LAYING-OUT OF PUBLIC PARKS. 



221 



upward of sixty acres, these grounds should be parks 

 in the proper sense of the word, furnished with a few 

 inclosures for pasture, broad and well-formed walks 

 or drives intersecting and sweeping round the whole, 

 large masses of trees, approaching at times to the 

 character of woods, together with a reserve of some 

 acres, by way of pleasure-grounds or dressed grounds, 

 attached to the j)ark. 



The buildings essentially necessary to a public park 

 are few ; in short,' a house for the superintendent, and 

 a cottage or two for the gate-keepers, may suffice ; but 

 where flower-gardening is included in the operations, 

 as it ought to be at least to a moderate extent, we 

 should be inclined to insist on the addition of a small 

 green-house, to be employed in the propagation, and 

 in the protection during winter, of those tender orna- 

 mental plants which are bedded out in summer. We 

 have already noted the defect in this kind of park, 

 arising from the absence of a mansion-house, and we 

 should recommend the supplying of this want by the 

 erection in it of any suitable public buildings. Nothing 

 would be more appropriate, for example, than a pic- 

 ture-gallery. Statues, too, erected to distinguished 

 citizens, or other illustrious characters, would find 

 there a more suitable station, and a more comfortable 

 home, than in the crowded thoroughfares of streets 

 and squares, where their uncovered heads, and their 

 limbs scantily draped in classic costume, are alter- 

 nately soiled by dust and soot, amid all the changes 

 of rain and sunshine, of snow and thaw. Museums 

 containing objects of natural history, and collections 

 of antiquities, are also desirable and instructive accom- 

 paniments of these places of public resort. The 



