687 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
STATE PARK IDEA MAKES RAPID GROWTH 
State Parks, like other parks, have 
definite purposes to serve and there- 
fore definite requirements. Their 
main purpose is to refresh and 
strengthen and renew tired people, 
to fit them for the common round 
of daily life. National parks have 
a similar purpose, but on account of 
their limited number and location 
they are available only to persons 
living in certain sections or to the 
few people who can afford the time 
and money necessary for a long jour- 
ney. The City Parks serve this pur- 
pose also, but it is only to a limited 
degree. In the first place, large cities 
alone can afford large parks and even 
then they are too small, as a rule, 
for broad scenic effects; secondly, 
cities are located for commercial, busi- 
ness, or transportation reasons and 
seldom possess invigorating climate 
or great natural features of special 
beauty or interest, — or, if they do, 
the demands of commerce are such, 
or are thought to be, that the pres- 
ervation of these features is not con- 
sidered practicable. 
The requirements of State Parks 
may be conveniently summarized un- 
der five heads. (l) They should 
be large; otherwise they could not 
be used by great numbers of people 
without destruction fo the very qual- 
ities most essential to their purpose. 
On acount of the influence of topog- 
raphy, it is hardly practicable, nor 
is it necessary, to fix an acreage for 
State Parks; but, as a working basis, 
it may be- said that it is desirable 
that they should contain at least five 
thousand acres, — ten thousand acres 
are even better. (2) State Parks 
should be accessible — not to the de- 
gree that City Parks are, but acces- 
sible by train or boat or vehicle with- 
in reasonable time and at reason- 
able expense. Accessibility, however, 
should not be interpreted too nar- 
rowly, nor should it be measured by 
present facilities alone. The estab- 
lishment of a park in one section or 
another will inevitably lead to an in- 
crease of traveling accommodations, 
as will also the mere lapse of years, 
bringing with it an increased density 
of population. (3) The air and cli- 
mate of sections within which State 
Parks are located should be salubri- 
ous, and the situation" healthful. Es- 
pecially should the climate of the 
summer months, the period that most 
people have for vacations, be agree- 
By John Nolen, Landscape 
Architect, Cambridge, Mass. 
able. In the course of years State 
Parks are likely to be more or le^gs 
visited at all seasons, as Nature offers 
a reward in every month to her visi- 
tors. But the emphasis for the pres- 
ent must be placed on the mid-sum- 
mer season, spring and autumn. (4) 
The property for State Parks should 
be reasonable in cost. Cities aver- 
age about a thousand dollars an acre 
for park land, but hope for a com- 
prehensive system of State Parks 
must be founded on a lower cost. 
Except in the case of densely popu- 
lated States, States that have waited 
too long before taking action, there 
is every prospect of securing the 
most suitable and fit land at almost 
nominal rates. The parks acquired 
by States so far have not averaged 
in cost much more than twenty-five 
dollars an acre. Seldom would a 
State be justified in paying an aver- 
age of over a hundred dollars an 
acre for a tract of any considerable 
size. Not only should the first cost 
be low, but the property should be 
of such a character as to require rel- 
atively small expenditures for con- 
struction and maintenance. It should 
be a “natural” park, one of such in- 
trinsic beauty as to require little 
outlay for improvements. (5) Fin- 
ally, the site for a State Park should, 
above all, have a decidedly uncom- 
mon charm and beauty, a distinc- 
tion among landscapes, an irresistible 
appeal to the Nature lover. Here 
there should be no room for doubt; 
for failure in this point means com- 
plete failure; and on no other point, 
nor on all other points together, can 
justification rest. State Parks must 
be unmistakably beautiful; they must 
present to the enjoyment of all some 
consistent, unspoiled type of land- 
scape; they must offer freely the 
glory of lake or mountain, the 
picturesqueness of shore or bluff, the 
beauty of hill and vale. 
At least half a, dozen States have 
begun the acquisition and develop- 
ment of State Parks. Massachusetts, 
for example, awoke to its importance 
nearly a score of years ago. A body 
of public-spirited men then petitioned 
the legislature, stating that the sea- 
shores, river banks, the mountain 
tops, and almost all the finest parts 
of the natural beauty of Massachu- 
setts, were possessed by private per- 
sons, whose private interests often 
dictated the destruction of this beau- 
ty or at least the exclusion of the 
public from the enjoyment thereof. 
The inquiry inaugurated as a result 
of this petition is full of suggestion 
and warning to newer or more 
sparsely settled states. With refer- 
ence to the ocean shore, for example, 
the Massachusetts agent found a 
great population on land hedged away 
from the beach and all conditions 
pointing to a time, not remote either, 
when nobody could walk by the sea 
in Massachusetts without the pay- 
ment of a fee, as was formerly the 
case for a glimpse of Niagara. Re- 
sulting from this and somewhat sim- 
ilar movements, the State of Mass- 
achusetts has already acquired some 
large and valuable holdings, first 
through direct action of the state 
appropriating money for the pur- 
chase of park lands, secondly through 
state appointed commissions, and 
thirdly through the trustees of pub- 
lic reservations, a board created to 
receive and care for gifts of land to 
the state. The Massachusetts Trus- 
tees of Public Reservations novi hold 
the following lands as State Parks: 
Virginia Woods, 20 acres; Goodwill 
Park, 88 acres; Rocky Narrows, 21 
acres; Mount Ann Park, 50 acres; 
Governor Hutchinson’s Field, 10 
acres; Monument Mountain Reserva- 
tion, 260 acres; The Pine Knoll, 6 
acres; Petticoat Hill, 50 acres. In 
addition to these properties, Mass- 
achusetts possesses also the valuable 
mountain reservations under the 
control of the Wachusett and Grey- 
lock Commissions. 
The State of Maine has made a be- 
ginning in the work of the Hancock 
County Trustees of Public Reserva- 
tions. Dr. Charles W. Eliot has re- 
cently written the following interest- 
ing letter about what is virtually a 
State Park on Mt. Desert Island, 
Maine: 
“The Hancock County Trustees of 
Public Reservations are incorporated 
by an act under the Maine Legisla- 
ture, which grants them exemption 
from taxation on all lands held by 
them for the use of the public. They 
have no right of eminent domain, so 
that all their holdings have been ob- 
tained through gifts of land, or 
through purchases made with money 
contributed by public-spirited per- 
sons who desire to promote the ob- 
jects of the corporation. The organ- 
ization was copie4 from the Mass- 
