Art Out-of-Doors 
them better than the poorest people in our 
largest towns. This fact is always cited in 
excuse for the defacement of naturalistic de- 
signs, like the Boston Public Garden, with a 
multitude of flower-beds; and it is a fact 
against which intelligent lovers of our great 
urban parks must perpetually fight lest their 
pastoral scenes be similarly ruined. But it 
is not a fact against which we should always 
fight; rather, it is one which should be 
gladly accepted and carefully considered by 
the guardians of our public grounds. Wher- 
ever a flower-garden can appropriately be 
made within crowded city limits, there, I 
am sure, one should be made ; and not only 
for the sake of the people’s delight, but also 
for the sake of the integrity of the naturalis- 
tic parks. If we had in New York a proper 
place for a fine floral display, no one would 
have an excuse for demanding, as some peo- 
ple continually do, that there should be 
more flower-beds in Central Park. Such a 
spot as the little triangle where Broadway 
and Sixth Avenue meet — which now shows 
a bit of grass, one ragged pine-tree, two or 
three straggling bushes, and a hideously 
182 
