242 MEMORANDUM. 



MEMORANDUM PROM HON. WM. ALVORD OF S. F. 



I do not believe that any one knows who was the first person to 

 suggest tne plan of reclamation of the sand dunes in Golden Gate Park 

 and the „reat Highway, which was successfully carried out by the 

 Board of Park Commissioners, through its engineer, Wm. Ham Hall, 

 who is now employed by the Russian Government in great irrigation 

 schemes in Eastern Russia. In driving L.ouis Agassiz to the beach, over 

 Old Point Lobos road, I remember making a i. version to t^e south, 

 somewhere between Central and First avenues, to show him the sand 

 dunes. I asked his advice about the treatment of them for park pur- 

 purposes. He tore a slip off a newspaper and wrote the names of 

 several French books (I have the memorandum pasted in my book of 

 autographs) ; then said the subject had been studied by an able Ameri- 

 can author, our United States Minister to Italy, Geo. P. Marsh, who had 

 published a volume on the subject called "Man and Nature." I think 

 we all read it carefully, and were influenced by it 



The first effort at reclamation were with barley and lupine seed 

 sown broadcast on sand that had been turned over a lictle with cul- 

 tivators. Children were employed gathering lupine seed several years. 

 Afterwards we employed men in gathering the seeds of pines and 

 cypress in Monterey counts', which were sown in boxes in cool houses, 

 and when fifteen or eighteen months old planted in the open under the 

 protection of the lupines. 



This was followed by the sowing of seeds of the Arundo Arenaria 

 and other kinds (which we imported from France, "20 cases," and no 

 doubt McLaren can give you the names) on the slopes of cuts and on the 

 dunes oceanward from which the strong winds and drifting sands came. 

 I may mention here that we had driven Asa Gray and Frederick Law 

 Olmstead several times to the unimproved portion of the park, and were 

 indebted to them for good advice. 



The opinion is generally expressed that the intelligent and persistent 

 work done on the wonderfully successful reclamation of the bare, drift- 

 ing sand dunes of Golden Gate Park was largely due to Hon Wm. 

 Alvord. 



