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REPORT |

ON

THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL
GARDEN

BY

OLMSTED BROTHERS

1924

NEW YORK
1924

en Pe Le
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CONTENTS

Pace
Introduction 5
Part I. Maintenance of grounds 6
Part II. Improvements closely associated with maintenance; the making of
existing features better of their kind II
1. Fruticetum . ‘ 12
2. Herbaceous grounds 1)
3. Border plantations 13
4. Cherry Garden . gl ba yee Bem ee ee ee Lg
5. Means of circulation as related’ to the cmpronsmene of existing
plantations : : 13
6. Qualities generally to ibe souphe in improving the veseteton
through better maintenance 16
Part III. Improvements constituting new departures and substantially
independent of Parts IV and V . 17
1. Rhododendron Glade . 17
2, Model Gardens 18
3. Iris Garden region . 20
4. Landscape Garden . 21
Part IV. Automobile through-traffic 25
Part V. Vicinity of the Museum 32
In conclusion 39
Appendix A 41
Appendix B 44
Resolution ofthe, board of Managers: 92) 5 4) >) 2) nee 47
Index

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REPORT ON
THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN

August, 1924
Dr. Freperic S. Lee, President,
Board of Managers,
New York Botanical Garden,
New York City.

Dear Sir:

This Report* is submitted at your request to set forth the results
to date of our investigation and study of the grounds of the
Botanical Garden, as a basis for comprehensive plans for their
improvement. It is a revision, in the light of further discussion
and study, of a preliminary report, made in December, 1923.

This investigation was set on foot because of an impression,
voicedin your Statement of April, 1923, that the grounds of the
Botanical Garden are much less beautiful and much less attractive
and valuable to the general public, and especially to that part
of the public particularly interested in gardening, in gardens and
in landscape beauty, than is reasonably to be expected in the
leading institution of its kind in the metropolis of the United
States.

Our investigation has emphatically confirmed this impression,
has defined its particulars in many respects, and has begun to
make clear the means by which this condition can best be changed
to a really satisfactory one.

For the purpose of this Report the defects can best be considered
incidentally and in connection with the probable means of over-
coming them by positive constructive measures directed toward
making the Garden by degrees more and more excellent, on the
assumption that means can be found to carry forward such pro-
gressive improvement in an orderly, well-balanced and reasonably
rapid way without any arbitrary limit on the extent of the im-
provement.

As already indicated, this Report is to be regarded as a progress
report, as a step toward the adoption of a general program in
accordance with which definite plans for improvement may be
successively elaborated in the necessary degree of detail.

*The reading of this Report will be facilitated by consulting Maps A and B, which follow the

text.
ga

It will be convenient to group what we have to say under
the following five main headings:

I. Maintenance of grounds. Pages 6-11.

Il. Improvements closely associated with maintenance; the
making of existing features better of their kind. Pages 11-17.

III. Improvements which would constitute new departures (the
introduction of distinctly mew features), so far as not dependent
on the questions considered under the two remaining heads.
Pages 17-24.

IV. Questions of automobile through-traffic or park traffic and
of park uses distinct from and more or less conflicting with Botani-
cal Garden uses as such; of possible restrictions on the right of the
public to enter upon all parts of the grounds at all times of day
and night; and of related matters. Pages 25-31.

V. The vicinity of the Museum and various other questions
dependent upon that and upon the questions discussed under
heading IV. Pages 32-39.

PART I

MAINTENANCE OF GROUNDS

The basic need in the improvement of the grounds, without
meeting which other improvements will be nugatory, wasteful
and transitory in effect, is that of greatly increasing the quantity
and quality of maintenance—involving a correspondingly large
increase in the annual expenditure for maintenance.

This matter is so fundamental and the manner in which the
possibilities of annual maintenance control all other decisions is
so direct and so far-reaching, that it seems necessary to discuss
it at some length and attempt to gauge, at least in a general way,
the cost of adequate and economical maintenance.

Maintenance may be made in any given case so costly as to be
uneconomical; but it should be noted at the start that inadequate
maintenance is a/ways uneconomical in that it involves progres-
sive depreciation of the capital investment. In the case of a
botanical garden or a park, where the real values derived from
the investment are largely dependent on the cumulative effect
of the growth of plants in certain ways over long periods of years,
the effect of inadequate or ill-directed maintenance is peculiarly
disastrous because the resulting depreciation (or failure to secure
legitimate increase of value) can never be offset in short order
by liberal investment in repairs and improvements, as can gener-
ally be done with buildings and engineering works. There is

[6]

absolutely no other road to first-rate results than by the process
of slow natural growth under the selective control, protection and
guidance of suitable methods of maintenance year after year.

The kind, amount and cost of maintenance of grounds necessary
to keep on the safe side of the border which separates cumulative
advance in values from progressive deterioration depend mainly
on three sets of factors. One obviously is the efficiency and cost
of labor and the skill with which it is directed. A second includes
the inherent advantages and disadvantages of the site and of
external or otherwise largely uncontrollable conditions—such
factors as soil, climate, atmospheric impurities, and the habits
of the people who resort to the grounds. But normally it is the
third set which accounts for the greatest variations in the cost of

adequate maintenance. These are the variations in what might
' be called types of landscape treatment, such as:

(a) Established native woodlands, where there is an approach
toward the self-maintaining equilibrium of a mature natural
forest.

(b) Areas in which mixed ground-covers of herbaceous or woody
plants, or both, while never quite attaining a permanent natural
equilibrium, Guch 25 characterizes many forest floors and many
marshes, can be kept in satisfactory condition by wholesale
methods, as, for example, by infrequent scything and a limited
amount of hand weeding.

