473 
PARK AND CEME-TERYc 
The Boston ParK System 
Paper read by yohn C. Olmsted at the Boston Convention of the American Society of Landscape Architects^ 
(Ooncluded.) 
Franklin F^ark 
As an -illustration of park designing, the plan and re- 
port on Franklin Park is probably the best piece of 
work, in spite of some disappointments in execution, 
done by its designer, Frederick Law Olmsted. 
The gentle meadows and rougher hills and ledges, 
and the already well grown 
trees lent themselves not only 
to many picturesque bits of 
landscape designing, but af- 
forded, with moderate grad- 
ing, excellent fields for such 
sports as are permissible in a 
landscape park. It is fair to 
say that much of the land- 
scape was designed, because 
in its original state it was de- 
cidedly different in effect. It 
was a district of suburban 
and country residences with 
all the usual artificial im- 
provements of similar sub- 
urban districts, such as 
houses, stabled, greenhouses, 
barns, sheds, retaining walls, 
earth terracing, flower and 
vegetable gardens, orchards, 
drives, rows of shade trees, 
walls, fences, streets, electric 
poles, gas lamp posts, hy- 
drants, quarries, cultivated 
fields and straight sided wood 
lots. 
One primary condition of 
the design was self-imposed, 
namely, the idea that the 
greater part of the park 
should be left unlighted and 
should be closed after a cer- 
tain hour for -the night. This 
idea was, no doubt, a sound 
one, while the park had only 
a small population about it 
and while the cost of lighting 
and policing the park effi- 
ciently remained almost pro- 
hibitive. But already yielding to the characteristic 
American hatred of restraint and willingness to take 
chances of robbery and even murder, this theory of 
shutting the greater part of the park during the latter 
half of the night has been abandoned. 
Another less vital feature of the plan of Franklin 
Park — The Greeting — has never been carried out and 
appears to have been definitely abandoned ; presumably 
owing to a preference to extending the open field treat- 
ment, and a dislike for such artificial aids' to enjoy- 
ment as the Mall in Central Park, New York, Rotten 
Row in Hyde Park, London, and the corresponding 
drive in the Bois de Boulogne, Paris. The idea in 
each case is a ■ social congregating place ; and in such 
a case, a considerable degree of artificiality is not only 
appropriate, but actually essential for neatness and 
convenience. 
Another feature designed in contiguity to The Greet- 
ing was The Little Folks Fair. This was intended 
to contain the means of amusement permissible or more 
BALANCED ROCK. FRANKLIN PARK, BOSTON. 
