Parkland

“ A company was formed to buy up this estate, which failing to effect the purchase, the corporation, assisted by private subscriptions of £7,000, came to the aid of the enterprise, and secured the valuable property for the use of the people. The park contains forty-two acres, affording sufficient space for recreation, while it is so situated as to appear only the central point of view to a park of a dozen miles in extent, picturesquely wooded and dashed with gleams of water pleasantly interspersed with the green and gold of the variegated landscape. ”

“ Its low banks for the most part without a bush or a tree, are of loose sand, with which the stream is so charged that it grates on the teeth in drinking. The naked landscape is, of itself, dreary and monotonous enough, and yet the wild beasts and wild men that frequent the valley of the Platte make it a scene of interest and excitement to the traveler. Of those who have journeyed there, scarce one, perhaps, fails to look back with fond regret to his horse and his rifle.
Early in the morning after we reached the Platte, a long procession of squalid savages approached our camp. ”

“ The park needs the charm of primeval nature, and should be free from ugliness, artificiality, and commercialism. For the perpetuation of scenery, a landscape artist is absolutely necessary. It would be folly to put a park man in charge of a forest reserve, a lumbering proposition. On the other hand, what a blunder to put a tree-cutting forester in charge of a park! We need both these men; each is important in his place; but it would be a double misfortune to put one in charge of the work of the other. A National Park service is greatly needed. ”

“ The village passed along for some miles beneath their declivities, trailing out to a great length over the arid prairie, or winding at times among small detached hills or distorted shapes. Turning sharply to the left, we entered a wide defile of the mountains, down the bottom of which a brook came winding, lined with tall grass and dense copses, amid which were hidden many beaver dams and lodges. We passed along between two lines of high precipices and rocks, piled in utter disorder one upon another, and with scarcely a tree, a bush, or a clump of grass to veil their nakedness. ”

“ For this purpose they started, and, after ten days of steady travel, found his party.
There are two of these natural Parks in the Rocky Mountains. To distinguish them they are called the Old Park and the New Park. As their names imply, they are fair natural examples of the manufactured parks of civilization. In some things nature has lavished upon them charms and beauties which no human skill can imitate. These parks are favorite haunts of the deer, antelope and elk, while the streams which run through them are well stocked with otter and beaver. ”

“ The Park is in no wise taken away from nature, but is rendered back to her, when all has been done to beautify it, an American woodland, breaking into meadows, here and there, and brightened with pools and ponds lurking among rude masses of rock, and gleaming between leafy knolls and grassy levels. It stretches and widens away, mile after mile, in the heart of the city, a memory of the land as it was before the havoc of the city began, and giving to the city-prisoned poor an image of what the free country still is, everywhere. ”

“ These places should be developed as parks and their resources used exclusively for recreation purposes. Thus used, they would help all interests and reach all people. South America, Switzerland, Canada, and other countries are making intensified and splendid use of their parks by reserving that wild scenic beauty which appeals to all the world.
Parks are dedicated to the highest uses. They are worthy of our greatest attentions. It is of utmost importance that the management of Forest Reserves and the National Parks be separate. ”

“ If the affluent, also, are tired of the system of the British government, {23} and feel the effect it has upon their fluctuating property, here they will find the wide domain, the natural park, whose hills and boundaries are beautifully capped with woods, inviting them to build their dwellings and sit down in ease and content. These parks are already stocked with deer, all which they may purchase, where previous entry has not taken place, at the land office price, two dollars per acre. ”

“ Nowhere now, within the United States, does the primitive wilderness exist, save here and there in shreds and patches. In the middle of the century it covered the western half of the continent, and could be reached by a journey of sixteen or seventeen [Pg 236] hundred miles, from Boston to the plains of Nebraska. Parkman had become an adept in woodcraft and a dead shot with the rifle, and could do such things with horses, tame or wild, as civilized people never see done except in a circus. ”

“ It may seem to your citizens a decidedly foolish proposition to secure large areas of land for a park In the Columbia Slough district, and some explanation of the purposes to be accomplished is therefore called for. If the city acquires the hills and river frontages as suggested it will have an exceedingly valuable series of public pleasure grounds, but in none of these grounds is it possible to provide that entirely different type of landscape which is made up of great stretches of meadow land bordered and diversified by groves of trees. ”

“ Only a few years ago the whole country around about the city was a low level wet prairie, but now there are six as beautiful parks as are to be found in almost any city in the country; parks filled with lakes, cascades, brooks, hills, groves, grottoes, wild animals and tame ones, and everything almost that is to be found in places where nature furnishes things to order. In Lincoln Park, for instance, is a mound of earth, a hill I suppose they call it, that is probably the highest point of land for many miles near the city, but this, like everything else in these parks, is artificial. ”

“ If the city can do nothing else in the way of acquiring parkways, it should at least secure the land needed for the eventual construction of this hillside drive, for in proportion to its cost it would be far more valuable than any other parkway possible to be laid out in the city, because of the views which it would command and the romantic local scenery which could be associated with it, and because it would be so characteristic and so conveniently accessible. ”

“ Among the national parks in the East are Shenandoah, in northern Virginia, and Great Smoky Mountains, in North Carolina and Tennessee. One of the purposes of the Parkway is to connect these wilderness areas over a mountainous distance of nearly 500 miles. The Parkway, about two-thirds completed, leads through an “elongated park” which protects a roadside of varied highland character. The roadway slopes are naturalistically planted in many places with rhododendron, azalea, white pine, and other native species. Parking overlooks to the side are convenient balconies. ”

