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PUTNAM'S SONS 27 & 20 WEST 23" STREET i88i 1 MOUNT ROYAL 4>»3^.»«.,,>,ij , ^ ^ # fl :^ 1^1 f __-j1 ^'^c^^ " The tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colors and their forms, were then to me An appetite ; a fcelinR and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm By thoughts suppVied,"—H^ordswori/t. " The groves were God's first temple."— />V^ii , ; lull wilh ;i liltli; rcllcction it will he ii|i|)iiii'iii iliii ilir- pi<>|ii-ii V I oiilil 111)1 liavt! been justly purchased Willi i<|..iit| I, Illy l<>i ilic piotii In lie |;c.i from it l)y ;i few thousands III ilir I'l iiri.iiiiiii <(iitriiii|' ii , .nnl iliil I was hound, in sii^'j^esting a |il.iii, I., ii.ur III virw llir iiilcu'sis of those to inherit it as well as y""i . , .md III In-. II in iiiind Ih.il, hcfore the lirst plantiiij^ of the plan- l.ili.in. uliiih I w.is lo Kuliinc sliould rc.u h their full j;rowtli, these liilii'iiiiii UMidd ln;'iM III he coimicd not hv the thousand hut by the iiiillinn , .iiid .il .«> lo iiiufinhcr that, it eivili/atioii is not to move litit Kw.iid. liiiv .iif III in- null li more alive than we are to certain t|iiiliii, , I'l \.iluc III the piopei IV which are to he saved or lost to lli'in, ,1. •.h.ill |MC'.cntlv lie diMci mined. And Ic .1 ihcic •-hould l>e the s!i^!\test doubt in any of your minds ol ilir |i.iiinci\i (• I'l inv i.iLiM;; lius wav to diaw vour attention to this Mild '..Mu.- I'lliii I i>n-.ulci.ui.'ns, 1 wdl submit a sinj^Ie illustration of iii.inv wliuli mij;hi be »>lU-icvl ot the teachings of historv upon the I'l'inl. Ab,>nt tl\.' time tlia! ccitain Ktenchmcn wore laving; out the first stieci ,niK-al, a Cv'as! co;nKu!c w luvn tliov had let: l-vehind. a Khstin'.'.ui-.hcd man v't uu piofcssUMi. Andre I o Notre bv name. wa5 la>nu'. v«ut i\>a>U an>l walks, detimns; plantation^, sc'.ec.ing trees, tix- »i\jl the toim aiul psVs.f.vva of seats, and «.^thcrw\;uiulv, anvl v't '.hv- •.".e-.cnt v.o',c vlv."*; . Since I was ',.'.•.•, i(\ Mv'> ■.•.:• •.■.•,', I '•av,:' •.v.a,'.;« a vilgnma^ to 'i.s liUHViid ^".v"'}; aji\» ac\;u-.uNl bv th.' town', ar..,! found the s-;ot It >ud \ct'.'0"a\>UN'.v tx»!'.ow.:>j; the ',\.i:^> v"^:Mre-d Kior-e thar. t-ar? hund'.cxl >oa'.>a;-o b\ I c No.;v. ao.d .h.- •.v.oi-.v-s bv which hi wis >i. . w'^-'o h.- wa^ %-■: ! vu^g. Th? rva.U. :h; -rxliLj. the v^ul.iu; c4S',s'5>, the 'oatv vi>;A> — rt nocif of :h*>^ hjt'i :h^ or^-jial \>\M\ ;o.x;, Ol oven ^va-^v? :o sjJtfo.. vji;^,' , ir*^- [ j^.^ ci-Iirsz :c the »v\vu»U ^vucv.a;v41 i« d-.rv\-c d'^^vn; trvca fiv.**? vh-osa L.? N::re J^ looked upon, carried by their mothers, and led l)y their tcacliers, as their kindred now are, to your mountain, to take tlieir share of the value which had so long ajjo been prepared for thctn. It is not at all improbable that yet for hundreds of years to come every child of Dijon shall enjoy the same nurture. To our nineteenth-century minds the design of the park nii^^ht, for this end, have been better, but it was then the best atlaiMabie, and the good pcojilc of Dijon have shown the i)ighest common-sense in resisting all passing fashions, fancies, anrl whims by wliicli it niij^lil have Ijeen sophisticated ; in religiously |)reservin^ its originating spirit and character ; and in gaining for tlieniselves, year by year, moro and more (jf tlic incalcuhible advantage of learning, by coniiuunic^n with it, veneration for the pust and duty to the future. i I have no reason to suppose that any one in Montreal has been dis- satisfied with my work. No one has sjjokcn of it, as far as I know, but with praise. To understand why it seemed to me to have been futile, it must first be considered that the prejjaration of a i>ian means the invention of a process by which certain proposed ends may be brought about upon certain conditions. A plan serviceable for one scheme of ends will be worthless for another. A [jjan s'^undly basi d on one set of conditions will be good for nothing when these condi- tions are changed. The reason for the prolonged labor, and the poor results of it, which were at the outset given to the study of a plan assigned, in your be- half, to me, was that, as to one point or another essential to the firm framing of a plan adapted to a fixed policy in this business, your appointed special agents, the commissioners, could never be sure that their, or any attainable, conclusion was at all to be depend'/! on ; never sure of what might be determined over their heads ; n':ver of what, of their own judgment, upon the absolutely essential foundation- stones of a soundly-built plan, they might not fee! it due, any corning day, to yield to what should appear to them to be a determined drift of public opinion. «s ^^mm More than once I had a design worked out upon grounds which I had been instructed to regard as fixed, or authorized to assume, at the least, as practicable, and upon which I had been urged to pro- ceed ; in which I had met, with a great deal of study, according to my ability, all the difficulties which I could foresee ; each element devised, as for as controllable, to augment the value of all others and to be augmented in value by all devised of others ; only to find that it must be thrown up and the work begun anew at the bottom, be- cause of the ripening of some determination or the unsettlement of something previously regarded as determined. Not one of the changes to which I refer appeared to be the result of a more advanced deliberation upon the object which had led to the purchase of the property, or to have been made with a full realization of what was determined by it with respect to that object. Nor, in the discussion of them, did I hear that what I believe and propose to argue should be the ruling motive of the undertaking had even been given the slightest weight. In the questions put to me it was not referred to ; and the reason I suppose to be, not that those favoring the propositions in question really thought it of no conse- quence, but that they were not in the habit of looking at it in a prac- tical way— of considering it from the point of view of business. Even when, after three years, I had submitted my final draft and it had been favorably received by the commissioners, I was told (as if it were a matter of little consequence and to have been more or less expected) that certain of the premises on which it had been based, and which had been as distinctly recognized in my instructions as any, would probably be withdrawn by the City Council, and others were referred as not unlikely to be. It did not appear to be supposed that the plan would be materially less adapted to its purpose in conse- quence, and yet I doubt if I had not had the particular premises in question in view, whether a line or adot-of my draft would have been in the same place or been made without a variation of motive. Besides what occurred in the more conclusive official form, I was often asked to consider propositions urged upon the commissioners, which were based on ideas of the conditions of value in the property 4 ) i so different from those on which I was, with their concurrence, pro- ceeding, and yet so urged, so received and labored with, as to show that no real anchorage in the matter was felt to be practicable. In short, it was impossible to avoid a conviction that, whatever for- mality of adopting a plan might be ultimately come to, there could be no security against such subsequent interpolations and excisions as would make the result a burlesque of its leading motives. Contending with easy, apparent success with the side-winds of doctrine fas to conditions of value of the property) to which I have referred, as far as the commissioners of the moment were concerned, the wish was often expressed that I would give you, directly, in the form of public discourse, the view which my study of the subject had led me to adopt, and upon which the plan was expected to be based. — upon which, indeed, important operations upon the ground had some- what prematurely been begun, quite unjustifiably if that view was not to be sustained and borne out by those to direct the matter after- ward. And as, at last, it became more distinctly impressed upon me that the work I was doing, or the worthy work of any man at any time, was liable to be wasted or worse, because of the supposed impractica- bility of any fixed policy based on a deliberate study of principle'^, and as I saw no other way of putting myself face to face with this danger, I agreed that I would read before a public meeting to be called by the commissioners, two papers, one discussing general prin- ciples of design for works of the kind in hand, and showing the puerile, extravagant, and wasteful character of much that had been proposed in contravention of these principles ; the other, their appli- cation to the particular conditions of the site to be dealt with, and the population to be served. I consented, however, only upon the promise of the commissioners that certain gentlemen should be specially invited by them to hear me, whose official positions and whose duty of influence on public opinion made it particularly to be wished that they should find some holding-ground in the matter ; and as it had appeared to me that its educational, sanitary, and moral aspects particularly needed support against motives of comparatively trifling importance, I asked also I that personal invitations should be given to the teachers, physicians, and clergymen of the city. I tell the result because of its bearing upon a point of direct pecuniary interest to you, which I shall more distinctly present later. The result was that half an hour after the time appointed, of a fine autumnal afternoon, in a hall for a thousand, in the heart of the city, time and place being selected by your commissioners with a view to the convenience of those invited, less than thirty persons (ladies, gentlemen, and children) had come together. There was not, I believe, among them one teacher, one physician, or one clergyman ; not one member of the City Council (the commissioners excepted) or of the executive departments of the city government. Nor was there one, as far as I have reason to suppose, of all those gentlemen as to whose propositions, demands, and questions my judgment had during the three previous years been asked, and whose power to embarrass the undertaking I had been led to regard with concern. At the end my little audience kindly thanked me and asked for the publication of the papers read. This request, with some suggestions as to what might be omitted, the commissioners seconded. But it afterward became evident that they were not fully satisfied of its expediency, or that they questioned if it would be pleasing to the City Council. One of the commis- sioners acknowledged that he had not himself been able to follow my argument at all points, and that he doubted the results to the under- taking of its pubHcation. I understood his doubt upon finding that another listener had been so well pleased with my efforts to set forth kindly and candidly certain common and conventional ideas of a park that he had failed to catch the argument by which I tried to show that they were not, as a matter of course, to be in all cases adopted ; and would, in fact, be applied to the mountain most wastefully and extravagantly. I was even reported in a newspaper as urging a proposition which I had stated only that its unsuitability to the circumstances should be evident. It must not be forgotten that the original suggestion that I should address you directly came from the commissioners, that the meeting was called by them, and invitations to it given by them. As I had 6 il I i r «♦ MM i I I been constantly assured of a great public interest in the work, not, it was to be presumed, the inti rest of indolent unqualified approval, but a critical interest, inciting to thorough study and cautious ad- vance, review, and revision, the result was thought to require some explanation, and I was advised that it was not to be attributed, at least not wholly to be attributed, to the indifference of those in- vited, but to some extent, in some cases, to a disposition to repress any such excess of eagerness in the matter as might lead to hasty and excessive outlays during a period of extreme business gloom. Ex- pressions were quoted which seemed to imply that I had been regarded in the light of a paid counsel of a rash and extravagant policy, and that it was presumed that all I should have to say would be with the purpose of keeping alive what would now be termed a park " boom," or perhaps of aiding men who had been speculating in the effects upon the value of neighboring real estate of the city's expenditures upon the mountain to make better terms with their creditors ; a purpose to be discountenanced by good citizens. While these were to be considered as hasty expressions of the few thoughtless and uninformed individuals making them, they came into association in my mind with others which had proceeded from warm friends of the enterprise, much earlier in its histoiy. " We, who are to pay the bills, have an interest in economy, you know." Something of that kind had been said to me often, in a kindly, advisory, and even confiding way. (Yet one of those saying it, happening to be a lawyer, I should not like to think that a like implication advanced to him by a client would have been pleasing.) Now, I profess, in what I am about to write, to wish to commend a policy of sound economy to you, and if there is the slightest dispo- sition to suppose that as a stranger, from whose pockets nothing you expend on the property is to come, or from any supposed personal interests in the early accomplishment of sensational results, or lack of interest in what may follow, 1 am disqualified for advising you on questions of economy, or am insincere in my profession, I should like, not self-defensively, but in your defence against inconsiderate- ness, to tell you how the case really stands. ll ^ The management of properties of the class of that under considera- tion, it must be premised, is a branch of business unlike any in which you have hitherto been locally interested. Judicious courses in it are less matters of intuition than in building ships, locomotives, or sewers. A servile adoption in it, under any special circumstances, of methods in use elsewhere is seldom practicable ; never profitable. And yet it is absurd to suppose that you can prudently strike out recklessly of the experience of others. I have been thirty years engaged in the study of the experience of others; have four times visited, for the purpose, the principal examples of such properties in Europe; and have practically followed, with official opportunities for doing so, the management of nine in America, besides numerous smaller ones, some being for towns of much less wealth than Montreal. I did not seek the engagement which your commissioners, after I had declined to come to Montreal for the purpose, came to New York to make with me. I was not eager to take it, partly, I admit, because of diffidence in my ability to do justice to so unusual a prob- lem without living for years upon the ground, and personally watch- ing the development of its singular opportunities. I was finally induced to accept it by information and assurances which, given in good faith, were misleading. But when I accepted it I did so with a sense of definite business responsibility, from which it resulted that if there has been one man among you who has at any time had a wish to secure a management for the property on a lower scale of outlay (for the long run), or in any way with a more economical motive, or one who has appreciated the continuous weight of taxation, and the difficulty of maintaining it, which any respectable management of the property would involve,' more fully than I, or who has more habitually, studiously, and methodically sought to wisely limit its weight and secure adequate results from what would be continuously practicable, I have never been offered the benefit of his counsel, in the smallest particular, of a plan for the purpose, while I have been wearied with promptings from comparatively short-sighted, time-serving, and improvident points of view. ^ Nor, if I can be regarded as your professional adviser and an honorable man, will it be thought in the least creditable to me, or reproachful to you or any among you, that this should be so. Still, plainly, for sound counsel's sake, the fact needs to be better understood. Therefore, let me mention further that the first advice I gave in the matter was that parts of the land pointed out to me, in my preliminary visit to the property, as that to which it was desired that I should fit a plan, were of comparatively small value for the ob- jects in view, and that large rebates of the purchase-money might be legally, honestly, and thriftily secured, and considerable subsequent expenditure avoided, by so managing the plan as to leave them out. Again, at the moment I first put foot on the ground, I pointed out the difficulty, danger, and extravagance which would result if certain suggested "improvements," common in parks elsewhere, but by no means essential to the more important purpose of them, should be at- tempted on the mountain ; and the better to guard against the tendency to blindly follow expensive and inappropriate precedents in this respect I then urged, as I often did afterward, that the term park, as applied to the mountain, should be discarded, and its older, more dignified, and more wholesomely suggestive appellation preserved and emphasized. I did not wait for the hard times to urge that all manner of super- fluities, and all propositions based on a consideration of particular in- terests of portions of the community independently of all, should be left out of view. At no time did I advise the outlay of a dollar for a merely ornamental object ; at no time any building which will not be indispensable for the convenient, orderly, and decent public use of the property or for keeping its operating expenses on an economical footing. Finally, it is of record that much of the work done on the moun- tain during the period of my engagement would have been done more deliberately, savingly, and at a slower rate of expenditure had not my advice been overruled by what was supposed to be popular pressure upon the Council and the commissioners. To make this the clearer to you, I refer below to letters not intended by me for publication, but given to the newspapers by the commissioners. 