51 
PARK AND 
CEMETERY. 
to be able to design a public park. I remember cases 
where park commissioners have appointed engineers as 
superintendents of the grounds under their control. A 
man who had been a good official in the army was thought, 
on that account, to be the proper person for park super- 
intendent. In another case, a livery-stable keeper was 
appointed superintendent — the commissicners reasoning 
that a livery-stable keeper must know something about 
horses. Numerous horses were used in the park, and so 
a livery-man was a proper person for a superintendent. 
IMany persons are sure that because a man understands 
raising flowers in a greenhouse he is quite able to design 
ornamental planting in a park, or because a man is an 
architect, and can design buildings, it is thought that he 
must be entirely competent to design ornamental grounds. 
Perhaps of all the quotations I have given, none is more 
important than the one that says that “most men of 
specialized training stand in need of an awakening before 
they are competent to have to do with park work.” 
My own feelings with regard to parks have been largely 
influenced by my early life in the country. The back 
part of my father’s farm was all the park I needed. It 
was a valley, bounded by a steep bluff at its northern 
limit and a more gradual and very thickly wooded rise 
of ground at its southern limit. At the foot of the steep 
bluff there was a lively stream running rapidly over 
pebbles here and there, and between the rapids there 
were stretches of still water five to six feet in depth, mak- 
ing admirable places for swimming. Very early in the 
season hepaticas, blood-roots, dog-toothed violets and 
trilliums would burst into bloom on the protected sunny 
slopes of the hillside. The forest growth included oaks 
of large size, sj'camores, tulip-trees, elms, lindens, maples, 
beeches, iron-woods, flowering dog-woods, June-berries, 
red-buds, sassafras and one large cotton-wood. In the 
more open spaces, or along the borders of the stream, 
there were witch-hazels, red-branched dog-woods, elder- 
berries, and all the various shrubs with which you are 
familiar, and there were five or six hundred species of 
flowers. Certain areas had been cleared, so that one 
could sit on the bluff and look deep into the heart of the 
woods. He could watch the kingfisher coursing up and 
down the stream, or flying with a fish to a certain hole 
in the bank. He could listen to the woodpeckers pound- 
ing on hollow stubs, or calling with loud voices to their 
mates. There were robins, various thrushes, blue-birds, 
cat-birds, blue-jays, nut-hatches and chickadees. Occa- 
sionally a blue-heron would be seen wading carefully along 
the edge of the water and watching intently for his din- 
ner. Woodchucks and muskrats were not uncommon, 
and there were fox, red, gray and black squirrels, and 
sometimes a raccoon. Hawks would be seen daily, and 
owls were not uncommon, although it w'as quite an event 
when we saw a white owl. The opening of flowers, the 
bursting into leaf of the various trees, the arrival of 
birds, the music of our feathered songsters, the sweet per- 
fumes, the animal life, the summer growth, the various 
discoveries to be made, the fall coloring, the various nuts 
and fruits, made of the season a perpetual delight, and 
this delight was not limited by the arrival of snow. 
There were the winter sports which are mentioned in 
one of the stanzas of an old song I remember; 
“When winter comes with its chilling blast. 
The farmer’s boy is in glee. 
For he loves the snow as it’s driving past 
Or drifting over the lea. 
Says he to himself, ‘To-morrow morn 
With my skates and sled I’ll be. 
While the cattle are munching their hay and corn. 
Oh! that is the life for me!’” 
Then there is the beauty of winter. The snow covers 
the fields with their graceful undulations with a pure 
white blanket, from which may be seen, rising at a dis- 
tance, the soft, dark-gray color of the woods, here and 
there varied by cloud-shaped areas of brown and straw 
color from the clinging leaves of oaks and beeches. Occa- 
sionally when there has been a light, still fall of snow, 
all the branches of the trees will be covered with white, 
and at rarer intervals every tiny branch, every brown 
spear of grass, every weed would be covered with rounded 
forms of ice that will sparkle like jewels in the sunlight, 
and show us every color of the rainbow. 
As I look back upon the enjoyment of that early period, 
I wish that all the children of the present day, as well 
as their fathers and mothers, could have some place to 
go where they could sit quietly and enjoy nature, or 
where they could romp about and play on the grass, or 
go in wading or swimming; a place where they could 
become acquainted with the shapes of all the leaves and 
their habits of growth; with the perfume of the linden 
and lilac, with the songs of the thrushes and cat-birds, 
with the motions of the chipmunk, and, in short, all the 
charms of the country. This desire is intensified when I 
go back to my early home, and see it largely devoted to 
truck-gardens, with all its early beauty gone, and when 
I realize that within a generation or two it will un- 
doubtedly be part of a great city. It is also intensified 
when I go through the region all about that city and 
find difficulty in discovering a native forest of even a few 
acres. 
I wish, then, that every city, every village, every town- 
ship, could have one or more areas where all of the 
original inhabitants would not be driven out. Let us cre- 
ate safe retreats for all the various trees and shrubs 
which I have mentioned, as well as the other native 
growth of this state, and may we not restrict this pro- 
tection to our own plants alone, but w'elcome the plants 
of other countries and give them fitting surroundings, 
and let us, while giving happiness to trees and shrubs 
and flowers, create at the same time the most attractive 
of real pictures. We shall make the points from which 
these pictures arc to be seen accessible by means of 
■ paths and drives. We shall have in convenient and se- 
cluded places shelters in which we can retreat in case 
of sudden storms. We shall have places for boating and 
ball-playing, for coasting and skating, for rest and con- 
templation, and from these quiet, delightful retreats we 
shall shut out, as far as possible, the buildings, noises 
and business of the cities. 
I have tried in this brief outline to hint at what I feel 
should be the spirit of the park — to touch upon its most 
prominent characteristics. Incidentally, a park may do 
many things for us. It may serve as an arboretum or 
a botanical garden, to teach us the names and charac- 
teristics of various forms of vegetation. It may furnish 
an opportunity for delightful exercise — for walking, and 
for riding on horseback, in carriages, on bicycles or in 
automobiles. The automobile has not yet been admitted 
into all parks. If driven slowly so that its passengers 
would have an opportunity to enjoy the scenery, and so 
