146 FIEST COUXTY PARK SYSTEM 



the public to determine. From present indications, it will 

 not be long before the question of detriment to the public 

 at large, from the methods of modem high finance, and the 

 concentration of large sums of other people's money in the 

 hands of a few men to control, will be readily understood 

 and the false principle upon which the operations are based 

 generally appreciated and measured at their true worth. 



At the close of 1896, within fiiteen months after the re- 

 ceipt of $2,450,000, the commission found that its financial 

 limit had been practically reached. The results of the 

 policy of individual selection of the parks, rather than that 

 of a careful prior study of the requirements for the park 

 sj^stem as a whole had, in this comparatively brief time, 

 fully materialized. Although the balance sheet of Decem- 

 ber 31, 1896, showed a cash balance on hand or $1,209,559, 

 the outstanding obligations for laud and other liabilities 

 and contracts were then sufiicient to absorb all but a rela- 

 tively small portion of this unexpended sum. At the board 

 meeting of December 2 the landscape architects and engi- 

 neers submitted, under a resolution of September 17, 1896, 

 a "general plan of the system of county parks and park- 

 ways," including a formal estimate of the cost of the parks 

 already determined upon. These estimates were made after 

 consultation with the land agents and other employes of the 

 department, who were then in charge of the various phases 

 of the work. This estimate was as follows : 



Estimated cost for land at various parks : 



Branch Brook $1,076,000 



Lake Weequahic 180,000 



Eastern (East Side) 125,000 



Eagle Eock 227,000 



Millburn (South Mountain) 250,000 



Orange Triangle 100,000 



*South Orange Park 25,000 



*This item of $25,000 was for park or parkway lands ont 

 in South Orange, on'or near Grove road; formal action regard- 

 ing which had not then, and has not since, been taken. 