(c) Broad areas of simple lawn or meadow, little interrupted
by trees or other obstacles, where the main item of maintenance
cost is periodic wholesale cutting by horse or power mowers.

(d) Intricate combinations of turf with plantations and other
obstacles, requiring frequent hand mowing under difficult condi-
tions and involving hand cultivation, weeding, and other control
of the interspersed plantations.

(e) Areas of a sort requiring still more intensive gardening
operations to secure and maintain the results at which they are
aimed.

Other things being equal, the above indicated variations in
type of grounds ordinarily account for a range in the amount of
labor required for suitable maintenance, varying from a maximum
of about one man per year for each acre or less in type “e,”’ toa
minimum of one man for each twenty acres or more, type “b;”’
with the possibility of an almost indefinite reduction of mainte-
nance labor in type “a,” i those cases where intensive human use
does not enter in to upset the balance and require special counter-
active measures.

Ez

We have attempted roughly to classify the lands of the Botani-
cal Garden according to the types of landscape treatment as
affecting maintenance costs; grouping them in three classes:

Class I
2g to 2 acres per man, as in type “e
typed,"

Class 2
2 to 6 acres per man, as in part of type “d” and in
Pypec c.

Class 3
6 to 18 acres per man, as in type “b.”

Note: As will be seen, the first class would be likely to
require on the average about three times as much labor
per acre as the second, and the second about three times
as much per acre as the third.

>

and part of

This classification is not based primarily on the amount of
maintenance labor now applied to the several areas in the Botani-
cal Garden, because that is manifestly (but in widely varying
degree) insufficient for properly maintaining the sort of treatment
which appears to have been attempted. Neither is it based on
an arbitrary assumption of our own as to what conditions it
would be ideally desirable to create and maintain on each area.

We recognize that your own organization has in the past “bit
off” more than it is able properly to “chew” under present condi-
tions of cost and of funds available for maintenance; and our clas-
sification of areas was based on what each area was apparently
intended to be. Knowing from experience elsewhere about how
much labor is apt to be required for maintaining various types
of landscape treatment in reasonably good condition under
reasonably efficient and skilful management, we have thus
arrived at a rough estimate of the amount of labor which would
be required to maintain properly what you have already “bit off.”

This is a starting-point for all the rest of our discussion. Ob-
viously by abandoning some of the things already attempted
which are relatively costly of maintenance, thus transferring
some areas from a more costly to a less costly classification, our
estimates could be cut without sacrifice of quality in the mainte-
nance of each kind of area. And, on the other hand, any addition
of new features tending to raise any piece of land from a cheaper
maintenance type to a more costly maintenance type would call
for a corresponding increase in the maintenance force.

Taking the Botanical Garden as it is, then, and assuming the
proper upkeep of the sort of thing that appears to have been

[8]

intended and attempted, we believe the maintenance force
necessary for adequate care of what now exists should be about
Tro men, which is about 214 times as many as are now employed.

As said above, it would be possible to advise some modifications
in the above classification by adapting certain areas to somewhat
different types of treatment than those which we conceive to
have been intended, and thereby diminish the cost of mainte-
nance; but, to put our opinion broadly, if you had available a
sum of money producing annually an income three times that
which is now spent for maintenance, we should advise putting
practically all of that sum into a maintenance endowment rather
than invest any of it in new “improvements” at the expense of
continued deficiency in the maintenance budget.

To put the matter in dollars and cents, we think the most
urgent need for the improvement of the grounds is an increase
in the annual maintenance budget for gardeners, laborers, watch-
men, foremen, supplies (including manure), tools, equipment,
etc., from the present figure of about $70,000 to about $200,000
with a further gradual increase in connection with any new 1m-
provements or changes in conditions of use or in labor conditions,
which may tend to increase the maintenance burden.

Appendix A gives some comparative figures of maintenance
labor and maintenance costs, which we have used in arriving at
our tentative conclusions of this subject.

We see no signs whatever of such a flocking of capable men into
the ranks of gardeners and gardening laborers in America as
would tend to lower the costs of such work as compared with the
costs of all the other things that money buys. If anything, the
tendency seems likely to be the other way, as it has been for some
time in the past. The private individual can and does “pull in
his horns” on the matter of gardening maintenance, by having
less of that sort of thing to maintain in proportion to what he has
of the other conveniences and amenities of life, as the latter be-
come relatively less costly than gardening. The Botanical
Garden, as a specialized institution, if it is to do its job well,
has got to meet the increased cost of the most essential part af
its function without sacrifice of quality. Otherwise it is mani-
festly failing as a Garden, however useful it may be in other
respects.

But whatever program you adopt as to increase of maintenance
funds, it seems likely that the increase will come only by degrees
and that a serious deficiency must be faced for some time to come.

One of the great difficulties of such a condition is the temptation
to yield first to an impulse that would rob Peter to pay Paul and

Lo]

then to an impulse that would in desperation reverse the process
when it is seen that Peter also is starving. It is very hard to
adhere to a well-balanced and self-consistent policy of mainte-
nance when confronted by insufficient means at every turn, but
it is even more important under these circumstances than when
no part of the work is in serious danger of starvation.

