■23 
PARK AND CEMETERY . 
THE FENS MARSHES AND BOTLSTON ARCH. 
BOSTON PARK SYSTEM. 
effectively, the red twigged Cornuses 
(alba and stolonifera), the yellow 
twigged Cornus (flaveramea), the dif- 
ferent Azaleas, Andromedas and Ilexes, 
as already described, and many of the 
viburnums, like pubescens and cassini- 
oides. 
Jamaica Pond, the largest sheet of 
fresh water in the Boston Park system. 
is surrounded by a fine residential dis- 
trict. Several estates were taken into 
the parks in the making of this one 
and perhaps the most valuable was that 
of the late Francis Parkman, for here 
had been planted many of the rarer 
trees and shrubs which Mr. Parkman 
had secured from Japan and elsewhere. 
It was here that the original Parkman 
Crab was planted and stood until re- 
moved because of its being half dead a 
few years ago. I am not aware whether 
the Populus betulifolia on the edge of 
Jamaica Pond was planted by Mr. Park- 
man or not, but it is to my mind one 
of the most picturesque trees in Bos- 
ton. It is a specimen of Populus 
betulifolia or as it has been' often 
called Populas Hudsonica. Jamaica 
comprises 63 acres and is largely 
used for boating and fishing. 
The muddy river, certainly not a 
very attractive name, is by no means 
now what its name implies. It is a 
narrow sheet of waterway connecting 
Olmsted Park with the Back Bay 
Fens, hence the name Riverway for 
this section of the parks. The plant- 
ings along this stream are very much 
varied, but the illustration of the 
Riverway View gives a fair sample of 
some of the beautiful scenes that are 
met with in this section. 
PARK ORGANIZATION AND ACCOUNTING PLAN 
Report by Olmsted Brothers, Landscape Architects, Brookline, 
Mass., to the Metropolitan Park Commission, Providence, R. I. 
I. ORGANIZATION. 
'Since the ultimate purpose of a sys- 
tem of accounting is to promote and 
measure efficiency in the work of the 
Commission, it and its forms must in 
any case be considered ancillarj^ to an 
efficient working organization. More- 
over, both methods of accounting and 
forms of organization are subordinate 
to securing an efficient personnel, and 
to providing conditions that will enable 
the particular individuals concerned to 
work together effectively. In other 
words it is more important that the form 
of organization and the system of ac- 
counting be accommodated to local con- 
ditions, and still more to the personal 
equation of the available staff, rather 
than that they should conform closely 
to any theoretical standard. Yet there 
are certain principles which an extend- 
ed experience and observation of park 
work in the United States has taught us 
can be violated only with unfortunate 
results, and which, if adhered to, tend 
always toward efficiency and lastingly 
good resylts. 
The first of these concerns the Com- 
mission itself in its relation to the park 
work, in the functions which its mem- 
bers individually and collectively per- 
form, and in its organization for dis- 
patching those functions. Everyone 
must recognize that the prime functions 
of a park commission are to maintain 
unity of action among the agencies 
which it controls, to maintain continuity 
of purpose, aim, and policy in the direc- 
tion of that action, and to keep that 
policy in harmony with the interests and 
requirements of the population whose 
trustees they are. These are similar to 
the functions of a board of directors of 
a great corporation, and the methods of 
organization and of doing business 
which have been developed in the case 
of such boards are closely applicable to 
park commissions. No business can be 
as efficiently handled when the execu- 
tive power vests in a board or committee 
as when a single responsible officer is in 
command, and the onh' reason for put- 
ting a board in charge of park work in- 
stead of a single commissioner or a 
series of independent commissioners or 
superintendents in charge of separate 
districts, is to avoid the danger of dis- 
continuity of policy, of lack of unity, 
and of personal bias in the interpreta- 
tion of the interests of the community 
to which such a method of organiza- 
tion is open, no matter how efficient it 
may be in detail. One man is always 
more efficient in action than a commit- 
tee or board consisting of a number of 
men ; but in the long run the collective 
wisdom of a number of men in matters 
of policy is always greater than the wis- 
dom of one man. .A.11 this simply means, 
hrsl, that to secure efficiency a park 
commission should exert its executive 
action through a single officer, giving 
him full powers so long as he pursues 
their policy faithfully and efficiently, and 
enjoys their confidence, and holding him 
strictly accountable for results ; and 
Second, that in order to fulfill the func- 
tion which is the commission’s only ex- 
cuse for existence, which from its very 
nature cannot be delegated to individ- 
uals, and which if the board as a 
whole, neglects it will simply be left un- 
performed, the commissioners must act 
as a unit, as a deliberative body con- 
cerned with the outcome of the park 
system as a whole, and must fix their at- 
tention upon the broader tendencies and 
large net results of the work of their 
executive agents rather than upon de- 
tails. A commission cannot possibly 
deal with the latter as efficiently as a 
competent and responsible executive of- 
ficer can, and its function in regard to 
them must be to call his attention to de- 
sirable and undesirable tendencies in 
his administration of details; and in case 
he shows himself unable to make good 
without requiring members of the board 
to take upon their own shoulders the 
burden of personally directing the exe- 
cution of details, they should without 
more ado dispense with his services and 
put someone else in his place. It is 
not merely true that the placing of direct 
executive responsibility and authority in 
