ld. To do this will be a step in the direction of extending
international jurisdiction, which is to be a controlling feature of
the new periodical about to be established at Berlin, and to be
printed in German, French and English, under the name of "Kosmodike."
--Alexander Porter Morse in The Albany Law Journal.
* * * * *
PARK MAKING.
Those who make public parks are apt to attempt too much and to injure
not only the beauty, but the practical value of their creations by
loading them with unnecessary and costly details. From the time when
landscape gardening was first practiced as a fine art to the present
day, park makers have been ambitious to change the face of nature--to
dig lakes where lakes did not exist and to fill up lakes where they
did exist, to cut down natural hills and to raise artificial ones, to
plant in one place and to clear in another, and generally to spend
money in construction entirely out of proportion to the value of the
results obtained.
The best art is simple in its expression, and the highest form of art
in gardening is perhaps that which, taking advantage of such natural
conditions as it finds, makes the best of them with the smallest
expenditure of labor and money. Simplicity of design means not only
economy of construction, but, what is of even more importance, economy
of maintenance. The importance of making it possible to keep a great
park in good condition without excessive annual expenditures for
maintenance is a simple business proposition which would not seem to
require much demonstration. Yet park makers, with their unnecessary
walks and drives; with their expensive buildings which are always
getting out of repair; their ponds, in which there is rarely water
enough to keep them fresh; their brooks, which are frequently dry;
their elaborate planting schemes, often ill suited to the positions
where they are wanted, make parks expensive to construct and
impossible to maintain in good condition, especially in this country,
where the cost of labor is heavy and there is difficulty in obtaining
under existing municipal methods skilled and faithful gardeners to
keep anything like an elaborate garden in good condition. The most
superficial examination of any of our large urban parks will show that
wherever elaborate construction and planting have been attempted they
have failed from subsequent neglect to produce the effects expected
from them, and
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