9 \4i "Why given, if they were not at the time rehictantly yielding to the unstudied judgment of uninformed men against their own tenden- cies of conviction, I know not. I do not mean to object to such a use of my letters. My opinions on the subject were at all times your property. I remind you of the fact only becauses it fixes the position in which I stood when not a man of you, as far as I had reason to suppose, stood with me, and thus makes manifestly absurd the apprehensions of any who may be disposed to regard my present essay as that of a Greek bringing gifts. On the grounds thus sufficiently set forth, I ask a hearing for the counsel I am now to offer you, and I again remind you that it may have something of that claim upon your patience which any poor words may have, said in behalf of the absent, — in this case the chil- dren and the children's children of the present Montreal, over-busy with many things besides the shaping of a permanent policy of park- management. Noie.— June lo, 1876, a letter of mine to the commissioners was published (see Siur of that date) protesting that the road on the mountain side had been so urged ahead as to waste much material and labor ; that any beauty to be enjoyed in passing over it would exist in spite, not at all in consequence, of what had been done ; that a valuable opportunity had been lost forever, and that such ill-considered work could never have been allowed under the super- vision of a man " influenced in the least degree by a sense of professional responsibility." The copy of this letter in my hands is introduced by an editorial note that it ' demands the earnest consideration of the taxpayers." It concludes with specific recommendations which were adopted at the time by the commissioners, 6ui were overruled tvithin a year by the Council. October s^ 1876, two letters were published from me (see Gazette) ; in the first '' I strongly recommend a delay" in certain proposed operations, and ad- vise instead " some slight and inexpensive improvements." The letter con- cludes : "I have not a doubt that any other course will require a large expendi- ture for a result less satisfactory." The second is a protest against intended operations, and contains the following warning: "The necessity of making the project temporarily popular is constantly urging a policy upon your Com- mission, which, if its results could be fully recognized, would be anything but popular. It is most unfortunate that any attempt should be made to improve such a noble property at all, while so many elements of uncertainty exist as to conditions by which its value must be affected, and with a policy toward it, on the part of the Council, so unfixed and uncertain from year to year." An illustration may be asked for of the manner in which disconcerting prop- ositions were .r.^ed. I will tell of one, as my memory serves about it after six or seven year a. A bridle-road was called for on a certain course. The only f round on w^'-h an outlay of public money for a bridle-road u^on a park can e justified is that an important part of the population will want, and cannot otherwise obtain, a place in which horses may be ridden rapidly without exces- sive jar, and that it can be given them at reasonable cost, and without putting 10 ».N other people to loss or danger. The course, in this case, was through a very attractive part of the property, and on a line constantly crossed by those using it as a rambling and picnic ground, and it is much resorted to by children, ft is rocky and wooded ; and, as a horse, coming rapidly upon the soft surface of a properly-made riding-way, makes little noise, if the project had been c-.rried out, lamentable accidents could have been avoided only by so restricting speed on the road as to make it useless for its purpose, or by depriving the public in general of the more natural, appropriate, and valuable use of an im- portant part of the property. But, in any case, the necessary grade would have been so steep that no horseman woulil have wished to jSut his horse to speed upon it. Moreover, as the intention was to take out the natural, firm earth and rock, and substitute loose gravel to a certain depth in order to get a yielding surface, every great storm sweeping down the mountain side would nave made the road a ditch or gully. To guard, as far as practicable, against this, to make necessary repairs and keep the road in tolerable condition, would have been a costly business, while its value to the community would have been very questionable. Nevertheless, when I first heard of the proposition (having been already at work upon the problem of introducing a bridle-road open to none of these objections), I was told that it was so strongly backed and per- emptorily insisted on that it was feared that if the commissioners did not set about it before agreeing upon the general plan the City Council would compel them to do so. and one member of the Council was named as having avowed his intention of voting for nothing advised by tHe commissioners until this ob- t'ect was accomplished. The commissioners, however, fortunately proved to le too ^^ unpractical." 1 1 M IT. As in this affair you are taking up a line of business in which you have had no local experience, and as the special conditions, topo- graphical and climatic, are so far out of common that judgments lightly formed upon superficial observation and partial information are to be trusted even less than in most business, it is best that you should see clearly that you are, in fact, systematically leaving more in this business than in any other that you have in common to just such judgments. So far as you know that you are doing so, and are deliberately convinced that it is prudent because of the supposed trifling impor- tance of any thing at stake between cautious and incautious manage- ment, you and your heirs must take the consequences. So far as you do not know it I ask you to look at the facts. No other branch of your city business is carried on without the con- stant aid of men who have made the ends to be accomplished through it, and the means of reaching them, a subject of systematic study un- der competent direction. The methods of your business, not only in courts, schools, and hospitals, for instance, but in pavements, gutters, and sewers, while determined, in part, by judgments based on scrutiny of local experience during long periods, are much more determined by what certain men have learned to be the conclusions of more thor- ough examinations of larger and wider ranges of experience. Even where these men stand out of sight in public discussions, they are not out of reach and they are really your main security against falling into inadequate, uselessly experimental, theoretic, and impracticable courses. In your business on the mountain you have no such precaution available against insufficiency and excess. The architects, engineers, 12 \ -^^ i and craftsmen whom you may at times employ in it, though they be of the highest standing, do not necessarily know more of what its distinctive value consists in, and in what way numerous parts and operations are to work together to secure it, than the surgeon and the purser, the engineer and the steward of a steamship know of what passes in the mind of the master navigator and seaman. Some of you forgetting how much the value of a park must be the result of its courses in growth, as affected by seasons and the varying discipline of nature, may have supposed that I, living in New York, was to supply what was necessary in this respect. It might almost as well be supposed that a ship could be prudently sent to sea in charge of landsmen with the precaution only of giving them written sailing directions. I advised your commissioners, when they first came to me in New York, that any " plan " I could furnish them would be " waste pa- per " if it were not to be followed up by a continuous work of design in detail by men imbued with its leading motives, trained and firmly required to steadily pursue them under contingent circumstances, and with reputations of value at stake in the permanent results of their work. Noie.—ThG site and the general purpose seemed to me to oflfer the best op- portanity for the exercise of original judgment and of refined and delicate taste applied to novel conditions that had ever been presented to my profes- sion. While other engagements would have prevented me, had 1 been asked, irora undertaking a resident superintendence of the work, I thought, upon the assurances of the commissioners and the city engineer, that it would be practicawe to aid in its initiation in the manner that 1 understood I was asked to do ; that IS to say, to so far advance the scheme as to tix limits of economy to what should be attempted ; establish its leading aims, and determine the general character of the results to be had in view, leaving yet open to the res- kI^h executive force a most attractive and worthy field for the exercise of a «,.f.V;i.?'»i °^- '^^^'Sn'ng judgment. My duty I conceive to have been to ^^^ A "ifin plot or arrangement— the theme of the work to be afterward iniKf K,", .Shakespeare was not above giving his best powers to works thus laia out by inferior men— his predecessors. 13 } III. Seeing that you lack for this business an element of security against immature judgments, which you have in special professional servants for every thing else of corresponding importance, consider next that what are called the commissioners in your case (the park commission- ers of other cities are on a different footing) are simply three mem- bers of your elected Council asked, for the time being, to give more particular attention to this branch of its business. There is no other of which, when appointed, they know as Utile. (My acquaintance wi'.h each of the three first commissioners began with his profession that his sole qualification was a good intention.) If they take hold as men do who are bent on mastering a new business, they have no assurance that they will not be superseded before they are grounded in its rudiments. (Two of the three first appointed were dis- placed while I was still in conference with them.) They address the other members of the Council with no authority of their own in the matter, and with none such as a building committee derives from an architect ; a committee on litigations from a barrister ; quarantine from a physician ; aqueducts from a hydraulic engineer ; schools from a teacher ; fire telegraphs from an electric'an ; matters of fine art from an artist ; and public gardens, it is to be hoped, from a gardener. Lastly, to fully understand the riskiness of the arrangement, it must be remembered that the actual directing power of these gentle- men is so limited and uncertain that they cannot feel any strong sense of responsibility in the business. They are constantly checked in any disposition to form cautious judgments upon the question, What would best serve the permanent interests of the city ? by the intrusion of the question : What will suit the momentary disposition or fitful 14 t\ I demand of more superficial observers and of the Council? Even if they enter upon courses marlicd out not only with a good intention, but with all the knowlcd -c and judtjmcnt which they can. with their best efforts, bring to bear, they well know that they arc liaiile at any moment to be ordered out of them through the inllucnce of men less informed in the premises and acting on less mature reflection. If I question wliether the judgment required for the prudent man- agement of the property is to be secured by such a method of direc tion, it is the viei/iod aXonc that I question. I write with respect for the members of the Council and the commissioners I have known. If they were the wisest and l)est men in the world, and had all given years to a study of the subject, steady, good management would only be possible by inducing some few men to act in the matter with a concentration of judgment as in private business, and, as in nearly all other important public business, through a more liberal delegation of responsibility and power. But, of course, any improvement upon the present method would make those in immediate management of the property less directly amenable to the public will, and involve greater danger of an abuse of power for selfish, partisan, factional, or local ends, and the commu- nity of Montreal may as yet be so imperfectly communified (if the term may be allowed) that the difficulties of administration to which I have pointed must be accepted as a necessity. But in that case it is obvious that prudent dealing with the property can only be hoped for through strong convictions of the ends and limits of purpose for which it can profitably be used on the part of a sufficient number of the owners to lead the force to which the Council. Commission, engineer, superintendent, forester, and foremen will alike bend their personal wills— the force of public opinion. So long and so far as such sound conviction and genuine concern fail to be evident, is it not certain that selfish, partisan, and specu- lative ol)jects, and puerile, shallow, temporising, spendthrift interests will have undue weight and will overrule proper commercial pru- dence ? 15 IV. A Wall Street property was visited by a mining engineer who found capital pumping and hoisting works, efficiently operated ; a shaft and gallery skilfully timbered ; a busy tram, and, at the end of a long drift, miners hard at work. " But," said he, " I see no metal." " No, sir." " I see no vein." " No, sir." " I see no signs of a vein." "No, sir." "What are you working here for?" "Two dollars a day, sir." And his visit resulted in the abandonment of an enterprise lacking but one thing of perfect business management, — an adequate purpose. Without constant reference to a fixed leading purpose, you can not spend a dollar on the mountain with any assurance that it is not wasted. If your leading purpose is trivial, or of but temporary con- sequence, you have already spent more than you can afford upon it. It is childish to go further. Every dollar you appropriate will be a dollar more of inexcusable extravagance. To open discussion upon the question. What purpose is adequate to justify your purchase of the property, the outlay you have made, and any further outlay you may choose to make for better turning it to account ? suppose the following proposition offered for your con- sideration — a proposition I do not mean to sustain, but which, I doubt, will for a moment be very unsatisfactory to many of you to whom the business is new : ' ' The value of this city property is to depend on the degree in which it shall be adapted to attract citizens to obtain needful exercise and cheerful mental occupation in the open air, 7oith the result of better health and fitness in all respects for the trials and duties 0/ lift ; with the result also, necessarily, of greater earning and tax-paying capacities, 16 I .t_- f' that in the cud the im'fstment xvill he, in this respect, a commercially profitable one to the city." Taking this as a definition of your purpose, roads and walks will be so made to and on the mountain as to give the readiest access to its more important points of view and objects of interest, and to make exercise convenient and agreeable. Trees will l)e removed when of iigiv forms, threatening to fall from decay, or when they too much interrupt distant prospects ; trees planted where needed for shading and ornamenting the roads, walks, and points of view. Staircases, seats, shelters, and ilrinking-fountains will be i)rovided to make the taking of air and exercise more convenient, and they will be so designed and placed as to form in themselves additional objects of attraction and agreeably hold the attention. If, through private liberality or by public subscription, as has occurred in most parks, statues, fountains, sculptural memorials of men or events, or other ol)jects of art or scientific interest can be obtained, they will, as usual, be given such prominent position as will present them to the best advantage. So also as to buililings, such as museums, prospect-towers, club-houses, and fanciful houses of entertainment. It will be obvious that with the general purpose thus stated, and the policy growing out of it, cheapness