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requirement is certainly within our power, all that is needed to 

 secure it being the drainage, deep tillage and enrichment of the soil, 

 and the substitution of finer grasses for the present coarse grasses 

 and weeds. Something may be done also with regard to the 

 second, by cutting in upon the borders of the woods, where the 

 ground lies in gentle slopes, leaving only the finer trees to stand out 

 singly, or in small groups, upon the turf to be formed upon the new 

 ground thus obtained. Were this done, however, the open space 

 would still be comparatively an unimportant one in relation to the 

 whole park. The observer would take it all in at a glance, and if 

 this were all he felt that he could look for, the result would be tan- 

 talizing rather than satisfactory. 



As a very important suggestion springs from this observation, we 

 shall be pardoned for referring to a portion of the Central Park, New 

 York, where somewhat similar conditions formerly existed, and 

 where our views have been adopted and realized. Entering by 

 the turn to the right, at the Merchant's Gate, in a few moments 

 the visitor's eye falls upon the open space called the Cricket 

 Ground, where originally was a small swamp, enlarged at great 

 expense in the construction of the park, in order to meet a similar 

 artistic purpose to that above explained, by the removal of several 

 large ledges of rock, and now occupied by an unbroken meadow, 

 which extends before the observer to a distance of nearly a thou- 

 sand feet. Here is a suggestion of freedom and repose, which must 

 in itself be refreshing and tranquilizing to the visitor coming from 

 the confinement and bustle of crowded streets. But this is not all. 

 The observer, resting for a moment to enjoy the scene, which he is 

 induced to do by the arrangement of the planting, cannot but hope 

 for still greater space than is obvious before him, and this hope is 

 encouraged, first, by the fact that, though bodies of rock and foliage 

 to the right and left obstruct his direct vision, no limit is seen to 

 the extension of the meadow in a lateral direction ; while beyond 

 the low shrubs, which form an undefined border to it in front, there 

 are no trees or other impediments to vision for a distance of half 

 a mile or more, and the only distinct object is the wooded knoll of 

 Vista Rock, nearly a mile away, upon the summit of which it is an 

 important point in the design, not yet realized, to erect a slight 

 artificial structure, for the purpose of catching the eye, and the 

 better holding it in this direction. The imagination of the visitor 

 is thus led instinctively to form the idea that a broad expanse is 