As a help toward a consistent and well-balanced distribution
of maintenance funds we would urge a deliberate classification
of the Garden lands for maintenance purposes, along the lines
of our rough preliminary classification but much more carefully
studied, and a correspondingly deliberate and systematic appor-
tionment of the available resources for maintenance to the several
classes of lands. The emphasis, of course, should not be upon a
meticulously detailed cost-accounting and rigid adherence to
budget allotments. Emergencies frequently arise which require
shifts, as when infections arise that need to be promptly sup-
pressed at the cost of almost any postponement of routine work.
And it is proper here to point out, as a parenthesis, that we have
observed in the Garden some such infections, notably of scales,
which no well-conducted commercial establishment would have
permitted to go as far as they have gone. If the infected plants
could not have been.cured with the means available, they would
have been destroyed and burned.

The emphasis in the maintenance budgeting should rather be
upon a general continuity of policy in treating each parcel of
land year after year with about the same degree of economy in
relation to other parcels, unless and until convincing reasons
appear for deliberately changing its classification.

But in addition to this general classification, we strongly
advise the deliberate selection within each class of lands of one
or more preferential areas, no matter how small, which shall be
kept up thoroughly well as samples of what would be done
throughout all the areas of that class if funds permitted, leaving
the rest of the lands in that class to be kept up only as well as
the funds permit after taking care of these small samples
perfectly.

The reasons for such a policy are two-fold. In the first place,
it will show the public what can be done with adequate mainte-
nance funds; and by the very sharpness of the contrast between
these samples of first-rate maintenance in each class and the con-
ditions which poverty enforces elsewhere in that class of lands,
will stimulate increased financial support. In the second place,
it will be of great value in building up and maintaining the ideals
of the maintenance force itself. Where, because of poverty,

[ 10 ]

almost nothing is thoroughly well done of its kind, where nearly
every job is left half-finished because of the necessity of taking a
few stitches somewhere else, not only is there much waste of
effort—the sort of waste inseparable from poverty—but also
there is bound to be a tendency to demoralization of the mainte-
nance force itself, a lowering of its standards and ideals, an ac-
ceptance of enforced low standards as good enough, a loss of the
priceless stimulus of pride and shame, of esprit de corps.

In addition to such suggestions for improvement of the mecha-
nism of maintenance, we would urge the importance of placing the
responsibility, under the Director-in-Chief, for the maintenance
of grounds and for those cumulative improvements in detail
which are inseparable from maintenance, upon some one first-
class superintendent having the necessary technical skill and
ideals, and the peculiar qualities needed by one who is to be at
once a good executive and leader in his own department, a loyal
subordinate to the Director-in-Chief, and a sympathetic col-
laborator with other specialists. Perhaps you have in your pres-
ent personnel the man for such a position. Perhaps you need
to look outside. But obviously a first-class man in such a posi-
tion is of the greatest importance, especially during a period of
building up the gardening and maintenance force and improving
its work.

PART II

IMPROVMENTS CLOSELY ASSOCIATED WITH MAINTENANCE); THE
MAKING OF EXISTING FEATURES BETTER OF THEIR KIND

As previously indicated, no sharp line can be drawn between
maintenance of the sort which ensures progressive improvement
(as a result of the controlled growth of long-lived plants and asso-
ciations of plants), and, on the other hand, improvements of detail
which are not strictly maintenance but which, although not
very notable individually, are important because of their collec-
tive and cumulative effect.

There are many opportunities for this sort of improvement of
detail in the Botanical Garden, as would be almost inevitable
where past improvements and maintenance have been carried
on under the handicap of insufficient funds, and with the recur-
ring temptation to undertake an improvement under circum-
stances adverse to the best results.

Merely as examples we will mention a few such opportunities
which have thrust themselves upon us as important. The making
of such improvements is so bound up with improved maintenance

Lr]

that while the cost of them might properly be met either out of
increased maintenance funds or out of special improvement funds,
the work should be done mainly by the maintenance personnel.

1. Fruticetum. What might be called the general scenic qual-
ity of the areas devoted to the systematic collection of shrubs
could be greatly improved, together with its instructiveness as
to the esthetic value of many species as elements in landscape
composition, by a patient, laborious and discriminating study
of the entire collection, acre by acre and plant by plant, followed
by a great deal of minor shifting of the position of individual
plants, by the elimination of some and by the addition of others,
so as to make more agreeable and interesting compositions—all
without in the least impairing the prime function of the Frutice-
tum as a systematic collection of specimens of representative
shrubby plants. From the esthetic point of view this job would
be very much like the job of a sculptor in perfecting a model in
clay; sometimes pressing back here and building out there without
addition or subtraction of material, sometimes adding a little,
sometimes taking away a little. The details can no more be
embodied in a specification or a plan than can the touches of the
sculptor which determine the final quality of his work. But
because the Fruticetum is not solely or even primarily intended
as a work of fine art, but primarily as a living botanical museum,
whoever is charged with the artistic responsibility for such an
improvement would have to keep the Director-in-Chief closely
informed of his intentions in advance and work under his supervi-
sion and with his continuing approval as to the effect of the
changes on the value of the collection from the botanical
standpoint.

2. Herbaceous Grounds. ‘There is opportunity for similar
improvement, probably far less general and far less notable in its
effect, in the area devoted to the synoptic collection of herbaceous
plants, known as the Herbaceous Garden. Incidentally it has
occurred to us that the name “‘Herbaceous Grounds,” which is
applied at Kew to an area having similar purposes, would be
better than “Herbaceous Garden;”’ because the latter is so apt
to suggest to visitors the idea of a garden of herbaceous flowering
plants selected and arranged primarily for esthetic effects, as
so-called “herbaceous borders” ordinarily are, and to cause some
disappointment on finding quite a different sort of thing.

