one and the other may serve for recreation, and there is an advantage in being able to pass from one to the other; but the kind of recreation to be gained by one is not that of the other, the appropriate furniture of the one is not that of the other; and their perfect combination being impracticable, the two can be much better used apart, one at a time. In the larger part of the civilized world, circumstances are as unfavorable to park-like scenery as to grand scenery in the vicinity of large towns. The climate of France is nowhere as favorable to it as that of Great Britain, and even in the north it cannot be found in perfection unless on unusually suitable soil. In the south of France, in Italy, and on all the borders of the Mediterranean, in Mexico and California, and in short wherever a rich close perennial turf cannot be established, parks properly so called ought not to be attempted. In these cases, the two natural elements of scenery to be developed in a suburban public ground of great extent are forests (or “woods”) and water. While trees in woods are by no means as beautiful as trees in parks, and a forest is apt to be gloomy and to produce an oppressive sense of confinement, the mystery of this confinement, so different from that of the walls of a town, makes it interesting and recreative. In the midst of well grown woods, public accommodations, no matter how obviously artificial, nor within reasonable limits how large they may be, detract but little from the main impression, and if fairly well designed supply a grateful relief to what might otherwise be too prolonged a mass and too nearly a monotone of color. The introduction of long strips of clear ground, even if covered with gravel or poor herbage (as at Versailles and most of the great old gardens), giving vistas through which the light may stream in visible beams, touching the walls of foliage at the side with an infinite number of lustrous flecks, produces a most, agreeable impression. Bodies of water, whether formal or naturalistic in outline, in the midst of deep dark tall “woods,” are still more effective. For the same reason statues, monuments, and gardens of highly colored flowers may be introduced in the midst of woods to much better advantage than in parks. — The use in America of the word park as a general designation for gardens, green courts, and all sorts of public places, is an exaggeration of a French application of the word to the more private or kept grounds of a château connected with a forest. To avoid confusion, open spaces for public use in a city may be termed “places;” grounds in turf and trees within places, “place parks;” and broad thoroughfares planted with trees and designed with special reference to recreation as well as for common street traffic, “parkways.” The value of public gardens, places, place parks, and parkways, in distinction from parks and “woods,” is dependent less on the extent of their sylvan elements than on the degree of convenience with which they may be used; those being the most valuable, other things being equal, through which the greatest number of people may be induced to pass while following their ordinary occupations and without serious hindrance or inconvenience. Hence the most important improvement made of late in the general plan of cities has been the introduction or increase in number and breadth of parkways which, if judiciously laid out, become principal channels or trunk lines of common traffic, to which the ordinary streets serve as feeders, so that a man wishing to go to a considerable distance shall find it a saving of time and trouble to take one of them on his way. In this respect Paris has taken the lead, having formed since 1855 over 80 m. of such trunk lines of communication from 100 to 300 ft. in width, provided with borders of trees or shrubbery, walks and drives of a special character, seats, special lighting arrangements, and other conditions more interesting and agreeable than those of common streets. The total length of boulevards and avenues lined with trees under the direction of the municipality within the enceinte of Paris is 120 m. Most of the large towns of Europe are making similar improvements, and at Washington, Chicago, Cleveland, Buffalo, Syracuse, and Brooklyn excellent examples of them exist or are in process of formation. New York, with an area of about 42 sq. m., has 7 m. of planted parkways, all of which are suburban and as yet but partly finished. Simple places, piazzas, or plazas (the two latter being equivalent terms derived from the Italian and Spanish) have the sanitary value of making a city more airy than it would be without them. If furnished with parks (place parks), they have the additional advantage of providing refreshment to the eye through the mind. If a piece of ground of one or two acres in the midst of a busy town is laid out and managed with a view to providing upon it the greatest practicable degree of plant beauty in trees, shrubs, flowers, and turf, and on the same general principles that a private garden for the same purpose would be, it will be of comparatively little use; for the walks will probably be indirect, the low planting of the outer parts will obscure the general view for passers by, and there will be frequent crowding and jostling and disturbance of quiet. Neatness and the maintenance of orderly conduct among visitors in such a ground becomes also exceedingly difficult. Hence, as a rule, at least in the United States, public grounds designed with this motive soon become more forlorn than open places would be. It is much better to decorate them in such a manner as will not destroy their openness or cause inconvenience to those who have occasion to cross them. For this purpose their plans should be simple and generally formal in style, their passages should be broad and direct, and they should be provided with seats in recesses or on the borders of the broader paved or gravelled
