SUBURBAN AND MOUNTAIN PARKS IN MASSACHUSETTS. 565 



REVERE BEACH, BOSTON. BATHING HOUSES TO THE RIGHT. 



(Contrast this picture with that on the opposite page.) 



faced the streams, and terraced their lawns, 

 planted their gardens, and built their rustic 

 houses "to befit the dignity and beauty of the 

 river. But manufacturing establishments, 

 finding the water useful, began to drop their 

 lines of refuse along the banks and to line the 

 shores with ugly buildings. Decadent boat 

 clubs left rotting piles and falling roofs. The 

 outrages of rough canoeists led to much 

 stringing of barbed wire, thus driving away 

 the most domesticated picnicker. The newer 

 houses all turned their backs to the stream. 



The Park Commission has now .acquired 

 control of these rivers and of the yiew from 

 the water, by taking strips of land IOO feet 

 to half a mile wide, for a total frontage of 

 forty-seven miles. Large tracts of woodland 

 of sixty or more years' growth were saved as 

 the choppers were beginning their cruel work. • 

 Barbed wire is now all cleared away, and 

 the jocund picnicker again thrives. Ugly 

 buildings are removed, or screened by poplars 

 or other quick-growing trees. Roughs are 

 kept off the water. The number of canoes 

 owned along the Charles River for six miles 

 near the city of Newton has increased from 

 1500 to 5000 under the new regime, making 

 this the greatest boating river in the world, 

 except the Thames. 



Stupid forestry along these river banks 

 under private ownership was corrected none 

 too soon. The owners used to burn over 

 their wood lots every year to get rid of un- 



derbrush, or to prevent fires that in their 

 absence might destroy buildings. Thousands 

 of trees were irreparably damaged, but the 

 commission saved many by applying coats of 

 tar to trunks left without any bark to shiver 

 in' a northern climate. 'Portions of the Mid- 

 dlesex Fells and Blue Hills reservations had 

 been burnt over shortly before the State took 

 them, so that there had sprung up a weedy 

 grow 7 th of monotonous thickets. Under- 

 brush threatening fire has been removed, un- 

 promising trees cut out, and individual trees 

 receive thoughtful and affectionate treatment. 

 When a branch is taken off, the wound is so 

 carefully trimmed that the bark can cover 

 the scar. Pruning is done so promptly that 

 trees shall not waste vitality on limbs that 

 must eventually come off. 



Roads with lovely vistas, rules against 

 shooting, removal of causes of fire, and hence 

 return of long evicted varieties of plants, zinc 

 labels for trees at rendezvous for nature 

 study classes, 3000 skaters at woodland ponds 

 in a week, 8000 climbers to the big Blue 

 Hill in a day, planting of pine seedlings, 

 picturesque flocks of sheep, waterfowl on the 

 ponds, — these are a few features of recent 

 progress. 



Landscape effects have had a discriminat- 

 ing analysis under Olmsted Brothers. If a 

 bridge was to be considered merely as a por- 

 tion of a parkway, flat girders or arches, with 

 all effect concentrated upon the parapet, 