We do not want to imply that the area devoted to this collection
is not now esthetically agreeable. It is among the pleasantest of
the sophisticated features of the Botanical Garden grounds. But
without changing its function as a synoptic collection of herbac-

[12]

eous plants, which necessarily contains many specimens selected
and assigned to certain localities for reasons quite other than es-
thetic, we believe that the existing pleasant landscape qualities of
the scene could be appreciably heightened and refined by minor
adjustments in the positions of the plants and outlines of beds
and by the addition of certain “background” and “‘filler”’ plants
not part of the exhibit proper, but serving functions not unlike
those of frames and cases and backgrounds and partitions in an
indoor museum.

3. Border Plantations. The strengthening, extension and
refinement of screening and background plantations on the
borders of the Garden land is a very important matter for the
sake of future effect, because the outlooks into the surrounding
city are generally most inharmonious, distracting and unpleasant,
and it takes a long time to grow trees large enough to screen
them.

4. Cherry Garden. The area devoted to Japanese flowering
cherries, which is interesting in topography, contains good speci-
mens and has an attractive memorial shelter, Japanese in spirit,
could be made very much more lovely by carefully studied shifting
of some of the specimens so as to secure better artistic composi-
tion, taking better advantage of the topography, by the addition
of appropriate subordinate elements for enrichment, and by
readjustment of the paths so as to lead people conveniently and
easily to just the right points of view and at the same time fit
into place as appropriate parts of the scene. It could be made,
and ought to be made, a notably exquisite piece of landscape.

5. Means of circulation as related to the improvement of existing
plantations. The mention of paths in connection with the Cherry
Garden brings us to a very perplexing.and very important matter.
In a botanical garden resorted to by great numbers of people, it
is a fact, as frequently pointed out by the Director-in-Chief,
that an adequate and convenient path system is very important
for handling the crowds without destruction of the more essential
element—which is the vegetation. It is also important that it
should lead the people conveniently, agreeably, and without a
sense either of confusion, or unpleasant compulsion, or of disap-
pointment, through those places where they can best see and
enjoy what is prepared for their benefit. It is a further fact that
the topography of the Garden is in parts so intricate and peculiar
as to have made the design and construction of such a system
of circulation, in a thoroughly satisfactory way, extremely diffi-
cult, especially under the conditions of piecemeal construction
with funds available in limited amounts from time to time. In

eri

places the existing path system is excellent. But in other places,
in face of these topographical difficulties, it seems to us extremely
unsatisfactory, confusing, ardous and uninviting to follow, failing
to lead to the best points of view and neither conforming pleasant-
ly to the natural topography nor accompanied by a bold and
skilful modification of the topography so as to conform to the
exigencies of proper circulation.

We believe, therefore, that there should be a very careful and
thorough study of the whole system of circulation, existing and
prospective, with a view to determining, firs, all those areas in
the Garden within which the existing means of circulation can
reasonably be regarded as permanently satisfactory, so that
improvements and refinements to the plantations can there be
undertaken without danger that things will have to be seriously
upset by subsequent changes in or additions to the path and road
system. This will clear the way for perfecting the landscape
beauty of those areas by refinements in the vegetation to the
utmost degree that the available means and skill will permit.
Concentration on that sort of improvement will make more
showing, esthetically, per dollar expended than where costly
structural changes are needed, and for that reason should prob-
ably receive preference in the earlier part of the program of
improvement.

But in preparation for a second step in the program of improving
the existing features, those areas within which the existing means
of circulation can not be regarded as permanently satisfactory
should be studied in detail, section by section, and detailed plans
prepared for successive sections to determine the precise locations
and grades of the permanent paths and roads; the sometimes
radical changes in grading required in connection therewith;
and at least the general nature of the treatment of vegetation
contemplated. This will show what improvements in detail of
vegetation within these areas can safely be undertaken pending
the expected changes in paths, etc., and open the way for under-
taking these improvements without serious risk of waste.

And then, as a ¢hird step in the program, the more costly
structural changes can themselves be undertaken, section by
section, accompanied by perfecting the vegetation in direct
connection therewith.

Throughout this program of improvement of existing features,
the paths and roads and grading should be considered solely as
a necessary means to the end of developing and maintaining
in the most beautiful manner possible, those features of scientific
and horticultural and landscape interest for the sake of which

[ir4 ]

the Botanical Garden exists, and of making them conveniently
and pleasurably accessible to the public without their destruction
by public use; while at the same time recognizing that this mech-
anism of good circulation for crowds is a necessary means to such
an end and in some cases can be properly provided for on such
topography only by radical surgical operations the scars of which
must be made and healed before the final esthetic and scientific
end can be attained.

For example: in a number of places important lines of path
circulation are needed running transversely to sharp ridges and
hollows. This is a very difficult situation, in which a half-
hearted compromise may be easy but is most deplorable. Every
effort should be made to find a satisfactory way of really solving
the problem without violence to the natural topography, as by
seeking a more circuitous route which will not seem disagreeably
indirect and which will fully accomplish the purposes that need
to be served. But where this can not be satisfactorily done—and
there are places where it can not—a bold course, which pierces
through a rocky ridge in a narrow ravine-like passage artificially
made but not unnatural in appearance, or even by a short tunnel,
or which spans a narrow ravine on an arched bridge at the level
of the flanking ridges, may not merely produce a more convenient
path system and one which leaves its users free to appreciate what
they see instead of focussing their attention on the inconvenience
and discomfort of the path, but it may also make nine-tenths of
the path fit naturally and pleasantly to the surface of the ground
it traverses instead of its a// looking somewhat forced and un-
natural as it climbs and drops over ground obviously uninviting
for a main path. Again, in view of the necessity, in so large an
area, of permanent means of circulation for automobiles, and
of the increasing danger and annoyance of innumerable crossings
of this traffic by crowds of people on foot, it is important to pro-
vide for the ultimate separation of the grades of main paths and
main automobile roads where crossings are inevitable, much as
was done in Central Park at a time when the danger and annoy-
ance of such crossings were infinitely less than in these days of
motor traffic.

