oak now belongs to a rich man, a lover of 

 nature and of trees. He can earn the gratitude of all other 

 lovers of nature if he will cause to be placed on it some per- 

 manent memorial of its danger and its deliverance. The 

 love of trees and the veneration for those which have at- 

 tained great age or unusual size is not a distinctively 

 American trait. It is one, however, which every lover of 

 his country should encourage, and for this reason the action 

 of Dr. Hitchcock in saving the great Manzanita in Califor- 

 nia, and of Mr. Thomas Motley in saving the great Oak in 

 Massachusetts, deserve to be placed on record as worthy 

 examples which others would do well to emulate. 



New England Parks. 



FOREST PARK, SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS. 



THE Connecticut valley is a region of beauty. As the trav- 

 eler from the east comes toward it by rail, he is escorted 

 part way on his journey by that lovely tributary of the Connec- 

 ticut, the Chicopee, whose low bordering hills lead up gradu- 

 ally to the bolder slopes of the Holyoke range, with its fine 

 commanding peaks and strongly marked outline, rising 

 abruptly from the shores of the greater river. 



In the month of July these heavily wooded slopes are golden 

 with Chestnut-blooms, and at all seasons the wealth of forest- 

 growth is apparent on the hills and in the rich, well-watered 

 bottom-lands, through which flow numerous minor streams to 

 swell the winding, stately river which is the pride of all central 

 New England. 



The town of Springfield is most delightfully situated, its 

 business portion lying along the river-level and its dwellings 

 climbing the hill to point above point, from which the outlook 

 grows more and more commanding as you ascend, until the 

 wide beautiful valley unrolls before the beholder with its im- 

 posing stream curving grandly at his feet. 



In a boat at sunset, drifting under the great bridges, and 

 looking up at the steep rocky shores from the level of the 

 river, one feels regret that a boulevard could not have been 

 planned along the brink of the stream for the greater enjoy- 

 ment of the view, but on the heights there are fine outlooks 

 from which the whole scene can be contemplated, and there 

 is perhaps none finer than that from the estate of Mr. E. H. 

 Barney, which is ultimately to form, perhaps, the most attrac- 

 tive portion of that noble pleasure-ground which the public 

 spirit of certain citizens of Springfield has provided for its 

 people. 



Forest Park is comparatively a new acquisition of the city, 

 but as many as twenty years ago the picturesque value of the 

 locality was recognized by some of the inhabitants, and Mr. 

 O. H. Greenleaf, Mr. George Hathaway and the late Mr. Samuel 

 Bowles, editor of the Springfield Republican, purchased a tract 

 of land in this region with an idea of reserving a part of it for 

 a park and dividing the rest into building lots. Much of this 

 property came ultimately into the hands of Mr. Greenleaf, who 

 having, during his travels in Europe, become interested in 

 places of recreation for the people, conceived the generous 

 idea of giving it to the town, and accordingly in 1883 presented 

 the city with a deed of seventy acres, with a request that it 

 should be made into a public park. This included a boggy 

 meadow bordered by ravines and some open fields edged with 

 woods. The same year twenty more acres were acquired by 

 purchase, which furnished the city with a tract of ninety acres, 

 which it began forthwith to improve and utilize. 



Slowly a sense of the importance o£ the acquisition dawned 

 upon the inhabitants of Springfield. For a longtime the appro- 

 priations for clearing and grading were made grudgingly, and 

 the representations by the commissioners of the importance of 

 buying more land were disregarded. The work was put in charge 

 of Mr. Justin Sackett, a local landscape-gardener, who, without 



any definite plan, proceeded to free the land from rubbish, 

 build the roads and drain the marsh, so far as the limited 

 funds at his command would admit. Thanks to his judgment 

 and sense of the picturesque, as well as to the conformation 

 of the soil, the results of this happy-go-lucky, piecemeal 

 method have proved much more satisfactory and pleasing 

 than might have been expected from an unstudied scheme ; 

 and when, in 1890, the establishment of an electric railway 

 brought the Springfield world easily to the gates of the park, 

 everybody was full of enthusiasm and astonishment at the 

 beauty of the spot. 



