689 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
business, and it is steadily increas- 
ing. In a single State like New 
Hampshire it exceeds ten million dol- 
lars a year. The Mackinac Island 
State Park in Michigan cost little 
to secure; yet it is now valued at two 
million dollars, and is visited an- 
nualh' by two hundred thousand per- 
sons. The figures for Niagara Falls 
are even more impressive. Over 
15.000.000 visitors have been admit- 
ted. The Niagara Reservation has 
been a profitable investment for the 
State, and has afforded a practical 
demonstration in America of the prin- 
ciple long acknowledged in Europe, 
that the preservation of the beauti- 
ful “pays.” (4) State Parks would 
be the means of preserving, protect- 
in, g. and appropriately improving 
places of uncommon and character- 
istic beauty. Even forest reserva- 
tions — useful and indispensable as 
they are — will not answer this pur- 
pose. Land for forests is selected on 
a different principle and is afterwards 
developed and maintained in a man- 
ner radically different from that 
called for by parks. (5) Finally, 
these parks would make as no oth- 
er agency can. adequate and per- 
manent provision for wholesome out- 
door recreation and pleasure. If it 
is right for States to spend millions 
of dollars on charitable and penal 
institutions, as they do, made neces- 
sary in part at least by unfavorable 
physical and social conditions, is it 
not wise and good to spend some- 
thing on preventive measures which 
would make such institutions less 
necessary? No one questions nowa- 
days that simple recreation in the 
open air amid beautiful natural sur- 
roundings contributes to physical 
and moral health, to a saner and hap- 
pier life. 
The beauty of Nature is a State 
resource; it deserves to be conserved. 
One method of doing this, in many 
cases the most available and logical, 
is by the establishment of State 
Parks. It may reasonably be expect- 
ed that the action of Massachusetts, 
New York, Michigan, California, 
Wisconsin, and other States, already 
so well justified by results, will be 
followed by still others, until every 
State in the Union has a comprehen- 
sive, well-balanced system of parks, 
embracing its most valuable and char- 
acteristic natural scenic and historic 
resources. 
INTERESTING PERENNIAL BORDER IN BOSTON PARK 
NEW PERENNIAL BORDER IN FRANKLIN PARK, BOSTON. 
One of the most interesting land- 
scape features of the great Franklin 
Park in Boston is the new perennial 
border which Superintendent J. A. 
Pettigrew has established in a shel- 
tered nook near Seaver street. 
This interesting planting winds 
along a pleasantly sinuous course for 
a distance of some twelve or fifteen 
hundred feet. Its general shape is 
that of a long bow or crescent: its 
edges, however, jut out here and 
there into little capes or retire into 
shallow bays, and while one end be- 
gins simply and without flourish, the 
other sweeps round into a large curve 
before coming to a full stop. 
Facing southward, the back of the 
garden is well sheltered by the low 
trees, mostly pin oaks, which form a 
screen towards Seaver street and the 
north, while a varied line of dog- 
woods, viburnums, bush honeysuckles 
and other shrubs not only further shut 
off damaging winds from that direc- 
tion, but form a background agreeable 
to the eye, against which to project 
the flower pictures of the border. 
These flower pictures are composed 
of a great variety of plants covering 
the season from April and May when 
blooming begins with the appearance 
of daffodils, scillas, crocuses, snow- 
drops and such venturesome things as 
open their petals at that early date, 
to the flowers of late autumn. For 
the most part they are of the class 
known as hardy perennials, phloxes, 
larkspurs, foxgloves, native asters, 
etc.; not a few of them were quite 
familiar to our grandmothers and 
great-grandmothers; there is, how- 
ever, a liberal sprinkling throughout 
of “annuals,” like verbenas, zinnias, 
nasturtiums, cosmos, china asters, etc., 
giving brilliancy and variety to the 
display all through the season. 
The border is not exclusively a per- 
ennial planting, for much of its color 
PERENNIAL BORDER, LAWN AND TREES, FRANKLIN PARK, BOSTON. 