All this sort of thing is of very great ultimate importance,
can not sensibly be ignored and should be planned for, in a cour-
ageous, far-sighted, uncompromising way. But, as previously
pointed out, this does not mean that the construction of a first-
rate system of circulation should take precedence over refining
and perfecting details of planting and planting maintenance.
Preference should be given, in this improvement of the vegeta-

L15 ]

tion, to areas the least likely to be upset by such construction.
On the other hand, in areas that are likely to be upset by such
construction, improvements in the vegetation should be under-
taken only when the desirable changes in the paths and roads
seem, because of lack of funds, unlikely to be made for so long a
time that the value of the temporary improvement in the vegeta-
tion would, in the meantime, justify the money and effort ex-
pended on it.

6. Qualities generally to be sought in improving the vegetation

through better maintenance. The esthetic qualities to be sought and
developed in the care of the vegetation must of course vary wide-
ly. Anything approaching a stereotyped effect, which one seeing
elsewhere would at once recognize as the “ ‘Botanic Garden style”’
is to be avoided at almost any cost. But some qualities are desir-
able nearly everywhere, qualities now too often lacking. The
plants should look well-nourished and vigorous. No pains should
be spared, of the kind a good plantsman best knows how to give,
in building up the fertility of the soil in those respects necessary
for the healthy typical growth of each kind of vegetation in its
place, in adjusting different kinds of plants to the places most
favorable for their healthy continued growth, and in fighting
their enemies. One of the agents destructive to this quality is
the public; in its careless or wanton injury of plants by trampling,
breaking and deliberate picking. Both constant watchfulness
by a sufficient number of maintenance men and the promptest
possible restoration of injuries when they occur are essential to
keeping up a good standard in this quality. Nothing encourages
depredations so much as the evidence of previous depredations
supinely accepted.

Hence there is no question but that the Garden should be so
planned as to be closed at night and that there should be unt-
formed guards on duty when it is open; not merely a few City
Police temporarily assigned to duty here, but special Botanical
Garden Guards forming part of the Garden’s maintenance force,
carefully selected and trained for the double purpose, first, of
guiding and assisting the public to get the greatest legitimate
benefit out of what the Garden has to offer, and, second, of pre-
venting those individually trifling abuses of the Garden which
in cumulative effect tend so greatly to make it shabby.

An important quality, hard to describe in positive terms, 1s
one which is the reverse of ‘“‘weediness.” It is not necessarily
“tidiness.”” That may be highly appropriate in some sophisticated
places: on clipped lawns, among garden beds of a frankly arti-
ficial man-made sort, on paths and roads and picnic grounds; but

[ 16

for most of the Botanical Garden, where a natural-seeming aspect
should be sedulously sought, the word “tidiness”’ suggests a smug
and artificial quality quite too sophisticated. Yet weediness
with its connotation of neglect, ought everywhere to be avoided;
and there is a good deal of it today. It comes from the presence
of plants—whether classed in common parlance as “weeds” or
not—which look out of place in their surroundings; often plants
much coarser of texture or ranker in growth than their neighbors,
and always suggestive of encroachment on something that would
be pleasanter without them. Mi£illions of volunteer seedlings
spring up every year and many of them, if not systematically re-
pressed, are able to survive in places where they look distinctly
weedy.

The avoidance of shabbiness and weediness is the negative
aspect of the problem. The positive aspect, in addition to secur-
ing healthy vigorous growth of all vegetation that is not to be
suppressed as weedy, lies in the progressive, appropriate enrich-
ment not merely of the regular “collections” but of the incidental
or background flora.

The latter may in some places involve the introduction of more
kinds of plants, especially of the more delicate native flowering
plants, but is perhaps more likely to mean simply the multiplica-
tion in certain places of a limited number of species peculiarly and
charmingly characteristic of distinctive types of flora, at the ex-
pense of those species which are less characteristic.

PARA Ut

IMPROVEMENTS CONSTITUTING NEW DEPARTURES AND
SUBSTANTIALLY INDEPENDENT OF PARTS IV AND V

1. Rhododendron Glade. One of the most beautiful, striking
and completely self-contained and independent new features
which could be added to the Botanical Garden is that which has
been for some time under favorable consideration by the Director-
in-Chief in the so-called “Lake Valley’—a great naturalistic
exhibition of rhododendrons (including azaleas) and of plants
suitable for association therewith, in such a manner as to make
a notably impressive landscape unit, a valley of rich foliage and
brilliant bloom enclosed by wooded rocky hills. The natural en-
framement of this valley is almost perfect except on the southeast,
where the frame must be completed by adequate grading and mas-
sive border planting. Asa scenic and topographic unit the valley
begins in a rocky wooded defile just east of the Lorillard Mansion,
whence it descends, widening slightly but still almost overarched

faz

by trees, to the point where the earth-fill of the road now under
construction traverses and blocks the valley. South of this it
widens out into a broader sunlit valley flanked by pleasantly
wooded hills, the site of a former artificial lake abandoned
because of the intercepting of much of its natural water supply.