“ The water lay in the bottom of a hollow, the smooth prairie gracefully rising in oceanlike swells on every side. We pitched our tents by it; not however before the keen eye of Henry Chatillon had discerned some unusual object upon the faintly-defined outline of the distant swell. But in the moist, hazy atmosphere of the evening, nothing could be clearly distinguished. As we lay around the fire after supper, a low and distant sound, strange enough amid the loneliness of the prairie, reached our ears—peals of laughter, and the faint voices of men and women. ”

“ But the truth is, no camera – especially one with me behind it – can fully capture the beauty and majesty of America’s national parks. From Glacier and Denali to Gettysburg and Seneca Falls, our more than 400 parks and other sites capture our history and our sense of wonder. As FDR once said: “There is nothing so American as our national parks... the fundamental idea behind the parks... is that the country belongs to the people.” ”

“ We rode only six or eight miles that afternoon before we came to a little brook traversing the barren prairie. All along its course grew copses of young wild-cherry trees, loaded with ripe fruit, and almost concealing the gliding thread of water with their dense growth. Here we encamped; and being much too indolent to pitch our tent, we flung our saddles on the ground, spread a pair of buffalo-robes, lay down upon them, and began to smoke. Meanwhile, Deslauriers busied himself with his frying-pan, and Raymond stood guard over the band of grazing horses. ”

“ Standing apart from Parkman's main theme is a single volume, The California and Oregon Trail (1849) , which recounts the picturesque incidents of the author's trip through the Northwest, then an unknown country, with a tribe of unspoiled Indians. Those who like a tale of adventure need not go to fiction to find it, for it is here in Parkman's narrative,—a tale of care-free wandering amid plains or mountains and, what is historically more important, a picture of a vanished life that will never be seen here again. ”

“ The park is full of grizzlies and rough characters of the wild and fuzzy West, but they don’t patronize the sightseeing autos. They’re kind of modest and diffident and they stay back in the mountains where you won’t see them. You know train robbers as a rule are sort of bashful. You kids are just going to see the park, and you’ll have your hands full, too. You’ll sit in a nice comfortable automobile and the man will tell you what to look at and you’ll see geysers and things and canyons and a lot of odds and ends and you’ll have the time of your lives. ”

“ The clouds, in lead-colored volumes, rested upon the dismal verge of the prairie, or hung sluggishly overhead, while the earth wore an aspect no more attractive than the heavens, exhibiting nothing but pools of water, grass beaten down, and mud well trampled by our mules and horses. Our companions’ tent, with an air of forlorn and passive misery, and their wagons in like manner, drenched and woe-begone, stood not far off. ”

“ For half a mile before us and half a mile behind, the prairie was covered far and wide with the moving throng of savages. The barren, broken plain stretched away to the right and left, and far in front rose the gloomy precipitous ridge of the Black Hills. We pushed forward to the head of the scattered column, passing the burdened travaux, the heavily laden pack horses, the gaunt old women on foot, the gay young squaws on horseback, the restless children running among the crowd, old men striding along in their white buffalo robes, and groups of young warriors mounted on their best horses. ”

“ I pushed through the bushes, and at a little distance on the prairie beyond found the ashes of a hundred and fifty lodge-fires, with bones and pieces of buffalo-robes scattered about, and the pickets to which horses had been tied still standing in the ground. Elated by our success, we selected a convenient tree, and turning the animals loose, prepared to make a meal from the haunch of the antelope.
Hardship and exposure had thriven with me wonderfully. I had gained both health and strength since leaving La Bonté's Camp. Raymond and I dined together in high spirits ”

“ I had no strength to spare, having at that moment scarcely enough to keep my seat on horseback. Then, for the first time, it pressed upon me as a strong probability that I might never leave those deserts. “Well,” thought I to myself, “a prairie makes quick and sharp work. Better to die here, in the saddle to the last, than to stifle in the hot air of a sick chamber, and a thousand times better than to drag out life, as many have done, in the helpless inaction of lingering disease.” So, drawing the buffalo robe on which I sat over my head, I waited till the storm should come. ”

“ The portions which should be natural are often artificialized unnecessarily by gardening operations or by the introduction of buildings, fountains and all sorts of artificial ornaments, while the portions which might, in harmony with the uses to which they are put, be improved and decorated in a formal style are too informal. On the other hand, in the portion of a park actually devoted to extensive and conspicuous formal beds of tender plants and flowers, the drives and walks, lawns, shrubberies and tree plantations will often be strikingly informal. ”

“ The most expensive large parks, Central Park and Prospect Park, were located without taking advantage of the magnificent natural landscapes of the rivers and bays which distinguish New York and Brooklyn. There are many similar cases. Formerly people built with the backs of their houses upon the rivers and lakes, thus not only excluding the public from continuous access to them but ruining their beauty. Where land along the banks of rivers or along the shores of a lake can, in a city, be fairly well spared from commercial uses, public squares, parks and parkways should be located upon them. ”

“ Nothing can be more imposing than the magnificence of English park scenery. Vast lawns that extend like sheets of vivid green, with here and there clumps of gigantic trees, heaping up rich piles of foliage. The solemn pomp of groves and woodland glades, with the deer trooping in silent herds across them; the hare, bounding away to the covert ”