of management might easily be had. All required roads might be ordered, for example, almost as easily as so many miles of iron piping. The laying out and building of them is but a common engineering operation. In like manner, monuments and architectural works, as easily for the mountain as for a cemetery or a garden. Most of the work otherwise called for cor- responds closely with that which can generally be got in private life out of any good hired man, well-directed, with an occasional lift from a jobbing gardener or florist. What more may be wanted at times in particular constructions is an every-day alTair of architects, masons, carpenters, paviors, and painters. To manage the mountain, with this theory of its value in view, would require more of a man's time and thought, because the opera- tions would be larger and should, perhaps, be more substantial and * more refined than those of an ordinary private lawn and door-yard, but only that ; nothing essentially different from what hundreds of 17 you are, every summer, doing for yourselves without any deep ab- sorption of purpose ; in fact, without interruption of your regular and more serious avocations, without special study, and rather in a rec- reative and care-free humor. And the fact that such an estimate of what thought is wanted for the mountain slides easily into the ordinary courses of life, that it satisfies a common form of self-esteem, and suits established mental habits, makes it hard to lay aside even though it be seen to em- body a fallacy. That it does embody a fallacy will be clear to every man of you if he ask himself what would be the difference of attractive effect —literally speaking— if for that object which he has found most at- tractive, tree, flower-bed, or fountain, in the garden or fore-court, which is altogether the most attractive among all those which he is in the habit of passing, there should be substituted some fine morning a Punch and Judy show, or a hog with its face shaved, dressed in a woman's cap and cloak, seated in an arm-chair facing the street ? The truth is that with no shrewder purpose than the proposition I hnve stated represents, not half the dividends which the property may be profitably made to yield, will be attainable. i8 t ■ The fir!;t step toward a safe conclusion as to the general purpose to be had in view will be, in this, as it would in any other business, to determine what the situation puts economically out of the question. Suppose that the owners of a vacant lot with a narrow frontage on an important business street were about to determine what to build upon it. These stated conditions of space, frontage, and situation would at once rule out two large classes of buildings : first, such as would be inadequate to the value of the ground— a cottage, for exam, pie ; second, such as the ground would be inadequate to sustain, as a hotel, an iron foundry, or a theatre. So, as to che site for a park. If a city has a large area of level prairie it can, without excluding or cramping provisions for other park purposes, provide great breadths of tranquil scenery with parade, lacrosse, cricket, archery, tennis, and croquet grounds, all in excellent fashion at small cost, the landscape motives, and others in which the whole community has a direct interest, harmonizing with the special motives of recreation of particular classes.* ^ But any attempt to form picturesque scenery through abrupt varia- tions of surface, not to be puerile in its results, will be costly and to aim at having an outlook comparable with that you have already obtained on the mountain will be, if not impossible, ridiculously ex- travagai.t.f 1,1 , • u. Leyden they were determined to have a hill too Great lahnr neighbor .W''c?n»R'"'' f"^"^ ^l*^''^- ''^y '^^^ been scooped oufoMhe 19 I ^ ,*1 1 Having chocfii ground everywhere broken and with but scanty breadths of thin soil at any point between its rocks your case is the reverse. Economy begins with fixing upon a plan and a permanent policy in the business which looks to nothing which could be better accomplished at much less cost on less rugged ground. True, this restricts the value of your park. But consider the compensation : for example, in this one respect. In parks at Liverpool, London, Paris, Milan, Genoa, and other cities, there is a good deal of rock brought with cost from a distance, or of artificial rock made of materials brought from a distance, set as facings to mounds laboriously built up so as to obtain scraps and ravellings of scenery which will seem, under the circumstances, to have a flavor of this same quality of ruggedness. The rock, in itself, is generally ugly ; the mounds are hills suitable for a doll's pleasure- ground, but, when aided by adequate vegetation skilfully selected and disposed, the comparatively insipid pictiiresquishness of the result is generally regarded by those who pay for the work as economically purchased. Of raw material of this quality you have already on your ground a wealth beside which all that these older cities have accumulated is poverty. At slight cost you may soon obtain results of the same class beside which theirs will be backwoods makeshifts. I know that there is a prevalent notion that you must make the best of such opportunities as you find upon your site for purposes to which it is not generally well adapted, but you cannot build a policy on this basis without bringing aims in which success can never be satisfactory into conflict with aims through which any adequate re- turn for your total outlay must mainly cotne. In short, the conclusive objection to the entire tendency of man- agement with which I am now contending, and the drift to which may perhaps be deeper and stronger and more insidious than you can readily realize, is that it favors a constant waste of what, if preserved, will unquestionably be, in the long future of the city, the two most important elements of value in this property. For, if you think of it, the reasoning out of which it grows, while allowing some value to natural objects of beauty (trees, for example) with reference to the 20 ^ f<- purpose of a.r and exercise, first, wholly disregards the pervadine charm of natural scenery (scenery in distinction from scenes) with reference to this purpose, and the result of pursuing it would, by the mterposition of a variety of objects appealing to a different exercise of taste, greatly restrict if not wholly pervert such charm • then second. It wholly leaves out of account an element of value much more important to be borne in mind thaa inducements to take air and exercise-more important because much less available to the city by other means than the improvement of the mountain-the mtntistc value of charming natural scenery. That this last element of value in the mountain is one for practi- cal consideration, that it is a matter of dollars and cents to you quite as much as air and exercise, I will show in the next chapter Here ,t remains to be affirmed that the ooportunities and advan- tages for producing certain charms of natural scenery which you nold as yet inert and unproductive in the mountain, are such as are possessed by no other city in any ground held for a public park To allow it to be so used and dealt with as that these elements of value shall be lost, will be a scandalous extravagance 21 II II ^V;\ I S f.( •r I VI. It is a ^reat mistake to suppose that the value of charming natural scenery lies wholly in the inducement which the enjoyment of it pre- sents to change of mental occupation, exercise, -and air-taking. Beside and above this, it acts in a more directly remedial way to enable men to better resist the harmful influences of ordinary town life, and recover what they lose from them. It is thus, in medical phrase, a prophy- lactic and therapeutic agent of vital value ; there is not one in the apothecaries' shops as important to the health and strength or to the earning and tax-paying capacities of a large city. And to the mass of the people it is practically available only through such means as are provided through parks. This is simply a fact. If we want to go behind the fact — from the physician to the metaphysician — we must begin by reflecting that a charm is something that acts, we know not how, to make us in some way different from what we should otherwise be ; that is, it acts other- wise than through our re? son. This is the primary superstitious idea of a charm — of what is charm- ing. We can apply the term rationally to scenery only because of a common experience that certain scenery has a tendency to lift us out of our habitual condition into one which, were the influence upon us stronger and the moods and frames of mind toward which it carried us more distinctly defined, we should recognize as poetic. Let us say that for the time being the charm of natural scenery tends to make us poets. There is a sensibility to poetic inspiration in every man of us, and its utter suppression means a sadly morbid condition. Poets, we may not be, but a little lifted out of our ordi- nary prose we may be often to our advantage. To compare our small measures with larger let us take a recorded experience of a full-grown poet. 22 k --'^ Wordsworth (only greater in poetic sensibility than any one of us, not differently organized, not differently affected by medicine) came home from a painful experience in France after its great revolution, sick, broken down, unfit for business. Everything was going wrong with him. His sister, Dorothy, of whom it has been well said that she was the greater poet of the two, only that she was noi a literarv poet, watched his symptoms, saw the nature of his trouble, and divined the cure. She persuaded him to let her guide him into the midst of charming scenery, and to subject himself for a time to its influence ; " and thus," says Doctor Shairp, telling the story, " be- gan that sanative process which restored him to his true self and made that blessing to the world he was destined to become." These terms (sanative, restoring) are not metaphorical. They testify precisely that the charm of natural scenery is an influence of the highest curative value ; highest, if for no other reason, because it acts directly upon the highest functions of the system, and through them upon all below, tending, more than any single form of medica- tion we can use, to establish sound minds in sound bodies — the foun- dation of all wealth. For practical purposes, such as we are now discussing, it is not necessary to better understand how this influence works ; it is not necessary that we should agree upon a theory of it, but some may like to feel their way toward an idea on the subject, with such aid as Doctor Shairp attempts to give in the following comments on the case of Wordsworth : ■^u^'^'T "^°"''"'^^"K that study of nature (not with the science of the botanist or the florist, but the poet) he at last came to hold with conscious conviction what he had at first felt, hardly knowing that he felt it, that Nature had a life ot her own, which streamed through and stimulated his life ; a spirit which in Itself mvisible, spoke through visible things to his spirit. ' " That the characteristics of this spirit were calmness which stilled and re- freshed man. " Sublimity which raised him to noble thoughts. " Tenderness which, while stirring in the largest and loftiest things, con- descends to the lowest; is with the humblest worm and weed as much as in the greatest movements of the elements and of the stars. " Above all, nature he now saw to be the shape and image of right reason- reason in its highest sense,— emboH' ^ <,nd made visible in order ; stability • in conformity to eternal law. The perception .A this satisfied his intellect, calmed and soothed his heart."— 7"^^ Poetic Interprttation of Nature, p. u^q. It may be added that this influence is such with /efercnce to the highest form of the prosperity of a community that many divines have referred to it 23 sma If .11 i « dVt""lv'°cToS/%^7'^;^'■'^?^'?^°fe^^^ «»igio"s nurture more " „,,",V^ ^ ?u. S • .''•"ce the disciples were led out of the town to th^ Tn.^J-J'"'' '° ^^" ''^y ^^^ children of Jerusalem are led to the same hTch olive groves), men have ever found " tongues m trees books ^ r..nnfn«^,r«iiX sermons in stones.;' Moreover, as olorge Herbert said of the work o° the time/"^ poet." ,t may happen that tBe word thus preached Thall some- " T~*'"'^ him who a sermon flies, A«,,ft,-, •* /T And turn delight into a sacrifice." - Whnf ^'^"*" ^^ A. Symonds, in Fortnightly Review) scys : What Science IS not called on to supply, the fervor and the nietv that ^ , , ' I" or I have learned To look on nature, not as in ihe hour Of thoughtless youth ; but hearing oftentimes The still, sad music of humanity. Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts : a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting uns. And the round ocean and the living air And the blue sky, and in the mind of man : A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things.' " I V^iS ■It mI I'll 24 i Ml " . fa VII. The possession of charming natural scenery is a form of wealth as practical as that of wholesome air, pure water, or sunlight unob- structed by smoke and fog ; as practical, then, as that of sewers, aqueducts, and pavements. And whatever of sensible purpose there was in your selection of the mountain property for a park, was a pur- pose to increase your common wealth in that form. If, therefore, in discussing questions of its management, or in urging what shall or what shall not be done with it on the ground of econ- omy, you take, as you generally have done, no serious business-like account of what makes for or against poetic value, do you not stultify yourselves ? What I ask you to accept as the true key to economy on the moun- tarn is the clear sense that by the degree in which people, while resorting to it, will be subject to the bracing, soothing, tranquilizing medication of poetical scenery, in that degree will it be valuable, and your investment in it profitable. In so far as the management fads to constantly serve that end ; in so far, especially, as it runs counter to it, you must judge those responsible for it as you would judge those responsible for leaky sewers and wasting aqueducts. Detei-mine your attractions simply with reference to air and exercise mstead of to this purpose, and your park will be like a school which provides instruction, but not education ; a police which aims at the punishment, not the prevention of crime ; a church aiming at a moral, but not a religious character. Yet it maybe as well to conaider that if you secure this all else will be added. The air will not be fouled by that which gives poetic charm to the scenery, nor will exercise in it be enervating. 25 msm^i « hi? t-:' •ii VIII. Soon after you bought the property a friend of mine said to one of your citizens, whose experience should make his counsel valuable in your debates : " You are going to improve the mountain ?" " No," was the reply; "we are going to spoil it." This gentleman may have had a greater degree of foresight in one respect than many of you. Possibly you would not have made your purchase if you had all as plainly seen that much of what made the property attractive to you depended upon the wildness and seclusion of its natural elements. If it is to be cut up with roads and walks, spotted with shelters, and streaked with staircases ; if it is to be strewn with lunch papers, beer bottles, sardine cans and paper collars ; and if thousands of people are to seek their recreation upon it unrestrainedly, each according to his special tastes, it is likely to lose whatever of natural charm you first saw in it. It is true, moreover, that when the mountain is suitably fitted for public use and traversed by gaily-dressed throngs of ladies and chil- dren, polished carriages, and highly groomed and caparisoned horses, that much of its original nature will appear comparatively rude, harsh, incongnious, and dreary. What follows ? Surely not that you should abandon your purpose ; surely not that the more money you spend on improvements the less value for your purpose the mountain will have. It follows only that all that you have seen and admired of the old work of nature must be considered as simply suggestive of what that is practicable, suitable, and harmonious with your purposes of large popular use, nature, wisely entreated, will give you in place of what must be abandoned. 26 'M ■if You need to have new mountain ideals in view ; ideals with more not less, of poetic charm ; and your roads and other artificial con- structions must be made with studied regard to that which you thus have before you, not to what you are necessarily putting behind. To accomplish this transition skilfully and gracefully requires, it must be admitted, an exercise of judgment and taste in a direction not often followed with commercial purposes ; and it must be further ad- mitted that if you secure this and yet cannot, as a community, find sat- isfaction in anticipating, forecasting, and watching the development of the new charm, and in seeing it gradually emerge from and overgrow the ruin of the old, then the gentleman I have quoted was in the right, and the policy was sound which I presume him to have since followed, of opposing every measure of pretended improvements upor the mountain as, in truth, a measure for spoiling it. Indeed, no man should account himself a gentleman to whom any other course is not only repugnant, but in whom such measures do not stir up a disposi- tion to something more than idle grumbling. In short, it is not to be denied that you cheated yourselves when you bought the mountain for a park, unless you were prepared to have it managed on principles applicable to works of art. 27 M 'I'. h .