PARK AND CEMETERY 
and Landscape Gardening. 
VOL. XIV CHICAGO, MAY, 1904 No. 3 
GENERAL VIEW OF CASCADE GARDENS AT THE ST. LOUIS EXPOSITION. 
The Cascade Gardens of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. 
Contributed by a Subscriber. 
As the Cascades are the point around which the 
whole Exposition centers, so the Cascade Gardens and 
their surroundings form the central and most interest- 
ing picture on the grounds. 
These gardens are in two distinct parts, one on 
either side of Festival Hall, bounded on their far sides 
by the restaurant pavilions and minor cascades. With 
Festival Hall as a center, the Colonnade of States 
forms a gracefully curving connection with the pavil- 
ions at either end, and from these three points descend 
the Cascades. It is estimated that 90,000 gallons of 
water per minute will be discharged over them into a 
grand basin 600 feet wide, from where the water takes 
its course through the lagoons. Along the banks, so 
to speak, of this grand basin, curve the gardens with 
a slope 300 feet wide and a rise of about 60 feet, pre- 
senting in form a slight hollow, which exhibits to best 
advantage the floral scheme which will make the pic- 
ture of the hill complete. 
As one looks over this immense garden area, no pos- 
sible improvement seems to suggest itself, so perfectly 
and naturally has the ground been shaped. The vary- 
ing elevations make it all the more interesting and 
there is no one point on the grounds from which the 
whole can be overlooked. Such a view would be pos- 
sible only from Festival Hall and the restaurants, and 
even then the two parts could not be seen together. 
The question necessarily resolves itself into one of the 
study of details, for even the individual halves can be 
seen in their entirety only from some high point. From 
the walks or the stairways of the Cascades the view is 
a constantly changing one. 
In form the beds carry out the garland design, ap- 
propriate in that it figures largely in the architectural 
