PARK AND CEMETERY. 
336 
vided for in parks which could not be 
satisfactorily accomplished and usually 
with far greater convenience to the ma- 
jority of citizens in a series of small, 
well distributed and properly located 
neighborhood parks and incidentally 
with far greater benefits to adjoining 
real estate. Yet of such vital import- . 
ance are large rural parks in the minds 
of those leading citizens who have 
studied the needs of municipal devel- 
opment of a comprehensive system of 
parks that we find most large cities have 
expended millions of dollars to acquire 
them even in advance of an adequate 
provision of ornamental squares, health 
developing play grounds and neighbor- 
hood parks. To secure the extent and 
character of landscape adapted to ade- 
quately refresh visitors in such large 
numbers as must be expected to resort 
upon occasions to a rural park, re- 
quiries, with ordinary conditions of to- 
pography and situation, several hundred 
acres of land, necessitating the inter- 
ruption of ordinary commercial traffic 
often to a very inconvenient degree. 
The fundamental purpose of a rural 
park requires the shutting off from the 
interior of the park as completely as pos- 
sible, all city sights and sounds, and the 
resolute exclusion of museums and of 
many exceedingly popular means of 
amusement from the main landscapes of 
the park ; it usually requires fencing and 
limiting the number of entrances ; it re- 
quires the relegation of drives and walks 
and public shelters to places where they 
will not too seriousl}' injure the park 
landscapes even at serious sacrifice of 
opportunities for those using them to 
enjoy some of the scenery; it requires 
that most of the area be devoted to that 
beautiful but comparatively tame type of 
scenery which is composed mainly of 
flat or gently sloping or undulating sur- 
faces covered with smooth, close turf 
surrounded with an abundance of shade 
trees. The beauty of this type of scen- 
ery is ruined by the introduction of nu- 
merous incongruous and artificial feat- 
ures. Straight lines of drive or walk or 
water surface, rows of trees, buildings, 
monuments, fountain jets, flagpoles, and 
particularly formal flower beds are usu- 
ally injurious to and often destructive of 
the simple rural beauty which is appro- 
priate to this class of parks. 
Scenic reservations are of all sizes, 
and include all sorts of natural or semi- 
natural scenery which is, however, if 
owned Ity municipalities, apt to be com- 
paratively moderate in scale. They usu- 
ally differ from parks proper in being 
rougher, wilder and less artificially im- 
proved and are usually more remote and 
hence less resorted to by such throngs 
of visitors as require broad drives and 
walks and other artificial conveniences' 
in the parks proper. IMunicipal reserva- 
tions are sometimes selected to preserve 
one or more notable landscape features 
of moderate size, such as, for instance, 
the gorge of the Genesee River north of 
Rochester ; the Blue Hills southeast of 
Boston ; the great trap hills of Aferiden 
and Mount Royal of Alontreal. 
Boulevards and parkways are im- 
portant parts of a complete park system. 
For convenience, formal city pleasure 
drives may better be called ‘'boulevards," 
while informal pleasure drives may be 
more specifically designated “parkways,” 
although not much distinction has here- 
tofore been made. Eastern Parkway 
and Ocean Parkway, in Brooklyn, are 
instances of liberal and complete boule- 
vards, in which there is a broad central 
drive devoted exclusively to pleasure 
driving and' a narrower drive on each 
side intended for access to adjoining 
private properties as well as fOr ordi- 
nary street traffic and separate from the 
middle drive by double rows of trees 
with promenades between them. Drexel 
Boulevard, in Chicago, is another type 
of boulevard (more popular with real 
estate men) in which there are two side- 
walks each with a row of trees, two 
broad driveways and a bread central or- 
namental strip. The parkway called in 
part Fenway, in part Riverway and in 
part Jamaicaway, in Boston, and Bay 
Ridge Parkway or Shore Drive, in 
Brooklyn, are examples of informal 
parkways in which adjoining or included 
local scenery or distant views are more 
important than the decorative turf strips 
and shade trees. 
Should Be Parts of a System 
If a city is to have parks, a careful 
study of the problem will convince any 
student of municipal development that 
the parks should be acquired in accord- 
ance with a general system. Many cities 
have one or more parks in which their 
citizens may justly take pride, but com- 
paratively few of these cities have what 
can properly be called a comprehensive, 
well-balanced and well-developed system 
of parks, a system which will compare 
favorably as to completeness with, for 
instance, the system of public schools, 
or the system of fire protection and 
other principal departments of the city 
government. 
The backwardness of municipal park 
systems is not so much due to lack of 
public intelligence and public spirit, as to 
a defective development of the love of 
beauty, as compared with a well-devel- 
oped appreciation of practical, utilitarian 
progress. 
A park system should comprise all the 
\'arious units which go to form a com- 
plete system. Some cities, Savannah for 
instance, ha\'e a liberal provision of pub- 
lic squares, ljut few, if any, play grounds, 
parks and lioidevards ; some. New Or- 
leans, for instance, have boulevards and 
parks, but few, if any, play grounds and 
neighborhood parks ; some, Washington, 
for instance, have pul)lic squares, boule- 
vards and parks, but few, if any, play 
grounds ; some, Chicago, for instance, 
have parks and boulevards, but few pub- 
lic squares; some, Philadelphia, for in- 
stance, have parks and public squares, 
but few connecting boulevards and play 
grounds. 
The various social and topographical 
sections of a city should be suitably sup- 
plied with the various units of a sys- 
tem according to their needs and natu- 
ral opportunities. It not infrequently 
happens that the sections of a city in 
which the population is most dense and 
most in need of squares, play grounds 
and local parks, are almost wholly de- 
void of these advantages because no 
well-balanced system has been devised 
and carried out while land was suffi- 
ciently cheap and comparatively unoccu- 
pied so that now the expense is prohib- 
itory. 
Unless a special and intelligent effort 
is made to secure individuality in the 
improvement of each of the public 
squares, parks and boulevards of a city, 
they are liable to repeat each other too 
much. In New York and Boston and 
Rochester, and many cities, largely, per- 
haps, owing to the topographical differ- 
ences, the parks are strongly individual- 
ized. 
A connected system of parks and 
parkways is manifestly far more com- 
plete and useful than a series of isolated 
parks. Delaware Park, in Buffalo, is an 
example of a park with handsome Ijoule- 
vards forming approaches from the city 
and connecting it with Humboldt Park 
in one direction. Gates Circle in another, 
and Delaware Avenue and The Front in 
another. Washing-ton Park, Chicago, 
also lias its two imposing approaches in 
Drexel Boulevard and Grand Boulevard 
and its boulevard connection with Jack- 
son Park and the West Side Parks. The 
liroad avenues of Washington are ad- 
mirable examples of boulevards because- 
the houses are kept liack from the sid.-- 
walks by turf strips upon which houses 
cannot be l)uilt, altliough porches. b;iy 
windo'vvs, and other projections are very 
properly permitted, and also because 
tliey have ornamental circles and 
squares at turning points and often be- 
gin or end at important imblic iiuildings. 
(To be continued.) 