^jjjwr n: IX. Before I go further it is perhaps but just that I should still more distinctly say that there was never a moment's difference between your first board of park commissioners and myself as to the general soundness of the views I have been urging upon you. There were great departures from the course which I think those views would have prescribed, but they were always made on grounds of expediency —-as a yielding to demands which it would be impolitic to further resist, and on the principle that half a loaf is better than no bread. But the fact is, if you could be convinced of it, the whole loaf would cost you less than the half. 'I 28 X. I have been urging you to regard the work to be done in your be- half on the mountain as primarily a work of art. and to insist that in this respect you shall have the fair value of what you pay for it I have used the term with some reluctance, because there is so" much quackmg and s.lly affectation afloat about art. that with many sensi- ble people the simplest mention of it kmdles prejudice. I know also that to speak of the work before you on the mountain as a work of art w,IIagam seem "unpractical." as looking to something above the heads of the people and opening channels of lavish expenditure I beg all who feel about it at all in this way to let me ask. first, are you sure that .f you oppose art ever so much you are going to get on wuhou a ? Are you sure, that by a method which compels an off- hand, slap-dash way of going to work you escape quackings and affec- tations ? Is It not smart, shallow. Jack-of-all-trades art that is most of all contemptible to you ? Can you despise or wish to put away art. of which the chief condition is a sincere, devoted, and devout application of judgment to the purpose upon which it is engaged > .nohr ". ^ . ''?''' '^'' "'"'^'^^'' '' "^^y "°^ ^« - teaching' of nobbishness and vulgarity against which every true man should rebel that good art is above the heads of ti.e common people. Those whom all accept as the highest authority regard the highest art to be that which was made for public places and for the use of all tZ'fr '"t \^-T "' ''°''^' °^ "^'' ""^ ^° ^^'^ d^y. ^^ the degree that they rank high or low in the scale of art, are they consoling and cheering to generation after generation of the poor and needy Among thousands of college-bred Scotchmen not one has shown as high poetic sensibility as the ploughboy Burns, and this sensibility is iTrgdy Vytt.' " "^'"^ '° ^'^ ^'^^"^ °' "^^"^^^ ^-"-y ^--^ 29 >) ll •I t^; This may seem a contradiction of terms. It is not. When an artist puts a stick in the ground, and nature in time makes it a tree, art and nature are not to be seen apart in the result. In verses called out by an enjoyment of a brawling stream under trees, the plougliboy begs for the jjlanting of more trees, that the poetic charm by which he has been inspired may be deepened by art.* But, third, as to the economy of art. You know that the market- value of a literary work of art (the psalms of David, the novels of Scott, the idylls of Tennyson) does not depend on the amount of paper and ink used in them ; that a work of the painter's art is not valued by counting the cost of the canvas, pigments, and day's labor which has been spent on it, or a statue by the cost of the marble and its cutting. You know also that of the works of two men, given the same subject to draw, paint, or carve, one representing no more school-knowledge, industry, faithfulness, or hand-labor, only higher art, will sell at once for ten times as much as the other, and that this difference in market value instead of lessening will increase century after century. f * Last (lay I crrat wi spite and teen, As poet Burns came by, That to a Hard I should be seen Wi half my channel dry: A panegyric rhyme, 1 ween, Even as I was he shor'd me ; But had 1 in my glory been, He, kneeling, wud ador'd me. « « « >K Would thou my noble master please To grant my highest wishes, He '11 shade my banks wi tow'ring trees. And bonnie spreading bushes. Let lefty firs, and ashes cool, My lowly banks o'erspread, Ani view, deep bending in the pool. Their shadows' wat'ry bed ! Let fragrant birks, in woodbines drest. My craggy cliffs adorn ; And, for the little songster's nest. The close embowring thorn. t The city of Amsterdam possesses a little picture, and 1 have seen labor- ing men smiling before it, ot which it has been lately written that " it was sold iu 1766 for 8,000 francs, and in 1808, for 35,000, and that certainly a cypher added to the last sum would not be sufficient to buy it now."— Holland, by E. de Amicis. New York : Putnam's Sons. 30 1 There .s this, then, about goo.l art ; ii is not. like bad art. to .o out of fashion. Let your work upon the mountain be directed by sound art. and the older the results the more they will be valued • the oftener and more familiarly they are seen the more wholesome pleasure will be taken in them. Again, then, in your choice of what to do, have some re.rard for your heirs. ^ Sx i : !} it h \\ XI. An incident occurred in the early work upon the mountain which gave rise to some discussion in which a proposition was more or less definitely advanced or its soundness assumed, which may be thus stated ; " Suppose a road is to be made along a naturally wooded and otherwise attractive hillside, and it is an object to give those who pass over the road as much as practicable of the enjoyment of it? natural scenery, then the simpler the means taken to obtain desirable courses and grades ; the more strictly operations are confined to the space necessary to obtain them ; and the less cutting and covering of the ad- jacent ground, the better. The highest art consists, under such cir- custances, in making the least practicable disturbance of nature ; the highest refinement in a refined abstinence of effort ; in the least work, the most simple and the least fussy and pottering," To see the crudity of this dictum, consider first, what must neces- sarily result from proceeding upon it, and, to make the principle plainer, suppose that the hillside is a little steeper and a little more perfectly furnished with old wood than was the case on the mountain. You lay out as an engineering affair what is the most direct, con- venient, z-vA economical route with reference to the purpose of transportation. You begin construction by removing the trees in the way of a road of the prescribed breadth. You then have two broken lines of spindling trunks supporting sprawling limbs, which sustain meagre tufts of feeble foliage, not at all natural, for if the openiiig had been a natural one, such as might have been caused, for example, by a watercourse, or a long narrow outcrop of rock, the trees would have grown beside it in a way much more effective for your purpose ; a much more beautiful way. 32 ! X Next ,o oblain a plane surface for your road, you break into the slope of the mountain on one si II t III .'4 I'll I I li l;i ■P j \ti 'W \\ tion, to prevent one from being unnecessarily conspicuous in looking from another. Still more imperatively, with like motives, you will plant both trees and thickets of underwood wherever from within the property there is a liability that outside objects, of which the influence on the mind would be adverse to your ruling purpose, may, in the future, be forced on the attention. For example, it cannot serve that purpose, it can serve no proper purpose for which you hold the property, that tombs, hearses, and groups of mourners shall be brought into view from it, or the backs and out-buildings of adjoining dwellings, or factory walls and chimneys, such as it may be some one's interest, by and by, to build at any point on its borders. Consequently, the first thing to be done is the planting of outer screens of foliage that will guard against such waste of mountain value. These, on the northern side especially, will be mainly of sturdy conifers, as white and red pine, hemlock, and very hardy dwarf mountain-pines (lightened up a little with white birches, ironwood, and moose-maple), so that in time they will also provide wind-breaks and temperers by which the park will be made available to the recreation of delicate people one or two months longer than otherwise. But besides the more direct economies, sufficiently suggested, of such low screen-plantings, they would, if wisely made, incidentally go far to secure qualities in the scenery of the mountain (generally re- ferred to in books on the subject as intricacy, obscurity, and mys- tery, and through these affecting the apparent aerial-perspective) of which the result would be more than equivalent to doubling the ex- tent and value, y either on canvas or on the earth, is to be a Vfhole."— Andre, L' Art des Jardins, p. 119. 43 certain scrubby pines, for instance (.is Udnksiatia, which grows near Ottawa), and firs, with the lessor 1/irclies, liorMl)eams, and lliorns. Yet, a little lower, the white and red pines and hendock, the canoe and red birches, the rock, mountain, Norway, and moose maples, with underwood and thickets of rowans, wych-hazel, the native honey- suckles, wild currant, fragrant bramble, the Canadian rcdhud, sumacs, clelhra, rhodora, andolher thoroughly iiardy and strong-growing shrubs. Then, lower still, oaks, bass-wood, butternut, ash, cherry, red maple, and such variety of low trees, bushes, prostrate shrubs, and vines as will be found necessary to obscure all places where the soil is too thin and poor for turf and the rock flat, scaly and uninteresting. Pursuing this hint skilfully, and not at all in a pedantic or exact spirit, you will cheaply give a stronger emphasis to the difference of elevation between your mountain top and base, m.aking your moun- tain more mountain-like, gaining: withal, a natural and appropriate element of variety.* 111! I will now indicate the distinctive raw material of each of the topographical districts to which I have referred, and attempt to offer some slight indication of how its value is to be increased ; the motive last explained being more or less " humored " to this of the develop- ment of local topographical conditions, as will be found easy, the re- quirements being nearly parallel. (i.) First, there is the broken, rocky declivity which, on the city side, stands between the upper and the lower parts, and which is desig- nated on my m.ap the crags. Its special character and value as an clement of scenery is so well known to you that it needs no de- scription. I will refer at once to its defects. In parts, the rock which is its distinguishing feature, is of a quality which rapidly decomposes under the influence of frost ; consequently, its surface has a comparatively soft, weak appearance, and takes * " Every herb .... has its peculiar habitation .... The hlj^hest art is that which .... assigns it its proper position .... and by means of it en- hances and enforces the great impression."— Ruskin, Pre/ace^ ad ed. Mod. Painters. 44 \^. ,., forms which arc only half rocky. It results, also, that thin bodies of disintegratod rock and earth occur, the surface of which is more or less loose, so that no soil can be firmly bedded upon them. Large spaces have, therefore, the landscape quality simply of a steeply in- clined plane with a scanty vegetation of coarse plants, chiefly annual, or of feeble seedlings of trees which are to be soon uprooted or slowly starved to death. In a general view, these elements are not of sufRcient consequence to prevent the Crags from having a most interesting character, but they detract materially from the value of what is most valuable in that character. (Really, pecuniary value.) Forty years ago, and more, their beauty was much greater than at present, because of a native forest growth chiefly of spruces, pines, and birches, which had the effect of checking the tendency of the softer surface to wash and slide, causing soil to accumulate, and sup- port on the tamer parts a richer undergrowth both of shrubs and perennials, and \ utially veiling in shadow and obscurity that which was less bold, firm, and distinctive. The Crags, as a whole, appeared in consequence, larger, bolder, stronger, and approached more nearly to grandness and sublimity of effect ; at the same time their general tone of color was more cheerful, and the impression of detail obtained under close observation irore interesting and agreeable. If you wish to realize the value of what you have paid for the property, as far as the Crags are concerned, what has thus been said indicates the general principles of design upon which you will proceed in dealing with them. You will by no means be content, however, with aiming to restore, as far as practicable, the old con- ditions. While trying to guard against landslides and destructive washing, and seeking to establish firmer and less barren surfaces, the growth of large trees will be prevented where they will have either of three results : first, to hide the bolder and more effective rocks in views from below ; second, to interrupt, when of mature growth, the best distant views from above ; third, where, from growing tall and spindling and unsupported by adjoining wood of the same character, they will be specially liable, when loaded with ice, to be broken or uprooted by high winds. (From the appearance of the stumps and 45 m if- ♦ * ■H: • * I' 1 ;• i ^ wreckage which I found in 1874, I judged this to have been a chief cause of the destruction of the old forest.) Trees of a low and compact sort will be chosen ; they will be planted while yet very small, their early growth nursed with care, and any tendency to shoot up in a thin and weakly way checked with the knife. The native growth of low shrubs, and particularly of vines, brambles, and bracken, will be generally encouraged, guarded from wash and fires, and supplemented by other like plantings. The dif- ferent native sumacs will be specially propagated in the upper shelves of the ledges and in the gaps and wash-ways betveen the bolder rocks ; because, with a little use of the knife, they will not, even when reach- ing within a few feet of the top, grow upward so much as to obstruct the view from the heights ; because they supply the most beautiful of our northern foliage to be looked upon from above (being fountain-like in the disposition of spray spreading out under spray of foliage) ; and, lastly, because they maintain, as I have before observed, under ♦he most unfavorable circumstances, cheerful qualities of color. Various diminutive spruces, firs, and pines may be used also to ad- vantage where large trees will be undesirable ; and in all the more moist, shady places the Canadian yew (an evergreen trailer with large bright berries) should be profusely planted. I would have it grown in seed-beds by thousands. I would make trial also of a Japanese yew {7'axus adpressd) which is hardier on the American Atlantic coast than the English churchyard yew, and much more bushy and graceful, falling very nicely over rocks. ■||ii .' % J, in (2.) Immediately above the Crags there is a large district the surface of which lies at various inclinations and is much broken, though sel- dom abruptly, by comparatively small outcrops of rock, between which the soil is generally poor, thin, and arid. The trees upon it, when not standing singly, tend to grow in clusters and groups, and many are dwarfed, feeble, and sickly. A little yearly continuous planting will be needed to replace those falling out or intentiouiilly removed. I have before inclic-ited the principles which should govern its selection. 46 < .