The result was an appropriation for the purchase of some 

 adjoining property, and the building of a Shelter at the en- 

 trance. During the past year 250 acres have been added to the 

 park, partly by purchase and largely by gifts from other pub- 

 lic-spirited citizens. The most notable acquisition is the fine 

 estate of Mr. E. H. Barney, consisting of about no acres, in 

 which he retains merely a life-estate, leaving the whole of it, 

 including the homestead and other buildings, to pass to the 

 city ultimately, as a memorial to his only son. 



The city thus has come into possession of a well-watered 

 and well-wooded region of nearly four hundred acres of ex- 

 traordinary variety of surface and unusual natural beauty. 



At the entrance, which is approached by the electric railway, 

 the ground is level, and a wide grassy space is encircled by 

 fine trees, among which the drives wind in leisurely curves, 

 giving attractive views of distant hills, and sweeping aside 

 here and there to spare some monarch of the forest. Two 

 Pines thus left form a very noble feature near the entrance. 

 After leaving this part of the grounds yo.u reach a series of 

 ravines, wooded and hung with ferns from top to bottom, 

 around whose natural curves the path winds in a succession 

 of undulations. These ravines consist of a subsoil of clay cov- 

 ered with about six feet of sand, which shifting surface, washed 

 by the spring rains into charming hollows, is the cause of the 

 fern-hung dingles which so delightfully diversify the park. 

 Winding down the side of one of these declivities by a steep 

 road, too steep for the comfort of pedestrians, you come to a 

 long stretch of green meadow, a valley between two ranges of 

 irregular hillocks, through which flows a little stream, the 

 drainage of the former marsh. 



This stream, dammed at intervals, forms a series of ponds, 

 with many cascades, and a rivulet, which add to the beauty of 

 the charming scene. The undulations of the steep little hills, 

 covered with trees of all kinds, growing with that luxuriance 

 peculiar to this region, the soft unbroken turf stretching beside 

 the level, shaded drive- way, the wandering brook, the two ponds 

 with their floating birds and tiny island, the long vista, down 

 which one looks to more dark ravines crowned with magnifi- 

 cent Chestnuts, with Oaks, Maples and Poplars, and numerous 

 other varieties of native trees, make a scene of park-like 

 beauty, peaceful and joyous, suggestive of recreation and 

 delight. 



Pursuing your way down this long valley, with unexplored 

 wealth of forest on the left, you ascend the heights once more 

 at the other end, and, after some driving, come to an eleva- 

 tion from which there is an unrivaled view of the Connecticut 

 valley, with the town nestling in a great curve of the river, 

 and behind it the striking range of mountains, Mount Tom and 

 Mount Holyoke, rising blue and imposing against the sky, with 

 their attendant hills in jagged outline behind their two lofty peaks. 



A little lower down is the Barney estate, which also com- 

 mands a very beautiful view of the river, the mountains and 

 the town, with its spires and bridges, and here there will, 

 in the future, be a water' access to the park, so that a line of lit- 

 tle steamers can ply back and forth between the city and its 

 pleasure-ground, giving a delightful means of access to its cool- 

 ness and shade. This very beautiful view, combining the 

 human interest of the town with the charm of the majestic 

 river winding royally through its fertile valley, and the im- 

 posing group of purple peaks meeting into a cloudy back- 

 ground with forms that reproduce the outlines of the moun- 

 tains, until one can imagine range upon range behind the 

 Holyoke hills, is inexhaustible in attractiveness, and appeals to 

 every taste. To me the touch of humanity in the picture gives 

 it a final charm. Without those clustered towers and chim- 

 neys, with their light overhanging smoke to soften unsightly 

 outlines into misty grace, the deepest tone would be lacking 

 in this fine harmony, the human note being ever the richest 

 and most penetrating, even as a clear voice is heard above an 

 orchestra. 



This part of the park rejoices in a wide brook, thePecowsic, 

 a stony-bedded brawling stream, once so dark and densely 

 wooded as to be thickly stocked with trout. Its bed has been 

 widened, and in places enlarged into shallow ponds, where 