The embankment of the new road is in itself an ugly interrup-
tion of the valley, but it can and should be pierced by an ample
archway through which the narrow sylvan portion of the valley
and a pathway traversing it would debouch at the head of the
broader glade, the embankment of the roadway being heavily
embowered in trees. Such an arrangement would afford sweeping
views of the open part of the valley from the road without letting
the automobiles spoil the charm of the valley as enjoyed from the
foot-paths within it or seriously impairing the intimacy of its
connection with the narrow sylvan upper portion. The situation
lends itself admirably to providing both the scenic and the cultural
variety of conditions desirable for such an exhibition of rhodo-
dendrons and related plants.

An unfortunate obtrusion at present into this valley are the
stables of the Park Department. It is of vital importance that
these be removed from the scene, preferably to the undeveloped
park lands just across Pelham Parkway. A portion, at least,
of the site of these buildings would be included in the scheme,
in order to reclaim the complete form of the valley and to com-
plete the essential enclosing plantations.

In Appendix B we have developed somewhat more in detail,
in a tentative way, the ideas which have occurred to us for the
treatment of this Rhododendron Glade; and we believe it would
be the best large new feature on which to concentrate first, after
assuring increased funds for general maintenance and for the
detailed improvement of existing features.

It must of course be borne in mind that the proper maintenance
of such a Rhododendron Glade will cost much more per acre
than the old lake with its borders of unsophisticated woodland, or
than a simple meadow; and that such an improvement, however
desirable from every point of view, ought not to be undertaken
without seeing the way perfectly clear to obtaining the necessary
additional maintenance funds. ‘The principle, of course, is the
same as that which has very properly led various institutions to
refuse gifts of very much desired new buildings in the absence of
endowment for their operation and maintenance.

2. A group or series of desirable new undertakings is that
referred to in your report of April, 1923, under the heading
“Model Gardens.”” Some of the most valuable of these from

[18 ]

the point of view of the general public, such as city back-yard
gardens and typical good treatments for small suburban homes,
present peculiar difficulties in that they would be rather lacking
in realism and effectiveness unless associated with buildings which
would be in themselves inharmonious with the general informal
park-like landscape of the tract as a whole, and that most of
them would need almost complete isolation from each other and
from the general landscape.

There are along the Pelham Parkway frontage some rather
isolated areas of moderate width, as yet undeveloped and cut
off by rocky hills from the rest of the Botanical Garden which
can be devoted in whole or in part to small detached Model
Gardens.

But one of the assets of these sites is the fact that they do
front on the Pelham Parkway and can be seen by the large numbers
of motorists who use that route without ordinarily entering the
Botanical Garden enclosure. So far as practicable, therefore,
it would seem advantageous to use these sites for exhibits some-
what of the nature of “show-window displays’’—bold, striking,
adequate to arrest the attention and pleasantly arouse the interest
of people going by at the rate of twenty miles an hour or more,
despite the interposition of the enclosing fence and the trees of
the Parkway itself. There seems no sufficient reason why this
part of the grounds should not be thus thrown visually open to
the outside, because the logical line of scenic enclosure for the
main body of the ground lies for the most part on the height of
land just north of this bordering strip. We are not prepared
as yet to offer definite and well-considered suggestions for the
kinds of Model Gardens most suitable to these sites, but it would
seem that they might well include some of the more bold and
striking types of display offering a succession of colorful effects
through each season. On the other hand, it would be a pity to
put only such exhibits in these “show windows.” Some other
equally striking but perhaps more refined and quasi-naturalistic
exhibits should be provided for, such, perhaps, as a show of
lilacs and one of Crataegus and crab-apples and other so-called
“flowering” trees.

For small special domestic gardens of urban and suburban
types, places might be found, preferably i in direct connection with
small houses occupied by Garden employees or adapted to neces-
sary uses other than residential which are capable of fitting into
a dwelling-house structure, in accessible locations near the entrance
closest to rapid transit stations but completely isolated from
the general landscape by screen planting.

[19 ]

3. Iris Garden Region. What seems on preliminary inspection
like an opportunity for an essentially new feature of much beauty
and interest, if dealt with boldly and skilfully in a large way,
is presented in the vicinity of the present Iris Garden and Horti-
cultural Garden. Here is an open hillside sloping irregularly to
the eastward from a bench at about elevation go near the Southern
Boulevard, to a hollow at about elevation 60 near the interior
road, and flanked on either side by bold well-wooded hills. Its
landscape unit, however, is disturbed by the bulge of the rounding
ridge occupied by the Horticultural Garden and by the fact that
the open space, once quiet meadow or lawn, is cut up and spotted
with paths and flower beds which are yet not sufficiently continu-
ous to produce a unified texture of a richer sort.

Directly opposite to the east is the one important gap in the
rocky ridges which border the Bronx River on the west for three
quarters of a mile, and in and beyond this gap the natural woods
are thin or altogether lacking, giving opportunity, at the sacrifice
of a few trees, for a very lovely natural-seeming transverse
vista extending to the ridge just west of the Rose Garden.

The vista is well worth getting in itself, because one of the
defects of the Botanical Garden today is its deficiency in land-
scape reaches and views of sufficient length to give the sense of
spaciousness and the mystery of distance. Moreover there is an
unpleasantly complete landscape separation of all the land to
the east of the river from that to the west.

But the special opportunity which the situation of the Iris
and Horticultural Gardens seems to present lies, in connection
with opening the vista, in the bold regrading of portions of the
non-conforming hillside above mentioned, and the extension
of the mainly herbaceous planting of these gardens so as to
produce a continuous and unified, though rich and varied, texture
throughout the space within the framing trees and hills.