€ I (3.) Farther to the south, and extending from a little beyond the south end of the Crags to the Cote de Neige road is another district of similar character, with a little deeper and better soil between the rocks, and with finer trees (partly because of the better soil, and partly because less harshly treated by storm and frost.) (4.) Away to the north, and below the northern crags, there is another division of similar characteristics. To all of this rugged and rocky land I apply the old English term FELL, and the three divisions of it indicated I distinguish re- spectively : the Upperfell being all that above the Crags the UNDERPELL being that below the Crags; and the brakenfell. which includes all the steep, broken ground, much overgrown with braken, south of the Crags. The two latter districts should be treated as a forest with numerous ferny openings. The natural growth of the Brakenfell is largly of maples in the lower parts, of pines and birches above ; none can be bet er. It simply needs to have the poorer trees taken out, to be bmken a little into groups and groves, and to have younger low foliage added, on their skirts. This and careful pruning (5.) Between the Upperfell and the Brakenfell there is a lone gentle depression of the surface, extending from the south end of he Crags westerly toward the Cote de Neige Cemetery. Here the ground is smooth, little wooded, and the soil generally alluvial and peaty ; moister than any other on the mountain. It is in fact a mountain meadow of severe exposure. The old house, now occu! pied by the superintendent, stands in the midst of it (destroying its most marked natural quality, and interrupting lovely distant views). This district I call the glades. It is important that its original, simple, attractive character should, as soon as you can afford it. be regained and made the most of. It needs no planting, except to re- store a natural face to the bordering woods, where they have been Ill-used. It can easily be made the finest spread of turf on the con- 47 KP I ■ I m 1 li i " tinent. But it will be best kept, when once well formed, with sheep and not with lawn-like smoothness. (6.) The small district below the Crags, between the Braken- fell and the Underfell, I have called the cragsfoot. It is that containing the little reservoir and the unfortunate zigzag road from Drummond Street, by which its natural character is destroyed. The native wood should be thickened, and the sides of the road planted densely and simply with thick bodies of ordinary underwood ; the object being to make the artificial features unobtrusive, and induce a simple, calm, forest effect. (7.) On the slope below the Underfell, toward Saint Jean Baptiste, there is a district lying between two low but well-defined ledges of rock, being that in which the City Council has ordained a pest-house, and including a considerable smooth field of fair soil, on which is growing an orchard. This generally re- sembles the fell-land, but is less broken by lumpy rocks, and more amenable to cultivation. I designate it THE piedmont. It should be planted, in addition to its present scattering growth (largely of basswood rapidly approaching decay), with groups of the lowland trees before mentioned (next above the lowest range), with under- wood only to obscure the poorest rocky parts. The groups should be formed generally in connection with the rocks and ledges, leaving between them the broadest turfy openings practicable. In forming the groups, species should be associated which are inclined to form soft and harmonious outlines together, and most, if not all, the trees of each group should be of one kind, and the adjoining groups not of trees of strongly contrasting qualities, the object here being not local picturesqueness, but a softer charm enhancing the characteristic quality of the fells and crags. • i (8.) There remains the large district of gentle slopes below the last ledge, with still less of protruding rock, which, taking the way of your old Norman colonists, I call " C6te Placide," a term to 48 be liked none the less because it brings to mind that other branch from the same trunk, which formed the Parish Placide on the Red River of Louisiana, and poor Evangeline. But it must be well under- stood that it is only by comparison with the adjoining mountain-land that it has the character indicated. Its value is great, if properly used; as, with refcitmce to your possible scale of scenery, it will repre- sent the opposite note to the necessary sternness of the Upperfells. Also, if properly used, it will add greatly to the effect of the views down the great valley from the northern heights, for, with lofty trees along its border, it will give greater distance and obscuvity to the buildings in the adjoining quarter of the town, and form a rich and consistent foreground to a scene which, under certain atmospheric conditions, is hardly surpassed among all those of its class upon which the world has fixed the highest value. By "properly used," I mean, however, not only so used that its present moderate contrast of cha/acter with the more rugged parts of your property should be increaserl, but that it shall also be adapted to provide a measurably complete sylvan experience in itself for visitors who have not time or, in the inclement part of the year, physical endurance for the ascent of thi mountain. "What is first needed for these ends is additional soil. I consulted several of your city officers on the point of economy involved in this suggestion, and was assured by all that an abundant supply of street dirt and other wastes could be obtained, by an order of the Council, to more than double the present depth of soil wherever it is impor- tant, in two or three years' time, at a cost (in addition to what is now paid for disposing of the same material) that will make it inexpen- sive ; some said it would even be at a saving. Wherever there are rocks in this district, they should either be exposed as boldly as possible (other loose rocks being sometimes laid upon them, to make the incident more decided), and overgrown with vines, or they should be covered, at least two feet deep, with good loam and soil. Clusters, chiefly of elms, American white ash; and white oak may be planted as indicated on the design-map, and broken rows or narrow belts of the same along the exterior suburban roads. .<'■ 11 iFii 49 V !;■ :'r. [I ' i .I* I: I. ^ XV. One of the most inconsiderately wasteful ways of spending money on the mountain to which you are liable to be tempted, is that of the introduction upon it of flower-beds, clumps of flowering shrubs, cush- ions of rhododendrons or azaleas, schools of roses — possibly ribband- gardening, floral embroidery, sub-tropical borders, and whatever is commonly found on a polished lawn of the present fashion in lawns, in a place furnished with propagatin'^ houses and wintering pits, and given over to a fashionable gardener. The delusion that these things may be of the required proper furni- ture of a public park, as they more or less may be of a luxurious pri- vate residence, of a botanic garden, or an urban promenade, is tlie more to be guarded against, because culpable neglect of the perma- nent and substantial business of the undertaking can be so readily glossed over by means of them, and the question will often be pressed. Why should the taste that they gratify not be catered to ? It should not, because the result would be an adulteration and counteraction of the wholesome influence of the appropriate scenery of the mountain, which alone supplies a sound justification for any of the outlay to be made on it, and the management which resorts to it will be tearing down with one hand what it builds up with the other.* But does it follow that you can have none of the refinement of grace, delicacy, color, and incense which is supplied by flowering plants ? By no means. There can be no greater mistake than to suppose either that dug beds or borders and garden primness are necessary to this end, or that it is inconsistent with mountain char- acter. " * Few human beings have contravened nature's laws more than our flower-gardeners."— A'" I':' V B '!. I 1 1 4 I t , ■lUi One is his disposition to adapt his conduct to the circumstances in which he finds himself, and especially to be neat, cleanly, and nice where the objects about him are neat, cleanly, and nice. I have re- peatedly had occasion to observe that while any park work is in an incomplete condition, with materials in the rough, and litter of work- men lying about, no police, no fences, and guards are adequate to prevent the occurrence of wanton injuries and manifestations of rude- ness, recklessness, and destructiveness. (How few boys can resist the temptation to throw stones at the windows of a vacant and delapi- dated house ?) Passing the finished point, the litter cleared up, the turf established and once smooth-mown, and every thing in view having a complete and refined aspect, a change occurs, and fences and guards, before necessary, may be removed, and the police reduced without danger. Again, if provisions for any purpose have an appearance of being well considered and liberal, there is a common disposition to be con- tent with them ; if they make no such impression, but on the contrary seem mean and makeshift, the sense of shame in what would other- wise be lawlessness cannot be counted on. If in public places you have a walk of a certain capacity between borders of fine turf, people will submit to considerable crowd- ing without going out of it ; when the crowding passes a certain point a few will step on the turf, doing little harm, but when the walk is so crowded that the provision seems absurdly inadequate, of a sud- den, the rule, by common assent, becomes a dead letter, and the most reserved and cautious take to the turf. Under corresponding influ- ences seats will be used to stand upon, and may be broken or defiled without compunction. So, if the necessities of the body cannot be accommodated decently within reasonable distance, there will soon grow up upon the park a common law by which they will be accommodated indecently. Your police will for a time contend with this in vain, and then will be sul- lenly blind to it. At a small part of the study required for putting and keeping the mountain in a condition in which it will have a high degree of use- fulness to the average citizen of Montreal, his wife and children, it 54 i^: can be kept in a condition in which a small proportion of your least valuable population, to whom any refinement of manners or check upon vulgar and brutal habits is irksome, will continue to resort to it with more or less of pleasure. This pleasure will consist not so much in positive enjoyment as in negative relief from what is else- where tiresome and dreary. And if nothing or but little more is done than is necessary to adapt the mountain to be satisfactory in this way, it will gradually come to be satisfactory in no other, and what money you spend on it will be mainly ill-spent. On these grounds I advise you not to allow the mountain to be in all parts left open to be wandered over and used at will at all times by all comers. You cannot afford the force of police which, if you do so, will be necessary to the protection of its finer elements of value. You cannot afford to waste these elements. As a measure of economy, therefore, I submit the following suggestions, to the adop- tion of which the roads and walks of the plan have been adjusted : Open all of the Upperfell, to be used by all comers at all times, for rambling at will ; for picnicing ; for all boys' and childrens' games and plays that do not involve the use of missiles. Supply swings and other amusements for the little ones. Furnish abundance of com- fortable seats, and do not forbid decent seating on the ground and rocks. Have a well provided public house, with so much roofing that in case of sudden showers a large company may obtain shelter in it. Let a part of its rent be paid in providing, gratuitously, under con- stant supervision and in a cleanly and decent way, such accommoda- tions as are necessary for women and children when absent some hours from home. Let it also provide gratuitously, or at a nominal price, hot water for those who want to make tea on the ground.* Make it an easy custom to fall into for all classes of people, even your poorest workingman, to come here by families, once or twice a ♦The commissioners have plans for this house, prepared under my advicei by Mr. T. VV'isedell, architect. The conspicuous parts are of axe-finished timber, not to be painted ; it is fitted to sit on a saddle of rock, so surrounded by natural low wood, growing on ground declining from it, that v/hile com- manding from its upper parts a magnificent outlook the building will scarcely be seen except by those who have occasion to use it. i i^ 1 :(\ 55 i v i ii um mi u mmm t nn ^ j tm u mmm r- \. b \ '■ t! I II i'l! 'ii ' ' I iH- 1 . week, late in the day, during the hot season, to take their evening meal. In short, let the district be used as, from the opening of the ground to the public, it has been used, with onl)' the difference that would occur from additional conveniences and better provisions for the safety and comfort of women and children. Keep active and intelli- gent guardians vioving briskly through it, so that the modest, timid, and nervous may have frequent assurance of protection against rudeness. I was glad, in my last visit, to see clergymen leading large schools to the mountain for recreation. Offer every encouragement to the growth of the custom. The presence of these gentlemen will give countenance and confidence to mothers to come with their daughters and little ones. When the ground shall be constantly and largely used in the do- mestic ways I have thus indicated, the danger of its misuse in any way will be slight, and your expense for police and for repairs may with safety be moderate. No men are reckless in their conduct in a place in which good women and children seem to be at home. The district of which I here speak, the Upperfell, has an area of 50 acres, of very diversified surface ; it includes the highest elevation of the mountain. It has little soil, and with a proper treatment will be occupied by low, sturdy wood and a few strong thorny thickets, the trees in groups and small groves with numerous mossy openings, with a great deal of natural rocky surface on which children can play and picnic parties sit, harming nothing. Many of these rocks command fine distant views, and it is the district now more resorted to by the public than any other. This fifty acres of the Upperfell being at all times open to every- body, aim in other parts of the two fell-land districts to cultivate somewhat richer mountain character, and, in order to do so, restrict movement through them to the roads, walks, and prepared places, except upon holidays. Let there be, however, numerous places well adapted by the character of their ledges, open groves, and finely verdured dells for picnic parties. Provide springs or little nat- ural rock fountams in connection with them. Hold each of these 56 I •;: >.\ \\. ,;. ;. ■ It, 't ■ * places open to be used at any time for picnic or festive parties, whether of friends or of schools, churches, societies, or any organi- zations either permanent or formed for the occasion. Require only that each shall take the trouble to make application and have suitable grounds assigned for its use in advance, and that it shall give some reasonable assurance that the privilege will not be abused. AH such places can then be decked about with shrubbery and suitable wild flowering plants, naturally disposed, and each have its own distinctive sylvan and idyllic attractions. Again, at suitable houses, one in the Brackenfell and one in the Underfell, let desirable conveniences for such parties be supplied, and at the upper one let there be sheds so that some can come in vehicles and have their horses properly cared for. The two districts being adequately provided in all respects for their designed use, in all the remainder of the park let visitors be re- stricted under ordinary circumstances to the roads, walks, and other accommodations specially prepared for them. On holi- days, when (at special cost for the occasion) you throw all open, have much of the ordinary housekeeping work of the ground finished early in the morning or the night before, and let the more intelligent and trustworthy of the men ordinarily employed upon it act as assistant watchmen to the regular police, mainly with a view to check, by their presence and a polite cautionary word upon occasion, any tendency they may observe of visitors to fall into practices wasteful of the value of the property. It is wonderful how much may be accomp- lished in this way, especially when care has been once taken to es- tablish good and prevent the forming of bad customs. Such management of the property as I have thus advised may re- quire some little self-restraint of you and some troublesome thought- fulness of your servants. So does any soundly economical manage- ment of any of your business. So does every advantage which civ- ilized men possess over barbarians. 