It will be convenient to group what we have to say under 

 the following five main headings: 



I. Maintenance of grounds. Pages 6-u. 

 II. hnprovements closely associated with maintenance; the 

 making of existing features better of their kind. Pages 11-17. 



III. Improvements which would constitute new departures (the 

 introduction of distinctly new features), so far as not dependent 

 on the questions considered under the two remaining heads. 

 Pages 17-24. 



IV. Questions of automobile through-traffic or park traffic and 

 of park uses distinct from and more or less conflicting with Botani- 

 cal Garden uses as such; of possible restrictions on the right of the 

 public to enter upon all parts of the grounds at all times of day 

 and night; and of related matters. Pages 25-31. 



V. The vicinity of the Museum and various other questions 

 dependent upon that and upon the questions discussed under 

 heading IV. Pages 32-39. 



PART I 



MAINTENANCE OF GROUNDS 



The basic need in the improvement of the grounds, without 

 meeting which other improvements will be nugatory, wasteful 

 and transitory in effect, is that of greatly increasing the quantity 

 and quality of maintenance — involving a correspondingly large 

 increase in the annual expenditure for maintenance. 



This matter is so fundamental and the manner in which the 

 possibilities of annual maintenance control all other decisions is 

 so direct and so far-reaching, that it seems necessary to discuss 

 it at some length and attempt to gauge, at least in a general way, 

 the cost of adequate and economical maintenance. 



Maintenance may be made in any given case so costly as to be 

 uneconomical; but it should be noted at the start that inadequate 

 maintenance is always uneconomical in that it involves progres- 

 sive depreciation of the capital investment. In the case of a 

 botanical garden or a park, where the real values derived from 

 the investment are largely dependent on the cumulative effect 

 of the growth of plants in certain ways over long periods of years, 

 the effect of inadequate or ill-directed maintenance is peculiarly 

 disastrous because the resulting depreciation (or failure to secure 

 legitimate increase of value) can never be offset in short order 

 by liberal investment in repairs and improvements, as can gener- 

 ally be done with buildings and engineering works. There is 



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