PARK AND CBMKTERY 
430 
A Report of tlie Committee on ParK Development and Maintenance. 
Read hy Chairman Cr. A. Parker, before the Convention of the American Society of Municipal Improvements. 
For the report of this committee I had intended to com- 
pile tallies giving the progress of park work of the different 
cities represented by this association during the past year, 
making statements as to new methods being tried and the 
advancement made in the principles underlying park work, 
but feeling that such statements and tables would be of but 
little interest, except to those who desire to give time to 
their study and would be only too long and dull to be read 
before an assemblage of experts along other lines of munici- 
pal work, I have selected three laws which I believe to be 
fundamental to all naturalistic park work and have consid- 
ered somewhat the relationship of parks to cities as to theii 
area, population and wealth, and also their relation to the 
other municipal functions of the city’s housekeeping. 
But first I want to emphasize this fact ; that park archi- 
tects and engineers require a special training or peculiar adap- 
tability to become successful in this work, just the same as 
the waterworks, sewerage, bridge or railroad engineer re- 
quires a special training for success ; for park engineering 
differs from all these others as much as they differ from 
each other. It is not difficult to learn how to run lines, turn 
angles and establish grades. The technical schools are turn- 
ing out hundreds of young men well equipped for such work, 
but it is the sound judgment of men who can foresee what 
ought to be done, the best way to do it, and those who have 
done it that makes the experts on sewerage and pavement 
work; those men who have been tried by the actual doing and 
not found wanting, where results have shown that their judg- 
ment was correct, and the park man is made in the same 
way. 
As a rule all engineering work requires exactness of de- 
tail as to lines and surfaces and the laws of physical forces 
must not be violated, but in naturalistic parks the engineer’s 
idea of exactness of detail becomes an offense, for it is not 
the perfection of detail, mathematically correct, that gives 
pleasure here. It is the relation, the proportion and corre- 
spondence of things that brings sr.tisfaction. 
I hat a different mental make-up is required in the park 
engineer from his brothers in the other lines of work is il- 
lustrated by the fact that a man with an engineering mind 
delights in the exactness of lines and angles and the mastery 
of forces, and so is all at sea when he comes to park work. 
To the engineer, though the prick point on a plan he never 
so small, it is the larger than his conception of a point, while 
the daub of an ink stopper more fully represents the point 
to the landscape mind. In the field, when the engineer es- 
tablishes a point he drives a stake, puts in a tack and makes 
cross lines in its head, but to the park man a point is a quar- 
ter of an acre or more. To the engineer a line has length and 
direction, but to the park man it may be a range of moun- 
tains, or a river, or a row of trees, and the landscape line al- 
ways has width. The true engineer is disturbed by all this 
undefiniteness. My experience with them is that they have 
to so violate what they believe is most sacred that they sel- 
dom become reconciled to park work, or else they put the 
parks into the straight-jacket of their science. Now, I am 
not belittling engineering skill ; parks cannot be made with- 
out it, but it is only the skeleton which sustains the flesh ; 
that is, the moulding of the soil with its rounded surface. 
The trouble with the engineer seems to be that he wants to 
put the skeleton on the outside where the turtle has his, but 
if he does so he produces no higher grade of landscape work 
than the mud-turtle is among animals. I honor and admire 
the skill of the engineer. I know only too well its funda- 
mental importance in the foundation study of parks, but in 
parks it must be hidden and never appear on the surface. 
I have at length discussed this subject before this meet- 
ing of municipal experts because I want it to be realized tnat 
there is something beyond engineering and gardening in 
parks. You, of all men in your city, usually have the most to 
do in the formation of parks, and I want you to see that while 
an engineer's park is very good, — there are hundreds of them 
in the country, — that there is something beyond them which 
fulfills better and more fully the mission of the park to the 
city. If I can convince you that this may be so I am sure you 
will look further into the matter, for 1 know you want the 
best for your city. If I did not see so many striving for what 
is best in parks and not knowing where to find it, I would 
not now have referred to it in a way which can only seem 
to you egotistical on my part. I feel deeply, for my corre- 
spondence shows how extensive the desire and the struggle 
has come to me. 
It is also many times supposed that expert gardeners make 
desirable ' park men. Skilled gardening is desirable in park 
work, but the skilled gardener is seldom the man to manage 
the park as a whole, for to acquire his skill he must love 
plants as individuals, while park work is plants used in mass 
or the relation of a single plant to the composition of the 
picture as a wdiole, and in which it is only a part. It is not so 
much the question as to what plant is used as to wdiere the 
plant is located. The gardener loves the tree for its own 
sake. The park man loves the tree on account of its position, 
and it is found that the skilled gardener, like the s'Killed engi- 
neer, w'ants to bring that which he loves best to the fore- 
ground for admiration. It may be said that the park man 
who loves his park picture as a whole is only doing that which 
he condemns in others ; that is, he wants to bring that which 
he loves best before the notice of the public, and this is true, 
hut in defense he can say; it is the composition as a whole 
that gives the mental rest, the moral strength and that de- 
velopment of the love of the beautiful which is the peculiar 
mission of the park. A great deal of thought must be given 
to detail, yet detail should never be so distinct as to attract 
attention separate from the composition to which it is a part. 
The photographer prides himself upon the clearness of de- 
tail, the distinctness with which every subordinate item of his 
picture is seen, and it is a test of his skill, but I am not at 
all sure but that a picture taken through ground glass or a lit- 
tle out of focus may not be more expressive and suggestive, 
for it is w'ith this indefiniteness or haziness of detail that 
park pictures are seen. I am told by experienced travelers 
that the peculiar beauty of English landscape is caused by the 
excess of moisture in the atmosphere wdiich gives a lumin- 
ousness of expression, athough it loses in definiteness, and 
that when the air is dry and clear English scenery becomes 
commonplace, which illustrates the point I am trying to make. 
The park man, unless it is in the same composition with 
architectural or engineering structures, abhors straight lines 
and radial curves, not because they are straight or radial, 
but because they do not fit into the landscape. Straight lines 
and radial curves attract undue attention to themselves be- 
cause the mind recognizes them as such, but that is not their 
worst fault, not the greatest objection to their use. They 
imply the fact that a physical force has predominated over 
everyhing else, for in order to have a straight line a project- 
ing force of sufficient intensity to overcome everything in its 