57 B (I f l! 4 •» r- •Jl i XVII Among properties of its class your mountain possesses one marked advantai^c over all others. I mean that of noble landscapes extend- ing far beyond its borders. These are of such extent and so com posed, and their foregrounds within the property are to be so easily adapted to increase their value ; their interest is so varied according to the direction of the outlook and the passing effects of clouds and atmospheric conditions, that it is not only impossible to speak of ihem in adequate terms of admiration, but, trying to take a business esti- mate of them, and seeking standards of comparison for the purpose, it vi'ill be found that the best that other communities have been able to obtain by expenditures counting in millions of dollars, is really too insignificant to be available for the purpose. And yet, trying still to take a business view of them, simply as an ele- ment in the general value of the mountain as a city property, it may possibly come about that you would be richer without them. I say this because among the currents of public opinion of which I had some experience with you, there was a certain spendthrift tendency to slight every element of value in the property except that of the great views. There were those who would have thought it a triumph of art to whisk people up to the highest eminence of the mountain, give them a big mouthful of landscape beauty, and slide them back to town in the shortest possible way ; and there were, even before I was consulted, speculations afoot for doing something of the kind at so much a head. It might be to some a question whether the most valuable influence of properties of this class is to be found in such distinct sensational features, even though provided by nature, as are commonly most con- sciously felt, talked about, and written about, or in more unobtrusive, 58 pervading, home-like qualities of wliichlhe effccls come to one less in a torrent-like way, than as the gentle, persuasive dew, falling so softly as to be imperceptible, and yet doliglufuUy rcinvigorating in its results. Even this might be to some a question ; but let any man ask himself whether the value of such views as the grandest the mountain offers, is greater when they are made distinct spectacles or when they are enjoyed as successive incidents of a sustained landscape poem, to each of which the mind is gradually and sweetly led up, and from which it is gradually and sweetly led away, so that they become a pari of a consistent experience, — let him ask this with reference to the soothing and refreshment of a town-strained human organization, and he will not need argument to lead him to a sound conclusion. But as you have the one thing and as yet have not the other, ex- cept in a very crude and imperfect form, disturbed throughout witli blotches, it may be worth while to try, if ever so poorly, to suggest what would rule a wise economy. (Would that a literary artist would undertake the duty.) It is not the stronger but the weaker links of a chain that you must consider in determining what strain you will put upon it. Fit your work on the mountain to over-weighted nervous conditions and you may be sure that it will suit the robust and light-hearted. On this principle it is better in dealing with it to cultivate the habit of thouji,.ful attention to the feebler sort of folk — of asking, for in- stance, can this or that be made easier and more grateful to an old woman or a sick child, without, on the whole, additional expense, ex- cept in tho'ightfulness ? If so, ten to one, the little improvement will simply be that refinement of judgment which is the larger part of the difference between good and poor art, and the enjoyment of every man will be increased by it, though he may not know just how. With this idea in mind think over what you would like to be able to do if you were much concerned about the health of a father, brother, or son whose private business cares you saw to be wearinjr upon him to a point of danger ; who was growing morbidly irritably 59 ii Ill ^^ h I t\ \{ I! M • M ■|«i ... and despondent, or, what is quite as bad, morbidly sanguine and reckless. Or again, take the case of a woman recovering with tedious slowness from a severe illness, still weak, low in spirits, and under obvious nervous prostration. Take cases such as these, (hat you never have to go far to find, and ask what of all practicable ways of turning the moun*:ain to business account for their benefit a reason- ably refined common-sense would lead you to adopt ? Would you, if you could take the man from his counting-room, the woman from her sick-room, and plant them both as quickly and abruptly as possible before the finest view on the mountain, keep them there till they tired of it, and then send them straightway back again ? Let us try to imagine a better way. First, then, taking our friends in a carriage, we should find, under wise arrangements, that without going far we could turn into a road leading toward the mountain, by which noisy and jolting pavements would be escaped. In this road there would be no heavy grades to overcome ; no street railways to be avoided ; no funeral processions to be passed; but the carriage, moving at a steady pace, and with the least occasion to awaken sadness, irritation, anxiety, or impatience, would, in a few moments, have slipped easily out of town, and be passing along a shady, soft, and quiet suburban street, like a village highroad. This would be lined on one side with cottages, before which trees would be rapidly falling out of lines into groups and spreading from groups into groves. The village would be divided by a pretty open green with a quietly undulating surface, skirting which our road would bend away to avoid too steep a course. Then, getting more and n^ore out of town, it would wind along with gentle curves as the movement of the ground and the openings among the trees should invite. (This may be the Cote Placide of my plan.) At a fork of the ways the last of the village houses would be passed, the surface grow more diversified, stretches of pasture land would open on both sides, and bits of stoney ground appear. Pres- ently there would be a rocky bank in a dark shade of hemlocks, its base lost in a thicket of brambles, brake, golden-rod, Soloman's seal, 60 m i 'i I • %■ 1; »^j and fringed gentian ; preluding the mountain. Tlien moving along easily higher and higher, the ground would become more rocky, the herbage more tufty, till, at a turn in the road, views through the trees would open : on one side.'of distant steeples over houses and gardens; on the other, of a stretch of woodland, (This from the Piedmont.) Then, going on, the prospect on each side would be more confined, but by glimpses between the trees we should be aware that not far away to the left there was a great picturesque declivity shadowed by hanging woods. Before our attention had been fully fixed in the di- rection, it would be drawn off by a broad gap among the trees to the right, and we should find that we had already attained a sufficient elevation to command a far view to the northwest. The carriage would stop, and we should look upon a broad country-side with woods and fields, orchards and gardens, farm-houses and village spires, all sloping gently from distant blue hills down to a stream hid- den among the trees of the intervening dale. (A peaceful, soothing prospect, this may be cheaply made, in which, though accessible in twenty minutes from the Post Office, and at a third the cost of a visit to the heights, the town may be left far out of sight and further out of mind.) If it is the first airing of the convalescent here might well be the end of her day's journey. There would be a little inn near by at which she could rest, or from which she would perhaps be served with warm milk or tea ; after which, varying the return road, within an hour from the time of starting, she would be back again in her arm- chair. But going on after a few minutes' halt the scenery would become wilder and more forest-like, and as the road, winding where spurs of the ledge, and heaps of fallen rock, and old water-ways gave opportunity, led higher and higher, but always by easy grades, and, without apparent effort, following a course invited by nature, the trees would stand closer and the roadsides be crowded by underwood. Between and beneath overhanging foliage, glimpses would be caught, on the right, of the near crag-side decked with dark bushy evergreens and draped with creepers, mosses, and blooming Al- pine plants ; on the other hand, out of deep shade, through chance 6i h 1 Ilk* 4 loopholes of the verdant screen, of a distant gleaming river and a sunny expanse beyond it. (From the Underfell.) The crags passed, the underwood becoming more scattered, the wood more open, the road would now lead along a mountain slope of (constantly gaining quietness, with gleams of sunlight falling upon ferny dells (the Brakenfeli), until again, the tree tops opening to the right and left, the carriage would stop, and over a rapidly declining, bosky si'rface another outlook would be gained, revealing a lake-like expanse of water lying in a broad valley stretching far away to a faint horizon, beyond which the evening mists would be gathering to re- ceive the declining sun. After this, the road would presently lead out upon a broad high- land valley, all its soft features bathed in sunshine unbroken by foli- age (the Glades). From its wooded borders would rise rocky and fir-crested steeps, but crossing the space between them and following near the edge of the northern woods, we should be led, by quiet curves and with an easy ascent, to a position I'rom which having now so long left the city, it would be looked down upon from the brink of a woody cliff. High above its roofs, beyond the harbor with its stately ships, a great champaign would open, broken by a few noble hills, and beyond all, the distant billows of the Adirondacks. Turning back from this scene which, were it not familiar, might as yet be too strong for our purpose, it would be a relief to course along the edge of woods in which, while the surface is rough and the trees tell the story of much harder exposure than those we have seen below, there are pleasant sheltered and sunny openings in which groups of children will be at play. (The Upperfell.) Still rising, the road will then lead with more rapid turns along the face of a steeper slope till, wheeling upon the depression of a narrow spur, a northern outlook is gained, with the lower valley of the great river spreading before the eye ; that lovely view to which I have be- fore referred, At the next move, steeper and wilder declivities would be skirted, and the foreground show yet more evidence of elevation and the severity of its winter in the aspects of the rocks and the picturesque character of the vegetation, until with a final rapid turn the carriage 62 I - r, tv., would stop at the open porch of a timber-built hospice, so situated upon the highest rock of the mountain that from chairs on its wide galleries the nearest thing to be seen would, on all sides, be a broad mass of tree-top foliage, sloping quietly away in simple undulations of light and shade to a rounded edge distinctly defined against a much lower and more remote middle distance. Looking over this deep foreground of forest, we should now have before us more extended views in all directions than we had had before in any. Did they offer nothing for our enjoyment but a roll- ing surface of grass or an endless prospec^ of desert sand, with only sky and clouds to relieve its monotony of color, the effect would be irresistible. As it is, what element of interest could be added with- out crowding ? What new object of beauty without disturbance ? Yet, gradually led up to it from the streets, as I have supposed our friends to be, so that it comes in natural and consistent sequence of the entire preceding experience, the impression could but carry to a still higher point the restful, soothing, and refreshing influence of the entire work. I deplore my inability to present the purpose which good manage- ment of this property would have exclusively before it, in a manner more worthy than that of this scrappy memorandum of what might be offered even to a poor invalid taken up the mountain in a carriage. But in truth, the heart of the argument lies in something which it would be beyond the power of even a gifted writer to represent, and to which not the greatest of landscape painters could nearly do justice. Yet if you have kindly let your imagination aid me you can hardly fail to see wherein the advantage of the property lies, not simply in the direction in which I have been pointing, as a sanitary influence, but also as an educative and civilizing agency, standing in winning competition against the sordid and corrupting temptations of tlie town. You can hardly fail to realize how much greater wealth it thus places within your reach than is to be found in the ordinary parks and gardens, not to say the museums and galleries, which are the pride of other cities, and which millions have been thriflily ex- pended to obtain. Nor can you fail to recognize that what remains for your securing of this wealth is not any towering constructions, 63 i«9 [^ K rl I I r"f ■ jr'; :■ u ^ f f . i • ■ • f a 1 i I i I «■ I i - '■n ■'•I V I- I,' ■1fc if ',1 1 1 •;. princely expenditure, or heavy addition to your taxation, but simply moderate ability, though of a special kind, continuously directed m a modest and frugal way by a suitable, sincere, consistent purpose. A purpose in which there shall be no mixture, for instance, of the motives proper to a circus or a variety show, to military parades or agricultural fairs, to race-courses or cemeteries. An intelligent pur- pose to bring out the latent loveliness of mountain beauty, which you have bought with the property, in such manner as shall make it of the highest distinctive value. Thinking over all that I have advised to be done as an affair of years, take the largest estimate of the cost and trouble of securing what is necessary to it that you can ; all I ask is that you think out also what will become of the property, what will be spent and what will be lost, if it shall continue long to be managed with no more distinct purpose, upon no more firmly de- fined principles of economy, with no sharper limits to the enterprise of successive councils and commissioners (leaping from the ranks to the supreme command of it) than economy has thus far been held to require. 64 » ' «■ XVIII. Wisely or unwisely you have bought the property, and must do something with it. You will probably take one of four courses : 1st. Let it run to waste, in which case your purchase-money will have been misspent. 2d. Make such ill-considered improvements upon it that your out- lay for them will be an addition to that previously misspent. 3d. Make extravagant improvements, misspending more. 4th. Make such substantial, well-devised, economical improvements that the result, as a whole, shall repay the original purchase-money, together with the cost of the improvements, and a fair percentage of profit. I trust that you will choose to take the last, and that, choosing it, you will find the plan which I have prepared, adapted to aid you in doing so. Do not think of it as if, by its adoption, you were binding your- selves to carry it out at once, or within any definite period, but as a plan, with reference to which you may, with advantage, organize, direct and restrict any expenditures which you shall hereafter, at any time, think well to make for the improvement of this property. Do not, above all things, imagine that it can enable you to dispense with the constant exercise of refined discrimination in the determi- nation of working details, any more than with technical skill, or with common administrative and executive ability. It is no part of my duty to advise you how fast and how far to go on with the work of improvement, but I may suggest that a lit- 65 H 10 t i • 4*! ; s *■•' S' I I I ! 'II tie desultory cobbling, a touch here and a touch there, and that what may pass for somewhat temporary improvements, are almost sure, not simply to be costly with reference to the value of their de- signed results, but to make obstructions and embarrassments to the essential permanent improvements that are desirable. It will even now cost you more to carry out this or any other plan, you may adopt, looking to a permanently satisfactory improvement, and the result will be less valuable than would be the case if you had had the patience to do nothing until you could be sure that every stroke would tell toward a maturely studied comprehensive pur- pose. You may, as a matter of convenience, or of necessity, put off for years entering upon well-organized, steady courses, but do not flatter yourselves that you can do so without paying a round penalty. You will find that this is, like any other important business, left at loose ends. The difficulty of getting it into an economical current in- creases the longer it is pottered with. To proceed economically, you need to have a small staff of men who are, or who can be trained to be, experts in three or four main divisions of the required service, and, recollect that if these men are well chosen, their value is to increase with every year's additional special experience in the locality, and that their work is to be con- tinuous work, the value of what they do in one year being relative to what, in doing it, they have intended to do and may do the following year. These leading men of the work should be under such supervision and discipline as to insure the subordination of all they do to the gen- eral ends of the plan, but they should also be allowed, each man within his own field, that measure of discretion which is necessary to induce zealous, continuous effort, and pride and pleasure in its gradually ac- cruing results. Working with and under this staff, there should be a constant force — a very small force, if you please, at the outset, but a constant force — of men who can be trained and depended on for a variety of services, some of which will never fail to be in request. Such a min- imum force, constantly employed, will, in time, accomplish much 66 M . :■• more than a much larger and costlier average force employed irregu- larly. Then, having such a constant force as a steady element, to maintain tone and method, you may, as from time to time you feel able and disposed, employ temporarily a much larger force, a great deal more economically than would be otherwise possible. 67 i I h 1 t *■ ..«! (I '■ h I 1 J Mi APPENDIX. EXPLANATION OF THE PLAN. (I'he drawing herein referred to was exhibited in November, 1877, and, to aid its public discussion, litlaographed copies were furnished the commissioners for distribution. The following explanation is repeated from that then read and offered in manuscript to the press.) 