Within the limits of this general conception the garden might
successfully be given any one of an infinitude of local expressions,
from that of a naturalistic hillside rich in flowers, like some alpine
glades, to that of an intricately terraced hillside where the flower
beds and paths would be made flatter in cross-section for the
practical convenience of intensive use and be supported by low
walls. Such a terraced treatment might, on the one hand, be highly
architectural in its general structure, or, on the other hand, it
might be rather casual and unobtrusively irregular and pictur-
esque like many of the hillsides so pleasantly and richly terraced
into vineyards and gardens by the peasants of Italy, of Switzer-
land, of the Rhine and of Japan. Considering the practical

[ 20}]

necessities of exhibiting many kinds of plants of horticultural
interest, of making them closely accessible to large numbers
of people, of cultivating the beds and of avoiding the waste of
rain water on steeply sloping cultivated ground, we should be
inclined to favor the latter type, frankly man-handled in its
general scheme but rather free and picturesque in its detail,
its terraces supported in the main by uncemented walls suitable
for treatment as wall gardens. The lower slopes and terraced
benches could well be used in large part for a great collection of
the upland irises, perhaps in conjunction with peonies; the hollow
at the base might be devoted largely to the moisture-loving
Japanese irises; while the outer and upper portions could be used
for other horticultural exhibits of the type represented by the
now isolated and unrelated beds of beautiful chrysanthemums,
of narcissus, and (this spring) of tulips.

4. If and when the Park Department greenhouses and work
yards can be removed from the old Lorillard Mansion gardens,
as they certainly ought to be for the proper development of the
Botanical Garden (preferably, as in the case of the Park stables,
to the undeveloped park lands just across Pelham Parkway)
a peculiarly valuable area in the very heart of the Garden’s
most precious landscape will be freed and will offer a very notable
opportunity for a new feature.

To begin with, the opportunity here exists to create a long
north and south view, wholly self-contained, beautifully enclosed,
and nicely fitted to as interesting a piece of topography as is to
be found anywhere within the limits of the Botanical Garden.
And, as already stated, there is a serious deficiency in such long
inviting views.

In the second place, within the land thus freed from obstructive
utilitarian structures, and without impairing the long views
thus obtained but enhancing their charm and interest, there
could be developed, under the most favorable conditions, an
admirable example of a sort of thing of which there certainly
ought to be a first-rate example somewhere on the tract. The
sort of thing we mean is a type of what is sometimes called a
landscape garden, the heart of whichis a beautifully modelled
lawn, enframed by beautifully composed trees irregularly disposed,
under which the lawn here and there loses itself in shadowy mys-
tery, while elsewhere its irregular margin is formed by masses
of flowering shrubs and flowering herbaceous plants, providing,
as an incident of the landscape, an informal or naturalistic
herbaceous garden designed predominantly or almost exclu-
sively for esthetic effect.

[21 |

The suggestion in your report of April, 1923, at first appealed
to us strongly, namely, that this area, if and when freed from the
Park Department greenhouses, work yards, etc., be used for
a really first-rate Formal Garden in connection with the recon-
struction of the Lorillard Mansion, which you proposed should
serve as a place for exhibitions, for the meetings of garden clubs
and for kindred activities. Unquestionably it is a very desirable
thing to provide, in the most perfect possible way, somewhere in
the Botanical Garden area, for the grouping of such functions
in a beautiful building, domestic in scale but considerable in
size, intimately related to a beautiful garden of a suitable kind.
The most suitable kind of garden for such a purpose would be,
in an agreeable sense of the word, “formal;” that is to say
emphatically not “naturalistic.”

This is not the place to attempt a thorough clearing up of the
confusions of meaning which have caused for many years so much
misunderstanding over this word “formal” as applied to gardens
and gardening. Most of the misunderstanding is due to unex-
pressed mental reservations as to what 1s meant by the word, or to
differences of emphasis on various phases of formality. To some
the word suggests mainly certain kinds of formality which are
unattractive or even distressing to them; associated with stiffness,
rigidity, bald precision of detail, or such complete dominance
of architectural elements as to make the term “garden” almost
a misnomer. To others the word suggests merely a pleasantly
obvious orderliness in the general disposition of the major parts
of a garden, frankly expressing deliberate human design and con-
trol; as by symmetry of certain forms about a straight axis, or
the disposition of paths and masses of vegetation in such a way
as to suggest to the eye easily recognized simple shapes of agree-
able proportions, rectangular and otherwise; all of which is con-
sistent with great exuberance and freedom and spontaneity of
detail, especially in the growth of plants and in the composition
of plants within the orderly and formal framework of the general
plan. If so conceived, “formal” is applicable alike to a garden
made up wholly of flower beds and turf and to one largely char-
acterized by paved walks and steps and walls and fountains and
sculptural and architectural elements, provided the latter be
enriched by sufficient vegetation to entitle it to the name of
garden at all.

Obviously a botanic garden is hardly a legitimate place to
devote much space or money to the creation, for its own sake,
of any formal design so predominantly architectural or sculptural
in its interest that the vegetation plays a wholly secondary r6le—

[ 22 J

such a thing as might be more properly called a court-yard or a
plaza than a garden. But it is equally obvious that it is legiti-
mate and desirable to provide, for the benefit of that great part of
the public which is interested in plants mainly for their usefulness
in pleasure gardens, one or more excellent examples of a sort of
garden which countless generations of mankind have delighted
to have in association with dwellings—a frankly man-made thing,
expressing man’s skillful artistry and the completeness of his
command over his surroundings: formal in the sense that the
dominant form of the thing as a whole and the form of the more
conspicuous relationships between its several parts are not merely
beautiful but unmistakably intentional and deliberate.

