CHAPTER XIV. 



CITY PARKS. 



O ^vrite of parks is to enter a field 

 wBicli is almost unlimited in ex- 

 tent. It has come now to the 

 pass that every toAvn and city of 

 importance in Europe and America 

 must have its park. It is the 

 fashion. Whether the fashion is 

 always well wrought out, is another 

 thing. Unenlightened town authorities cannot always be 

 depended on to employ competent talent, and to adopt a 

 wise and comprehensive scheme of operations. 



Yet, after all, parks are but larger door-yards or lawns, 

 — or rather, in many cases, a series of them. The landscape- 

 gardening lore applied to them is essentially the same as 

 that employed in constructing the most modest home, 

 grounds. There is nothing really different in the general 

 theory of the landscape gardening of parks from that of 

 ordinary grounds. The apparent difference simply lies in the 

 special application to some particular individual undertaking, 



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