427 



herbage, and of the foliage growing within six feet of the ground, 

 except a few briery thickets, wholly disappeared; the soil was 

 worn to dust, and blown and washed away so much, that, 

 within two years, the roots of the trees everywhere protruded, 

 and many withered in consequence. Whenever it rained, the 

 old wood trails were gullied, the hollow places became sloughs, 

 and the whole surface slimy and disagreeable to see or to walk 

 upon. 



Reflecting that the number of people using this ground was 

 hardly as one to a hundred of those to be expected in the future 

 upon the park, no one could observe the progress of wear and tear, 

 under these circumstances, without being convinced that to per- 

 manently secure a high degree of rural charm in the public ground 

 of a large city, special preparations are required of a skillful, 

 elaborate, and substantial character. The result of acting upon the 

 contrary assumption was shown in Washington Park, before it was 

 revised by your Commission. Nine-tenths of the trees originally 

 planted on it had received serious injuries ; and much the larger 

 part were, upon inspection, condemned as damaged beyond recov- 

 ery, and have been burned. The spaces laid with turf had been 

 worn bare, or had become everywhere untidy and forlorn. It was 

 not an attractive, a suitable, hardly a safe resort for women and 

 children, and was regarded rather as a nuisance, than as an ad- 

 vantage, to the neighborhood. This experience has been gone 

 through with many times, in many places, in Europe and America. 

 The common result, after the shabbiness and uselessness becomes 

 scandalous, is that which is illustrated in Boston Common, and 

 which is now being applied to the Battery in New York, a style 

 of improvement being adopted in which an evident effort is 

 made to avoid formality, but in which, nevertheless, not the 

 least approach to a free, natural, rural character is attempted, 

 and the public is then invited to pass through the grounds by a 

 complicated series of gangways guarded by chains or rails. Recrea- 

 tion may be obtained in such grounds, but it can hardly be called 

 rural recreation, and it is even a question whether convenience, 

 economy, and good taste would not all have been better served 

 by the adoption, at the outset, of a formal and elegant architectural 

 style. 



As the park has come more and more into use, new habits and 

 customs, and with them new tastes, have been developed. There 

 is already many times as much pleasure driving as there was five 

 years ago, and not a few persons are more attracted to the park 



