64 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY 



visions for enjoyment afforded by the bath-houses and the various shelters, have made 

 this acquisition of the Commission the most popular of all the public holdings. Over 100,000 

 persons have enjoyed the privileges of this reservation in a single day. The cost of the 

 reservation for land and construction, to 1900, is $1,650,000. 



The Middlesex Fells Reservation. — ^This tract of forest, containing 800 hectares (2,000 

 acres) of land, exclusive of the extensive holdings of the Metropolitan Water Board, lies 

 upon the escarpment of the northern range of hills which bound the Boston basin. It is 

 surrounded by the towns of Stoneham, Woburn, Winchester, Medford, Maiden, and Melrose, 

 where its steep hills kept at bay the advance of the housebuilder until just before its acqui- 

 sition by the Commission. This reservation, like all the other holdings of the Board, with 

 the exception of the Revere Beach Reservation, has been kept in its natural state, so far 

 as extensive improvements of roads or the installation of shelters and other conveniences 

 for the public are concerned. A superintendent and a force of five policemen, and an average 

 of a dozen laborers, are able to maintain order and to carry on such constructions upon 

 roads, buildings and fences as are required from time to time. The force of laborers is 

 often increased during the winter, to undertake forest improvements of a limited kind. 

 Fire patrols are maintained during spring and autumn, to notify headquarters of the out- 

 break of fires in the reservation or upon its borders. The present generation is as much 

 concerned to preserve the forest tracts now remaining to it as the first generation of colon- 

 ists was interested to destroy them for the advantage of agriculture and building. The 

 protection and care that is devoted to the forest cover of the Fells is extended to all the 

 reservations. As regards the forest trees in the various Metropolitan parks, their variety 

 and distribution is essentially the same in the Fells as in the other reservations. The sum- 

 mits of the rocky hills support a stunted growth of pine, cedar, birch, scrub-oak, juniper, 

 barberry and other plants enduring poor soil and great exposure. The hill slopes are usually 

 clad in a coppice of oak and hickory, with here and there a colony of chestnut, pine or 

 poplar. These trees are survivors from the ancient wood-lots of the community, whose 

 ownership of the land preceded the Commissioners' takings. Trees upon the lower land 

 are often of large size, and frequently include elms which indicate the sites of old farms, 

 in whose immediate neighborhood trees suffer less severe treatment than upon the hills. 

 The great oaks in the Beaver Brook Reservation are examples of trees preserved by ancient 

 landholders for the mere love of them near home grounds. The Middlesex Fells Reser- 

 vation possesses a treasure in its pond scenery which is not to be matched in any of the 

 other reservations, and which goes far to make amends for the small size of the hills as 

 compared with the semi-mountainous heights of the Blue Hills Reservation. These 

 water areas are controlled by the Metropolitan Water Board, which has done much to 

 preserve their natural aspect, while pursuing extensive changes in their outline for the 

 purposes of increased water-storage capacity. The cost of the Middlesex Fells Reser- 

 vation for lands and maintenance, to 1900, was $870,000. 



Metropolitan Boston profits in 1900 by the plan of settlement which the topography 

 of the district has relentlessly forced upon it since the first frontiersman built his cabin 

 in 1630. Sterile and harborless ocean shores, unstable and unhealthy river and brook 

 banks and unsurmountable hills, have been blamed and fought generation after generation 

 because they could not be adapted to the requirements of trade and house-building. But 

 today, when traffic and the walls of buildings threaten the life of the community, the 

 plan of nature has become a resource. It is upon the ground forbidden to the trader and 



