PARK AND eE/AETERY. 
3 - ■ 
diced lines, each advocating the side its columns 
represents, which, while being, so to speak, “pat- 
riotic,” does not offer anything towards solving the 
difficulty, but rather encourages inter-professional 
prejudice. There should be no conflict whatever 
between the landscape designer, engineer, archi- 
tect, or whatever maybe the distinguishing factor 
of his professional title, and the civil engineer. The 
civil engineer is, as a rule, not a landscape design- 
er, and the landscape designer is not a civil engin- 
eer, and yet in our large parks, particularly, both 
are necessary in their development. To cut the 
material for a long discussion short, they should 
work in harmony, and if particular men on either 
side will not do so, others can be found with wis- 
dom enough to see that the fruition of a good plan 
lies in such harmony. In the ordinary run of 
things you might with equal chance of success, ask 
the engineer to devise an artistic park scheme as 
the landscape designer to construct a good road 
with its possible necessities of drainage, culverts 
and bridges, or to overcome difficulties presented 
by the material to be dealt with. 
The engineers and architects’ professions years 
ago went through this stage of experience, result- 
ing in to-day that the prominent firms combine the 
professions, and each have learned to respect the 
other to mutual advantage. The making of a 
good road is much more than the laying it out 
either on paper or on the ground, or the leading 
engineers of the country would have no need of the 
amount of literature constantly produced on the 
subject, to keep them up to date. On the other 
hand the construction of roads, bridges and other 
works, in a park is not landscape designing, which 
requires artistic development to a large degree, and 
the lights of this profession illustrate the fact that 
natural gifts have materially aided them in the par- 
ticular line of practical art they have chosen. Sol- 
id digging and delving into nature’s secrets, and 
the mathematics to solve them, are the fundamental 
requirements of the engineer, in contrast with the 
natural artistic sense of the landscape architect, 
broadened by the studies necessary to enable him 
to reproduce nature’s most desirable effects, and 
the ability to introduce and carry them out. The 
art instinct is a prime requisite in the furnishing 
of a competent and successful landscape de- 
signer. 
With the exception of a very few phenomenal 
men, the landscape designer cannot fill the engin- 
eer’s place, nor the engineer the landscape design- 
er’s, professional bias to the contrary, notwithstand- 
ing. Each has an important duty in large under- 
takings, whether of cemeteries or parks, and in har- 
mony they must work for the best results. 
Washington Park, Chicago. 
An important section of Chicago’s magnificent 
series of parks is Washington Park, and when the 
transformation of the world renowned Midway Plai- 
sance is complete, awork which is being vigorously 
pushed, it will be hard to point to a grander or more 
beautiful example of municipal improvements in 
any part of the world. 
It was less than thirty years ago that the first 
bill was presented to the Illinois legislature for the 
establishing of a park in this vicinity, and in 1869 
the law was passed, at which time all three divis- 
ions of the city were agitating the park question. 
The act of 1869 created Boards of Park Commis- 
sioners, and special assessments were levied to de- 
fray cost of acquiring property. 
The South Park system comprises the World’s 
Fair site and contains more territory than all the 
other park systems of the city combined. The origi- 
nal valuation of the land as designated by the act 
was $1,865,750, but it was afterwards found that 
a far larger amount of money would be required. 
Mr. Fred Law Olmsted, the well known land- 
scape engineer, of the firm of Olmsted & Vaux of 
New York, whose opinions were valuable in the pre- 
liminary investigations, was engaged to furnish plans 
and specifications and the work was commenced in 
good earnest in 1869. The great calamity of 1871 
checked progress for a year, but in 1872 it was re- 
sumed and Mr. H. W. S. Cleveland was appointed 
landscape gardener. The original designs of Mr. 
Olmsted were deemed too costly to carry out in 
their entirety, but the main features were retained, 
in such a way as to produce the best effects by a 
careful arrangement of trees and shrubs, and the 
construction of lakes and waterways in the most 
economical manner possible, and avoiding the use 
of statuary, stonework and expensive buildings. 
The commissioners early displayed a wise concep- 
tion of the meaning and intention of public parks, 
— that of affording pleasant and healthful recreation 
to all classes and conditions of people; and they ap- 
preciated the importance of all improvements being 
made with the specific view of giving the greatest 
facilities for their use, by the class of citizens com- 
pelled to spend most of their lives in the city, and 
to whom groves and stretches of lawn are of far 
more value than expensive driveways which are for 
the most part only available to people of means. 
The entire amount of land now embraced with- 
in the limits of the South Parks and Boulevards is 
L 306. 7 5 acres, of which Washington Park contains 
371 acres, all improved, and nearly seven miles of 
drives. 
Dr. G. H. Rauch, many years secretary of the 
Illinois State Board of Health, in an able paper on 
