Art Out-of-Doors 



uals, no less than to preserve the bea^jty of 

 the general ettecr of the scene ; and it must 

 very often consist in larger part of the judi- 

 cious cutting-out of individuals which are 

 not only superfluous but detrimental. Yet 

 the hardest task of an artist is to persuade 

 an owner to cut down trees which were 

 never intended long to remain. Generally 

 it is harder still for an owner to persuade 

 himself to sacrince trees of his own plant- 

 ing, even though, by his own confession, 

 they might much better be out of the way. 

 And when the owner is indelinitely multi- 

 plied until he becomes a public, then in- 

 deed the cause of the beneficent axe often 

 seems well-nigh hopeless. 



Central Park, and Prospect Park in Brook- 

 lyn, are merely examples of a condition of 

 things vrhich is common throughout the 

 public pleasure-grounds of America. They 

 need nothing to make them wholly admi- 

 rable except that their trees should be 

 thinned ; this they need in the most pitiful 

 fashion : yet never in the public's sight is 

 one tree cut. whether it be fine or ugly, 

 alive or dead, that an outcry is not raised. 



502 



