CAMPS 107 



constant proof of it. But there are fairly constant and natural differences 

 between the way a ranger, for instance, looks at a camp or picnic ground and 

 the way a landscape architect looks at it. This question of swings, sand 

 boxes, and seesaws for the children is a case in point. These child coops are 

 ugly; they look out of place in most forest backgrounds; and they are espe- 

 cially ugly and especially out of place when, as generally happens, the forest 

 officers install the sort that are made of metal — the standard equipment 

 seen on so many city playgrounds. But, as the rangers and forest guards 

 insist, people come to the woods to get some rest, and what rest does a 

 mother get if she's retrieving her young every whipstitch from running off, 

 getting lost, and from possible encounters with rattlesnakes and wild 

 animals? 



When a 5-year-old child was lost and killed on a New Mexico forest one 

 winter, practically every officer on the forest pointed out that this might not 

 have happened if the children had been given a safe place to play on that 

 forest site, while their parents rested. All right, then, says the landscape 

 specialist, have your swings and seesaws if you must. But make them of 

 native materials, not of galvanized pipe but of timbers. Some forests have 

 done this, but there is no known way to make such swings as permanently 

 strong, as little likely to break and hurt somebody after the wear and tear 

 sets in. And the architect must also consider, the resident foresters point 

 out, that such swings are often used by boisterous adults, a couple of 200- 

 pounders at a time, maybe, standing on them, swinging like fury, there 

 in the woods. So iron-framed swing brackets and chains for rope are still 

 one of the ugly urban refinements permitted on many forest camp picnic 

 sites. Playgrounds are set off as remotely as is consistent with safety, however, 

 and hedged with native vegetation to preserve the forest atmosphere. 



Most of the refinements which have been brought into forest recreational 

 sites and structures are far more comely. There has been a vast improve- 

 ment in this particular during recent years. Until about 1914, administra- 

 tion of the recreational use of the national forests had been wholly in the 

 hands of the field force. The effort was still so small and so scattered that 

 the need for a national policy was not evident. In 1915 the first preliminary 

 study was made by a member of the Chief Forester's office. In 1916, Frank 



