230 



PARKS AN1> PLEASURE-GROUNDS. 



to wish that squares were empty places, or even the 

 sites of bustling markets, rather than that they should 

 continue in that paltry condition in which most of 

 them actually exist. 



And yet, such would be a consummation greatly to 

 be deplored. People, while planning a section of a 

 town or city, will think of a square with its hoped-for 

 greenery a hundred times sooner than of a place, or 

 open paved area. Dismiss the conception of a square, 

 and a block of dense parallel streets will certainly 

 come in its stead. Probably the most imperfect square- 

 garden is more propitious to health than a paved area 

 is, particularly in the heats of summer. Besides, the 

 garden is a place of refuge and of play to the children 

 and the juvenile people of our cities. Why, then, 

 will proprietors, after they have expended many hun- 

 dred pounds on parapet walls and iron railing, not go 

 to the trifling additional expense of engaging the ser 

 vices of a qualified professional man? The square - 

 garden is surely not an insoluble problem, though it 

 has its difficulties everywhere ; and when it is to be 

 formed on a dead level, arid still more on a slightly- 

 twisted surface, its natural felicities are not consider- 

 able. A practiced eye will at least avoid conspicuous 

 blunders. An ordinary courage might suffice to make 

 a few gaps in the encircling belt. And we must add, 

 that after a garden of any kind has been formed at 

 considerable cost, it is a self-defrauding economy that 

 grudges or withholds the necessary maintenance. To 

 afford unalloyed pleasure, all gardens must be " trim," 

 to use the epithet of Milton ; and this is especially 

 true of the square or street-garden ; which, as we have 

 seen, is peculiarly exposed, from its situation, to be 