4" " r i' i J 1 !l. , The surveyor s maps furnished me covered a little more ground than has at any time been expected to be included in the park, and some little of that which, at the time they were made, was supposed to beheld by the city, has since, as I understand, been ruled out The area which has been mapped and under definite consideration with reference to the plan has an extent of 550 acres. Of this, I have re- garded 470 acres as already held by the city ; out of which, 30 is to be set off for the reservoirs, and for streets outside the park proper. 13order strips of the purchased land remaining, which (provided cer- tain restrictions can be made as to the manner in which they shall be used) can be spared from the park, and which I recommend to be sold will deduct an additional area of 60 acres. A rectification of boundar- ies of the remaining land, which is a part of my proposition, would require the city to obtain land which it does not now own to the ex- tent of ten acres, and would allow an equal amount to be thrown out in addition to that before stated. This is arranged with reference to possible exchanges with private owners. That is to say, there are ten acres of land to be deducted in small bits, and ten acres in small bits to be added. (All these are estimates in round numbers.) With these deductions and adjustments, the area remaining for the park proper would be 380 acres. 68 f ? i Of the 80 acres of land you now hold, which it is proposed should be exchanged and sold, 56 are in that part of the property nearest the town, and in such relations to that reserved for public use, that any judicious step in the improvement of either will benefit the other. This (56 acres) you will see shown on the plan in building plots, suitable for villas and cottages fronting on the park, and laid open by winding roads of easy grade. M I suppose it is understood that the larger part of the land taken for the park is of such a character that it would be a misfortune to the city if it should be built upon, as its taxable value would not be equivalent to the cost of making and maintaining the highway im- provements necessary to public health and convenience. The roads now proposed between the park and the land to be sold are, how- ever, so adjusted to the topography, that this land may be opened for such private uses as will be consistent with the interests of the pub- lic, to the best advantage, at the least cost. The roadsides are in- tended, as you may observe, to be planted by the city, and the land to be sold under such reservations as will prevent buildings from being placed within 20 feet of the highway and encourage private planting. I do not say that the arrangement as it would thus stand is pre- cisely what I should advise if I had only the distant and permanent interests of the city in view, still less if I wished to make the finest thing of its kind possible of your park. There are three points at which I lament that more land should not have been bought, and at which, as you get to estimate the value and understand the conditions of the value of the park, I think it probable that you may wish here- after to make annexations to it, but in the present condition of the city I think it better that the proposition should take the form given it in the drawing. It may be observed that the Cote Placide district, north of the mountain proper (both sides of the line of E'eury Street), is, com- paratively speaking, tame and featureless, and ttiat it is tolerably well adapted to be built upon, and I may be asked wh.vt sufficient advan- tages are to be gained by including any portion of it in the park, or, at least, why, in the desire to reduce the area of the park to a mini- mum, more of it can not be thrown out and a simpler street plan adopted ? Why especially should the straight line of Bleury Street not be retained ? The answer is : 1st. That every curve of the roads here gives a course which is practically shorter than that of a straight line, because of the easier grade which is obtained, and that if the northern boundary of the park were pushed back, under no straight and rectangular street 69 'M :1'^ ' I' ti f * t! if! :*!( \^\n- H 4^ r t \ hi •■; 1 1 ' ■»■ system in this district would it be possible to reach a park entrance in carriages, except at a slow pace and tediously. 2d. It is desirable to interpose between the city and the rugged- ness of the mountain an intermediate passage of scenery of a. less pic- turesque, more beautiful, less wild and romantic, more comely and placid type, and the ground in question offers an opportunity which, properly improved, will answer that purpose. 3(1. Holding the land in question, you have the opportunity of stretching out the hand of welcome to that part of the city from which the park will otherwise be most distant. You may make a pleasure of what would otherwise be a toil in approaching the moun- tain from it. 4th. Taking as much of this ground and improving it as I pro- pose, you will offer to all those who can not afford the time, exer- tion or expense of getting up the mountain, but who can spare a half hour for a stroll or drive, an agreeable and healthful resort. As the city grows, and is built out on the north and west, the number who will daily find this a privilege will be larger than the number of those who will be able to go upon the mountain proper. This I think a binding consideration. 5th. In the early Spring and the late Autumn there will be many days when this lower park will be available for recreation, while the air of the upper would be found too harsh to be agreeable or useful, especially to delicate persons. These advantages of retaining a considerable part of the lower ground seem to me so obvious and so conclusive, that I should not have thought it necessary to present them were I not informed that plans have been discussed and are now in suspense, by which they would be sacrificed. You may, perhaps, find it more difficult to fully justify so great a reduction of the park area as is here proposed, and upon this point I can only suggest that in considering it you should not fail to fore- see the effect of the proposed border plantations, and to recognize how the objection to the proposition in this respect will be lessened by the interposition of the anticipated skirting of gardens, cottages, and villas between the park and any possible tall, compactly associ- ated buildings hereafter to come in beyond them. Taking a large view of the interests of the city, I can not say that I think the boundaries of the park entirely fortunate. It is much to be regretted that you should be so cramped between the Crags and the Allan and Redpath properties. A few yards greater breadth here would add more to the value of the park than you lose by throw- 70 ing out double as many rods elsewhere. It is unfortunate also that the boundaries of the park do not fall so that a good broad road of easy grade can everywhere follow them. 1 must make an unpleasant suggestion in recommending an early consideration of the question wlietht-r, if your city prospers, the time may not come when a thoroughfare from north to south will be required as near as practicable to the west boundary of the park. I am sorry that the topography forbids any arrangement for the pur- pose in connection with the park. The slight changes of liie west line of the park which I recommend, in addilicm to those abx-ady ar- ranged, are designed only to avoid waste from awkward corners and misfits. The policy originally adopted of dovetailing the city into the park on the east, by a system of capes and bays, determined, I presume, simply by the accident of private occupation, will eventually cause a good deal of inconvenience. Following my own judgment, I should have planned to sweep it entirely away, west of the east line of Sir Hugh Allan's grounds, and obtained a more economical arrangement at any necessary cost. I feel sure that it could be at no cost that would not soon be outweighed by advantages gained both by the public and by the property owners. East of Sir Hugh's, on the other hand, there is a body of land m the park, as represented in the maps given me, but which, since my plan has been formed with reference to it, I have been advised will have to be thrown out. This would be of great value to be re- tained. There is no other which could be sooner and at less cost made serviceable. I should not have laid out roads in other parts of the park as I have done, had I not counted on this land, and, much work having already been done, reckoning upon it, I consider a part of it indispensable. I have, therefore, adopted, in the last re- vision of my drawing, a compromise arrangement, which, when well considered, will, I sincerely trust, harmonize all interests. I have to speak of but one more exterior question — that of the carriage approaches. You have, unfortunately, used in Montreal the common frontier method of laying out streets, of which the only recommendation is that it requires no thought, and can be as well done by an infatit after a month's schooling in a kindergarten as by the ablest engi- neer, and it happens, in consequence, that south of University Street there is no way of approaching the mountain at all suitable for general driving. , i-u A pony, which would easily take a phaeton with a lady and children to the top of the mountain, if driven around by the way of Bleury Street, would be entirely unequal to taking the same load up such grades as those of Peel Steeet (i in 7), or McTavish Street (i in 9). As 71 [I l\ ;l I': rli r ii^ Mil! f. V I ;'!| if I; I' 'i : i ■ ;i ■ Pi ^ 4* " ii I f ■ to Drummond Street, your present arrangement, as I understand from the maps, makes it a cul-de-sac, always a very bad thing anywhere in a large town. This will, I jiresunie, by and by, be remedied by ramp-ways, connecting it with Tine Avenue, but even then its grades will be worse than those of Peel Street. Taking the best of these routes for approaching the park, two horses will be needed, on an average, to do, with some urging, strain, and risk, what one will do comfortably on the northern route. The disadvantage of the southern part of the city, in this respect, is not generally recognized, because, as yet, a trip to the mountain is necessarily somewhat tedious, and so far a novel experience, that you have not begun to look after the small economies of pleasure in it ; but it is one which will be folt more and more as the mountain comes into habitual use. The only remedy I. am able to suggest is that of raising the grade of the lower part of McGill Street (above Sher- brooke), encroaching slightly on the college grounds below the corner of Carleton, and passing around to the east of the reservoir, with cer- tain comparatively inexpensive changes in the course and grade of the existing road. It is practicable in this way to get a grade nowhere steeper than I in 15, which would be a gain of great value, and I re- commend the suggestion to consideration as one of the first impor- tance. It has been successively submitted to your former and present city surveyors, and received the hearty approval of each. [Drawings exhibiting this proposition, with profiles showing the great advantages of grade to be gained by it, were prepared with the approval of the city engineer, and laid before the City Council. Lithographed copies of them were also prepared for distribution to those interested.] We are now ready to pass v/ithin the boundaries of the park and consider the contemplated constructions in roads, walks, and other nec- essary matters. That what is designed in this respect may be intelli- gibly presented, it is shown on a map in which the natural conditions of the surface, in so far as it is essential that they should be taken into account in forming a judgment of the plan, are elaborately delineated. Standing at a little distance, you may readily trace out the general features of the mountain with which you are familiar. Here you find the surface nearly flat ; here moderately inclined ; here is a steep de- clivity ; here again it is smooth and meadow-like ; here it is broken with smell ledges ; here with bolder masses of rock. The strong bounding lines and distinctions of tint will enable you 7a l" 11. to readily distinguish the proposed roads, the vnlhr, anu the build- ings of vaiious classes, and you will find little dilticulty in understand- ing the ))osition of each, and its relation, throughout its entire length, to the topography. This is the more important question to he dis- cussed at this stage of your enterprise, and to avoid confusion in pre- senting my recommendations in respect to it, the design with regard to the imi)rovement of the natural elements is developed only so far as to show by the pale green tint, which stands for luif, and by symbols, which indicate trees and bushes, the general disposition of foliage and open ground. That the indications of the elevation and inclinations of surface, with reference to the discussion of the artificial features, may not be too much put out of sight, trees are not represented standing as close- ly or as much covering the ground as ihey are in reality expected to, especially in the lower parts of the declivities, and along the edges of the roads and walks near the base of the Crags. From my saying this, please not to infer that any of the trees now standing should be left, or that otiiers should, on any consideration, be planted uporrany of the few comparatively broad openings. It is essential to the design that the surface should be of clear unbroken turf. As a general rule, in laying out parks, the principal roads, walks, and other constructions should be so disposed as to leave the central f)arts unbroken, so that broad, quiet landscape effects may be had in ooking across them ; at the same time, they should be kept far enough from the boundaries to allow exterior objects which may not be consistent with the designed scenes, to be screened from view by border plantations, and to admit of such a free, natural, and interest- ing treatment of the intervening space as to avoid the suggestion of limit and confinement. Petty sinuosities and all sharp turns or angles in the course of roads or walks are undesirable; and it should be possible to go from any point in the park to another distant point without excessive indirectness of course ; certainly, without so doubling on a course as to produce an impression of a return to the starling-point. It is not desirable that visitors should be compelled to return for any considerable distance over the same ground, and get the same views twice. You will observe that not one of the desiderata thus indicated is fully met in this design map, and if the plan were shown as a diagram and considered without a knowledge of the remarkable natural features to which the design is fitted, it might seem to defy sound principles, A careful examination will, however, suggest, I believe, just occasion for all such apparent eccentricities. The topography will account for nearly every curve of road or walk. Here, for example, you observe that a slightly darker shade upon the surface 73 M \{ it; IW if ^ ■h ■ :i • .;>' 4 It r -r indicates a little swell upon the gentle slope of the Cote Placide. The road approaching it, if it were carried straight on, would either be made of steeper grade than is desirable, or this would be avoided at the expense of a heavy cutting, T he road, as you see, bends slightly away, therefore, and winds around the swell to the higher ground be- yond it. Mere, again, the road avoids a rocky ledge ; here, approach- ing the borders of the property, it doubles around a knoll and turning into the Piedmont district, keeps steadily working at light grades up the hill ; here it creeps diagonally through a depression of a wall of rock and doubles again so as to reach a point of view in the Underfell, commanding the western prospect, and so on. I will call your attention to certain of the objects to which the course of the drive is adapted : First, you will observe that it puts all parts of the property very closely under contribution to the driver's pleasure. Any point on the park, which you may wish to visit, can be driven to within about 2oo yards, and there are but few points that can not be ajjproached by a carriage wiihin half that distance. Next, it carries the visitor, not directly to every particularly interesting point of view — for it is de- sirable that there should be some such points held in reserve as an in- ducement to walking, — but to such a succession of points that each characteristic variety of scenery to which the property is adapted will be seen to advantage, and distant views obtained in every direction ; so that, in fact, the horizon may be swept in the course of the drive. Third, it offers, though this may not at once be obvious, all practicable directness between different parts of the mountain, and especially be- tween the lower and higher parts. The highest point of the moun- tain is near the present meteorological station. The central point is about a quarter of a mile to the south of it. The lowest point, and that most distant from the centre, is near the Hotel Dieu. If you wished to go from the latter point or from any other on the border of the park, on the town side, either to the central or to the highest point of the mountain, in the shortest time, with ease and pleasure, notwithstanding the great apparent tortuousness necessary in the drive in order to accomplish the two first of the above-stated objects, a better route for the third could hardly be taken than that laid down. As to the object of securing