PAR.K AND ce:me:te:r,y 
479 
they will also gather for a brief period about the showy 
flower beds with expressions of wonder and admiration, they 
will spend the day where there are beautiful landscapes. 
I believe the average taste of the public is correct, and that 
it does appreciate a really beautiful thing. In evidence of 
this, I only need to point to the tremendously rapid growth 
of the sentiment and practice that is represented by the mem- 
bership of this association. We need more teachers who are 
competent to teach, and such teachers are rapidly developing 
more disciples of outdoor art who will look beyond the pretty 
flower bed and the neat yard to the permanent improvement 
of their towns on broader lines, and who will set about to 
acquire the fine trees, the beautiful passages of landscape that 
will fit into the broader scheme. You will say that public 
reservations are expensive and that you have not the means 
or influence to secure them. I say that you are wrong in 
this assumption, for if you really have the instinct of the 
artist, and a real love for the beauty in nature because it is 
beauty, and not because the individuals or publications to 
whom you look for your ideas say it is, you will be able to 
sway others to see as you do, at least enough to give of the 
abundance of their land or their money. 
Let me give you a few leaves from my book of experience 
to show how often a suggestion may fall in fallow ground. 
A park commission, having an appropriation sufficient only to 
purchase the park land of a proposed extensive park system, 
was told that they must acquire their parkways by gift from 
property owners. This was unanimously declared impossible, 
but an opportunity to divide into house lots a six hundred 
acre tract on the line of the proposed parkway made it pos- 
sible to provide liberally for this parkway and to secure the 
sixty acres needed therein as a gift to the city. Another un- 
convinced property owner, after having seen the benefits and 
beauty of parkways in another city, was convinced, and now 
offers to give with equal liberality; three other large property 
owners are doing the same, and it now appears certain that 
nearly the whole of the parkway land will be thus secured, 
or secured from public holdings established for other pur- 
poses. 
In a small city of the northwest a large body of primitive 
pine upon the shores of a beautiful stream much used for 
pleasure boating was to be cut for the last bite to a big saw- 
mill that was about to be closed for all time, owing to the 
exhaustion of its forest supply. The suggestion was made to a 
member of the lumber company that the preservation of lines 
of trees along the bluff and groups of trees at prominent 
points would preserve the essence of all the unique beauty of 
a stream that would only be commonplace after fhe pines 
were cut. He was doubtful, as it represented a large asset. 
At another visit the same ground was gone over and the 
same suggestion made to another member of the firm, who 
seemed coldly non-committal. At the next visit the mills 
were dismantled, and a million feet of lumber had been 
saved to preserve the beauty of the stream. Not only this, 
but also a large number of splendid old trees along the shore 
of the great water-power pond, as well as on bluffs in the 
heart of the town, all of which might have gone to the mills 
had the owners so willed. 
In a small town in eastern Massachusetts was a high hill- 
top, from which the finest view in the town was to be secured. 
The supposed owner, the village grocer, was approached 
with the suggestion that it be given to an association who 
would hold it open to the public for all time. He assented 
promptly, but found his land did not take in the summit 
He believed it belonged to a hardworking, but well-to-do 
farmer. This farmer was approached, first with the sugges- 
tion that he save a fine old hemlock on the hillside. With 
a good deal of emphasis he stated that he had been saving 
that tree for nearly fifty years. He, too, offered to give land 
at the summit, but it was found that his holdings did not 
reach it. The storekeeper purchased sixty acres for the pur- 
pose’ of carrying*' out his intention. Then the project for a 
woodland reservation one hundred feet wide and nearly three 
miles long was suggested, with the expectation that the 
owners would give the land ; already nearly one-third of the 
land required had been promised, and this in a so-called non- 
progressing farming community. In this same community it 
was the practice of the lumber men to cut to the roadside. 
It was found only necessary in most cases to call the attention 
of the lumbermen to the desirability of preserving all the 
roadside growth to secure its preservation; and one lumber 
man, having no personal interest in the town, saved a large 
and fine oak of considerable commercial value upon the sug- 
gestion that it would be a fine thing for him to do, and be- 
cause he cared for the beauty of the tree as well. The sug- 
gestion to individuals owning particularly fine trees that they 
deed these trees to the village improvement association, has 
met with a favorable response, and papers are being pre- 
pared for the preservation of several such trees. It has been 
my experience that there are very many land and tree owners 
who care so much for such beauty that they are willing to 
make a considerable sacrifice to preserve it if the agency is 
provided and if they are approached in the proper spirit. 
Think how such memorials will grow in beauty, even if 
neglected, for Nature is forever building her creations as 
fast as they decay, and ruthlessly tearing down the creations 
that man has made of material gained by despoiling Nature. 
How many unendowed or endowed memorial buildings, or 
other structures, in towns or on college campus, erected fifty 
or more years ago, are standing today, and how many are 
likely to stand fifty years more, when you consider the short 
period of a building’s usefulness, and the tendency of towns 
and colleges to live so close to their income as to only main- 
tain useful things, especially if the cost of maintenance is a 
considerable item. How many of the donors of fifty years 
ago would be proud of their gifts were" they to see them asso- 
ciated with the better work of today. 
There are many beautiful trees and landscapes that have 
been growing and will continue to grow for centuries, that are 
certain of destruction sooner or later if in private hands, for 
there is no entailment of estates in this country that will keep 
them for centuries in a family. The only assurance for the 
preservation of such objects lies in their being placed perma- 
nently in hands of some legally constituted body of officials 
or citizens’ association with the power to hold and administer 
the land and keep it open to the public for all time, with 
money secured from taxation, from gift or from the prop-, 
erty itself. There are dangers to be guarded against, how- 
ever. 
Until the time comes when such intrinsically valuable 
natural resources upon a public reservation as minerals, for- 
ests and water powers will be managed honestly for the 
benefit of the public, with a proper regard for aesthetic as 
well as economic returns, such resources will be a serious 
menace to the public interests, and will compel a constant 
fight to prevent private parties from destroying that which is 
of the greatest value to the public. For example, it would 
appear that in spite of all the protest that has been made 
against such desecration, that Niagara Falls is doomed. On 
one side the power rights upon a reservation acquired for 
the people have been sold for a mess of pottage. We have 
heard how public-spirited the power companies are in pro- 
viding a very large fund for the maintenance of the public 
park, but when the power companies have taken all the water 
from Niagara Falls how impossible it will be with all the 
money that can be secured from the power generated by this 
