PARK AND CEMETERY. 
1 76 
NOTES ON PARKS AND PARK WORK. 
There are 84 cities and towns in New England which 
have Park Commissioners or are doing more or less of 
park work that I have so far learned of, and it is cer- 
tain I do not know of all. 
Now however crude or insignificant their work may 
be, yet in every town where there is a park commis- 
sion or park work, there is hidden away in it somewhere, 
a love for the beautiful as expressed in natural scenery, 
and if it has not done so, sooner or later that hidden 
love for the beautiful will grow into its full develop- 
ment, and the embryotic park work will become the 
good and great influence for the best in its community. 
It therefore behooves us who as pioneers are marking 
out and beating down paths, to hold out the glad hand 
to the smallest and weakest of these efforts. 
As far as I have learned it is only 42 years ago that 
the first acre of ground was bought in the United States 
for park purposes, that is for Central Park in New York. 
Before this there were only lands which had belonged 
to cities, originally for other purposes, like Boston Com- 
mon, the Battery in New York, and others. 
Much inte’est had been taken in such lands and im- 
provements had been made. 
Chas. Downing, whose untimely death in 1853 had 
not prevented him from improving some of the public 
grounds of Philadelphia and planning for those of Wash- 
ington. 
Savannah two'centuries ago, and Washington nearly 
a hundred years ago was laid out with many squares 
and circles, primarily for defense, but these are now im- 
proved as small parks or ornamental grounds. 
Baltimore followed New York, in its Druid Park in 
1859, Philadelphia in Fairmount Park in 1867, but the 
magnificent Boston Park system did not begin until 1874, 
and the Metropolitan system was hardly commenced 5 
years ago. 
Some cities like Hartford had park commissioners 
in the early sixties, but it was not until 5 years ago that 
Hartford had any thing like a system of parks. 
It is only within the last 15 years, and more than 
half of it has been done in the last 5, that park work and 
park influences have become general. This newness of 
park work is what I wish to call attention to now, be- 
lieving it will be helpful to those of us who are strug- 
gling along in the newness of our work, losing our way 
and hardly knowing what to do, or which way to turn. We 
know very well there is an ideal, beautiful, grand park 
possible, in every piece of ground, and about every city 
and town, yet we grope along in darkness trying to find 
it, thankful for any help which may come to us, and 
thinking that the best is beyond our reach. Yet it may 
be helpful for those who are so situated to know there 
are others like themselves, that this work we are doing 
is largely a pioneer work, for it is probable there is not 
a park superintendent in this country who can say his 
father was also a park superintendent, that nine-tenths 
of them have not held their position 10 years, and more 
than half, not five. 
In New England we have in Mr. Doogue a superin- 
tendent of Public Grounds for 21 years, but is there 
another in New England who has held his position 10 
years? And then again it may be well to know that 
nearly every one of the park superintendents have come 
to their work from other businesses. There is in New 
England one superintendent who decided when a boy 
t» be such, graduated at a school of landscape garden- 
ing in Europe, worked and studied in the parks of Paris 
and London and New York, and is now in charge of 
the third largest park system of New England, being ex- 
ceeded only by Boston and the Metropolitan Park Sys- 
tem. I refer to Mr. Wirth of Hartford. Is there another 
in New England who has from the beginning had such 
a purpose and such a training? If so I do not know of 
him. 
We are apt to think when we read the works of Rep- 
ton, Price, Loudon and others, some of them over a cen- 
tury old, all of them referring to the Babylonian, Mediae- 
val and English park, some of them even referring back 
as far as the Garden of Eden, that park work must be 
very old, and we are the only ones who are not up in the 
work. As interesting and instructive as all these works 
are, they should not lead us to suppose that all has been 
discovered, or that we are to look into the past for our 
lessons of the present or the future. While much has been 
discovered in the past and useful for us to know, yet I 
believe there is a new park development coming, which 
will have a wider, deeper, and higher meaning than the 
old could ever have possessed or have grown into. I 
feel that a new light, a new dispensation of park devel- 
opment is coming, of which Charles Downing was the 
forerunner, and Frederick Law Olmsted is the master- 
mind. I am sure in the years to come, the name of 
Olmsted will be connected with park work, even as the 
name of Euclid is with geometry. 
A man who has done much for park work in New 
England, who has given time, money, energy, thought, 
almost himself to the work, said to me not long ago: “I 
am but a baby in this work.” If he who loves the work 
and lives amongst it feels that he has hardly learned the 
first letter of the alphabet, is it surprising that others 
with less opportunity should feel doubtful as to what is 
best to be done. G. A. Parker. 
King Leopold of Belgium is the king of the garden- 
ers. The greenhouses of his palace at Lacken, near 
Brussels, are famous all over the world, and as the king 
is exceedingly proud of his flowers the royal green- 
houses are open to the people in the month of May. 
Unlike the Versailles gardens, where nature itself is 
submitted to a very strict etiquette, the park of La ken 
looks quite like an English garden, where nature is 
allowed freedom. The lawns are spangled with white 
and yellow flowers, which the gardeners are ordered 
never to cut, and the trees grow as they will. A single 
stroll through the king’s azalea greenhouse is worth a 
visit to Lacken. Brussels itself has very much to inter- 
est one in its parks and city improvements, and the floral 
displays in the season suggest a flower loving people. It 
attracts a large number of visitors, for about it centres 
much of historical interest, and the field of Waterloo 
is near by. 