interesting foreground conditions in the view from the drive, what I have before said will have sufficiently ex- plained the motives of the design. A few words as to the grades of the drive : A pleasure-road, in passing over broken and undulating ground, should avoid a perfect monotony of grade as well as of course. Its 74 V'X inclination should be such that a good horse, with a fair load, can be kept moving at a trot without urging in going up hill, and without holding back ingoing down. Your main road, as laid out, is adapted to meet these requirements. Its average grade is i in 37, a grade upon which, in coaching days, the mail went up hill at the rate of ten miles an hour, and came down safely with equal speed. The maxi- mum grade is i in 20, and occurs but twice, holding in neither case for more than a hundred yards. There are numerous nearly level, shorl. stretches, and at a few points there is, for a few yards, a slight reverse of the inclination. The excavation or embankment required to obtain these grades rarely exceeds three feet upon the centre line of the road. The surface of the drive is designed to be everywhere slightly below that of its immediate borders, and, in making it, it is intended that the b orders shall be graded in connection with it in such manner that it shall seem to fit a course marked out and prepared centuries ago by nature. Any appearance of a retaining wall on one side, or of an embankment on the other ; any plane glacis-like slopes, and any bald or lumpy surfaces are, of course, to be avoided. Whatever work is necessary to prevent them, and to make the borders what they sliould be, is to be regarded as one work with the grading of the drive. The distance from Bleury Street entrance to the highest point of the mountain, by the main drive, will be a little over 4 miles. From Carleton Street entrance, 3^ miles. From Drummond Street entrance, 2f miles. The length of the main drive, with the link forming the circuit on the heights, will be 4f miles. The length of all pleasure- drives within the park, ji- miles. (This includes the by-road to the superintentendency and the two approaches at the Cotes des Neiges end, but not the roads along the boundary nor the short cross-roads for general use). The public has been informed by a publication, for which I am not responsible, and which I regret, that the road now made fails to meet my instructions or intentions. The building of this road, you will recollect, was set about precipi- tately, to meet an emergency of public charity. I was not informed ihat it had been undertaken until it was far advanced toward com- pletion. It was prosecuted under circumstances which, had there been an intention to regard landscape details, would have made it very difficult to do so. The situation was bleak, the ground was deeply covered with snow, the mercury was often as low as 10° and sometimes 20° below zero, and the wind often by no means moderate. Nevertheless, had the road been made purely for an industrial pur- pose, or even as a means of access to, or of connection between, certain points of view upon the mountain, which was quite all that any one concerned had in view, it could hardly have been made with better judgment or economy. On the other hand, it must be recognized 75 < ( \ ■i - (•i 1' 1: .■3, 1 , 1 f . M \ &: 11' :-I :V that, had it been desirable to display barrenness on its borders, and to make the fact apparent that the road was a rude and hasty construc- tion, made with no regard to those considerations for local and fore- ground scenery which I sought to explain in the early part of this dis- course, the same amount of labor could hardly have been better ap- plied to the object. You must accept the result as a misfortune for your scheme, — a misfortune which it should be your aim to qualify as far as possible. The construction of the Cotes des Neiges reservoir will give you most valuable material for the purpose, and from the skill with which Mr. McGibbon has used the small means at his command during the pres- ent year, I believe the qualifications maj' be greater than I at first thought practicable. In my detailed plans for the road (which were never seen by any one engaged in its construction, and are lost), pro- vision had been made against the danger, and the appearance of danger^ of carriages running off the embankment, an object which remains very desirable. One more consideration as to the drives. As a general rule in laying out a park, a visitor should not be com- pelled to travel twice over the same ground, but should be free to go out upon one side and return upon another, as those on foot will be abie, to, for example, on Mount Royal, if this design is carried out. By large expv,iise a return road from the heights could be brought down on the north side, but were expense at this time of less consideration, or if the necessary fund for the purpose, should, in the future, be offered the city as a gift, I would not advise such a road to be built, partly for the reason that it would necessarily greatly injure very in- teresting natural features, just as, in a much less degree, the road already made has done, but also because variety in this case is little needed. The aspects in which the s( encry of the mountain side will be seen in coming down are highly interesting and very different from those which will have been enjoyed in going up, with the face hi the reverse direction. There is also, as I have before suggested, an advantage in i.<^lJing something of a little importance in reserve from the drive. It is not to be desired that everything of interest on your park should be seen by a man lolling in his carriage for an hour. It is better that all should have some inducement to walk, and that those who can not afford to drive should have something '.c themselves, as this design provides at the north end of the Crags for example. As for those who cannot toil up steep hillsides but must be carried wherever they go on the mountain, special provision is made for them as you will see presently. I now ask attention to the system of foot communication. It traverses all parts of the park, you may observe, rather more 76 completely than that of the drives, but offers more direct routes for all purposes of pleasure-seeking This is feasible, partly because a man can walk without excessive exertion on a grade about twice as steep as that upon which a horse without excessive exertion can draw what would be an easy load for him on a level, and also because a foot- man can ascend declivities by stairs. Stairs, as you see, are intro- duced at several points, both upon the crags and upon the minor declivities. These stairs should be arranged and studied in detail with great care to make them easy of use for women and children, and pleasant to all. They should be divided by numerous landings, and some of them should have broad covered balconies furnished with low seats ; they should be deftly fitted into, not made to bridge over the ground. The landings should be roofed for shelter in showers, and the stairs shaded by vines on trellises. The steps should not be less than fourteen inches in the tread, nor more than six inches on the rise. Bear in mind that the stairs, like every thing else on the park, should not be simply means of transit, but, as far as with reasonable expense they can be made, consistently with perfect adaptation to their special purposes, means by which a greater enjoyment of the beauty of nature will occur because of the art which they embody. They may be of wood with rough surface except on the seats and hand-rails, with many tool-marks of the axe and adze, yet should ex- hibit the talent of your best architects, for nothing is harder to get than good rude work fitted to nature. But when the best has been done to make the stairs easy and agreeable, there will always be a large number of persons, to whom a daily walk of several miles upon paths of moderate grade, and to whom the ascent of the mountain by such paths, would be a great advantage, who could not mount some of these flights of stairs with- out injury or risk to which they should not be suV)jectcd. Persons with weak lungs, with disorders of the heart, with a tendency to apoplexy, or to congestion or hemorrhage at any point, and little children, should l^e kept away from them. Elderly, rheumatic, gouty, and all weakly people, and parents and nurses with baby- wagons, must avoid them. Even when, however, you shall have made the lower part of the park as convenient and attractive as possible, it will still be hard to limit the movements of all these classes to that region or to compel them to take carriage to go higher. For this reason and also because to the great body of all classes those forms of quiet and easy exercise which are favorable to con- templative enjoyment are the most valuable, two routes are arranged, by which the highest and most remote parts of the mountain can be reached without the use of stairs and without excessively steep 77 I f ' . ' » I ft ^ u ;'^ f ■#' 'if i ■■•n.. .1 t »■ . I grades. The two are so connected as to form a circuit walk within the park about three miles in length, and so also that by taking in a short piece of the sidewalk of Pine Avenue a round tour of four miles could be made by an invalid in a rolling-chair, exhibiting all the characteristic scenery of the mountain and the most extensive distant views, without twice crossing the same point. (All that lias been said as to the management of the skirting of the drives applies, of course, to the skirting of the walks.) The total length of walks laid down upon the map within the park, including the sidewalks of the cross-roads and the walk of the grand promenade, is a little less than 13 miles (12.9). I will now refer to a few other constructions indicated on the map. You may notice that, at various points on the drive, where there are particularly fine distant prospects to be had, rests or concourses are thrown out so that those halting may not block the way. At three points you will see houses indicated which are designed to have all the accommodations of inns on a moderately large scale, except sleep- ing rooms. That in the Underfell is for the lower park, and as people here are not far from their hom'js, it is small, but should this ground become, in process of time, very popular, the situation admits of ai much en- largement of the house as may be desirable. At the highest point in the Upperfell — the crown of the mountain, — there is a larger establishment intended to have a deck and low tower from which visitors will overlook the trees on the adjoining slopes, and command a view all around the horizon. I. should be no higher and in no way more conspicuous than is necessary to accom- plish this object. This house is designed for summer use, and to supply only light refreshments. Another house in a lower and more sheltered situation to the south- ward, on the edge of the Brackenfell, is to be kept open through the year. A range of shedding is connected with it, and it is designed to provide for man and beast, more particularly to meet all the require- ments of pic-nic parties in tiie ISrackenfell. Adjoining it, is the establishment of the administration : barns, stabling, cart-sheds, storage-yards, tool-rooms, and the office and residence of the superintendent. The situation is chosen as that from which all parts of the park, on an average, will be most easily accessible to loaded teams, or, in other words, taking elevation into account, as substantially the most central for the work to be done. It is also screened by the adjoining high ground from that part of the park which will be the most frequented by the pul^lic, and zvi/Z be conspicuous fi'om none of tite viaiti routes of passage. It is well shel- •( ■ I tered from the north, and, the back of west, will have a favorable exposure. 78 the stables beir^ set to the A conspicuous feature of the map represents the proposed reser- voir, with a broad, shaded drive ; course for saddle horses, and a walk laid out about it. My first understanding with the commission- ers was, that the park was to be extended in the direction of the Cotes des Neiges Cemetery, taking in thirty acres more of the dale- like alluvial district which I call the Glades. I thought this most de- sirable, 1 ecause it afforded the opportunity of exhibiting here an exquisite landscape, which would have been the more charming from its contrast with the general character of the scenery of the mountain, and would have made that more striking and inter- esting. Wishing to keep this as idyllic as possible, and knowing that in all much frequented public parks there comes a demand for a general rendezvous or public promenade, and that, if it is not provided for, some stretch of road, often very poorly adapted to the purpose, is made to serve for it, I had laid out a drive, ride, and walk, m an- other part of the park, with this object in view, and had made a dis- tinct short circuit here of a more retired character. When the commissioners, last year, were driven to the conclusion that it was inexpedient to propose the acquisition of any more terri- tory, even if a corresponding reduction of that originally in view was made, and when the Common Council determined that a reservoir was required at this point, I reversed, in my design, these features of the system of communication, and adopted a more picturesque method for the higher ground, with narrower, more winding, and somewhat steeper roads, and, after much debate, arranged with Mr. LeSage, the engineer of the water-works, this outline for the reservoir, which allows a grand promenade, half a mile in length, upon a circuit of easy curves, to be placed much nearer the city. It is on the border of the park, and as no one is compelled to en- ter it in passing to the more sylvan and picturesque districts beyond, it is practically an affair by itself, not a part of the park proper. The circuit of the promenade is, on an average, a little more than half a mile in length. The pad for saddle horses is represented as twenty feet wide, the carriage-way forty, and the walk fifteen, which dimensions can be enlarged if you prefer. It is a question of expense. All the divisions of the promenade are well shaded by trees symmet- rically arranged. There is a pavilion on the knoll to the eastward for overlooking the promenade, and there are gaps in the lines of shade trees, which leave the view open from this pavilion and from the promenade across the water in the direction of the Lake of the Two Mountains. A road is indicated, leading out of the park in the same direction. This road should, for some distance, be a park-way, with broad bor- ders of turf and shrubbery, and building lines should be established, 79 i^ M which would prevent the view from being obstructed or marred by incongruous objects on private property. Seats and drinking-fountains are expected to be placed adjoining the walks at frequent intervals. Some of these seats should be cov- ered by a tight roof so as to afford shelter in rain ; others shaded, either by trees or trellis-work and vines, and some should be open above and screened about for old people, who, in the spring and au- tumn, enjoy to sit in the sun and out of the wind, but the precise position and character of these things is considered to be a question of detail not belonging to the general plan of so large a ground. At each of the entrances on the town side of the park, shelters are in- dicated. These should be larger, and should have roofs and movable blinds or shutters, so they can be made tight on the windward side. They will be made use of, not only as shelters from rain, but as ren- dezvous for persons agreeing to meet to walk together in the park, or for parties which break up in the park and wish to unite before going home There are so many other things of more importance to be se- cured, that these should not be expensive structures, but, C'entually, lodges furnishing accommodations similar to those of small railway stations will be desirable in these positions. I would advise you also not to put your money, at present, into elaborate entrance ways. As to an exterior fence, you can have none which will be more suitable for a long time to come, than one of the simplest form of split palings of wood, such as is commonly used for private parks in England. I have thought that you might, by and by, wish to have a small herd of deer, and, the lower part of the Brackenfell being an excellent situation for the purpose, have indicated a line of fence, and posi- tion for sheds and stables for them, so placed as to be inconspicuous, and interrupt no communication. The arrangement admits of the maintenance of perfectly satisfactory and appropriate landscape effects, but is not at all essential to the general design. I will say no more upon the distinctively artificial features of the design, only, I pray you, never for a moment to forget that they are not objects to be desired in themselves ; that they are rather the im- pedimenta of the undertaking. Bear in mind that it is in the earth, the rocks, the soil, and what the soil, by the skilful adaptation of means to well-chosen ends, shall be made to produce and support, that the essential value of this property is to consist. These are the meat and drink of the entertainment, to which the roads and walks and buildings are as knives and forks. 80 pr ,>; J(