House & Garden 
WELLESLEY HILLS STATION 
ON THE BOSTON 
here was ladened with the always hideous 
freight cars ; and the long station platform 
made no pretense to other than utilitarian 
service. But beyond the platform were to 
he found again the usual shrubs and lawn. 
Reservoir, with the high peak of its station 
roof, the almost complete concealment of the 
telegraph poles, the tall trees that lined the 
top of the bank on one side of the track, and 
the renewed abundance of bridal wreath and 
wild roses, that were then all abloom, quickly 
restored the charm of the road. 
But the station at Chestnut Hill, the next 
stop, is well-nigh the prettiest of all. There is 
a park-like approach, roads and paths wind¬ 
ing luxuriously down to the little station 
building, where a stunning stone arch throws 
its protecting cover from wind and rain over 
the carriage drive. The street is not visible 
from the railroad, and the little park is 
graded gradually to the low level of the 
station. Two noble old willows adorn a 
stretch of lawn, and the shrubbery here has 
been planted with unusual skill and artistic 
excellence. One can imagine a business man 
choosing Chestnut Hill for his place of resi¬ 
dence for no other reason than the soothing 
charm with which its little station would daily 
wait his return and the lingering caress of 
beauty with which it would send him forth. 
There remains, however, one thing to criti¬ 
cise, and the fault appears once or twice again 
on the Circuit. The driveways of the grounds 
are asphalt. With the park-like treatment 
of the area, macadam had been more appro¬ 
priate, and with the light travel to which 
the roads are subjected gravel had been not 
DALTON STATION 
& ALBANY R. R. 
merely an excusable but even a preferable 
cover. The asphalt here is a jarring urban 
note in a strictly rural scene that is otherwise 
wholly delightful. At Newton Centre, which 
comes next, even the paths are asphalt; but 
there is here considerable grade from the 
street down to the station. 
A detail that impresses one, after he has 
traveled thus far on the Circuit, is the 
absence of bill-boards from the line of the 
road. No advertisements mar the view, 
shouting irrelevant recommendations when 
one looks for the natural beauty of hill and 
vale. On the main line, that is reached on 
the return, a few can be seen from the car 
windows; but they are not on railroad 
property. On the rest of the Circuit, for 
all its heavy travel and constant trains, the 
good taste of land owners seems to have 
interposed, so seconding the efforts of the 
company to make their way attractive. 
Beyond Newton Centre comes Newton 
Highlands. Here a regular lamp-post takes 
the place of the clumsy pole and arm of 
the electric lighting apparatus at the other 
stations, and here a tree offers shade. The 
sumach grows in great profusion at the edge 
of the platform here, in contrast with snowy 
Waban where the bridal wreath was in 
luxuriant blossom. Between Newton High¬ 
lands, however, and Waban, there has come 
Eliot, a station so small as to make significant 
the new evidence of the thoroughness with 
which the work of beautifying the road has 
been undertaken—for what is done here must 
be more for the road than for the place—and 
as, again, to draw attention to the tendency 
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