We do not question that such a formal garden could be done
beautifully in the locality now in question.

On further study, however, two considerations have led us to
believe that this is not the best place for such a thing. One is
that a center for meetings and exhibitions, both indoor and out-
door, other things being approximately equal, ought to be more
conveniently and quickly accessible from rapid transit stations
than is the neighborhood of the Lorillard Mansion, and also
should have space in its vicinity for small special exhibition gar-
dens and preferably also for special exhibitions under glass, which
could be introduced near the Lorillard Mansion only by sacrifice
of existing and potential values of another sort of great importance
to the Botanical Garden.

The most notable natural feature of the Botanical Garden,
perhaps as a matter of botany and certainly as a matter of land-
scape, is the gorge of the Bronx River with its wild growth of
hemlocks and associated plants, its picturesque precipitous slopes
and ledges, its sense of remoteness and seclusion from the city
and most of the works of man. The Lorillard Mansion and its
appendages conspicuously intrude upon this landscape unit in
a manner contradictory to its essential character. From the
point of view of botanical consistency no less than landscape
value these contradictory elements ought to be removed and the
entire landscape unit of the gorge, on both sides of the river,
gradually restored as nearly to the conditions characteristic of
such a gorge in a state of nature as is consistent with making it
accessible to and enjoyable by large numbers of people. No
artificial structures except such as are necessary to that end
should be maintained here and these should be made as incon-
spicuous as is consistent with efficiency in operation and mainte-
nance. The precise limits of this gorge unit we are not prepared
to define positively as yet; but plainly they should include the

ail

site of the Mansion itself, the slopes to the north of it (where the
small stone stable occurs) up to the height of land on the east,
and in the region further south at least far enough eastward from
the river to include the whole of the narrow ridge that lies between
the river and the Park Department greenhouses.

We believe this consideration alone precludes the rebuilding
of any garden house or other such structure on the site of the
Lorillard Mansion, whether the matter is looked at from the
point of view of a Botanical Garden or that of a public park.

The land which lies to the south of a line drawn through the
existing foot-bridge across the gorge and to the east of the service
road that hugs the west side of the greenhouse is not quite so
intimately associated with the gorge; and, if the natural forest
border on the low intervening ridge were restored and widened
and made more dense, the outlying area beyond the limits above
defined might perhaps have a landscape character quite dissimilar
to that of the gorge without impairing the perfection of the latter.
But to introduce even in this area a highly elaborate and sophisti-
cated formal development with a garden house of considerable
size, would bring two contrasting kinds of things in such close
juxtaposition as to make the plan questionably wise.

The second consideration, closely related to the point just made,
is that we have found no place on the whole Botanical Garden
lands nearly as well adapted as this swale (where the greenhouses
are) for the development of such a naturalistic Landscape Garden
as we have attempted to describe above; for the development
of a landscape characterized by a long "stretch of beautifully
modelled lawn in association with free-growing trees, flowering
shrubs and herbaceous flowering plants; or indeed for the develop-
ment of an equally long, restful, completely unified and self-
contained view of any sort. These also are elements of which
there should be at least one admirable example within the Botani-
cal Garden.

Therefore we have sought for other possible sites for a first-
rate formal garden in conjunction with a building for exhibitions,
meetings and social activities and with other features desirable
to associate with such a center. We believe that these things
can be provided for in another locality, which upon the whole
would be more advantageous for such purposes, and we will
discuss itin Part V. For this reason we do not hesitate to recom-
mend the assignment of the Lorillard Mansion area and the
area embracing the Park Department greenhouses and the swale
south of them nearly to the picnic grove for the purposes of the
Landscape Garden above outlined.

[ 24]

Ako RY,
AUTOMOBILE THROUGH-TRAFFIC

The successive steps in the formation of routes of automobile
travel within and through and near Bronx Park, largely controlled
as they have been by considerations entirely independent of the
Botanical Garden, and the interjection of the Botanical Garden
into the area traversed by or affected by these routes, have
resulted in a situation quite unprecedented, so far as we know,
in any of the important botanical gardens of the world.

Many of these botanical gardens are substantially self-con-
tained, free from intersecting through-routes of vehicular travel,
and subject to design and management for botanical garden pur-
poses alone. Most of them, like Kew, have no roads for public
vehicular travel within them at all. The Arnold Arboretum,
more nearly comparable in size with the New York Botanical
Garden than is Kew, but because of its confinement to woody
plants presenting less administrative difficulties in controlling
public abuse of its collections than is the case where more strictly
garden-like elements are involved, has roads open to the public
in the daytime, but it is completely closed at night and up to the
present time the roads have not been open to automobiles.

In an area the size of the New York Botanical Garden, we
believe that automobile roads for circulation within the area
are necessary and desirable, although for the public benefit to
be derived from the Botanical Garden as such it is extremely
desirable, as heretofore indicated, that every possible care should
be exercised to minimize the danger and annoyance of frequent
crossings at grade of these roads and the main routes of circulation
for people on foot.

But the successive and almost independent steps in the develop-
ment of the main lines of through-travel for automobiles in this
part of the Borough of the Bronx, have placed the Garden in the
path of some of the most important of these lines and thrown
upon its roads a burden of through-trafic which is already a
very serious problem and bids fair to become immensely worse.

The completion of Bronx River Parkway, debouching from
the north into what was evidently designed as a local loop
road for circulation wholly within what is now the Botanical
Garden, taken in connection with the prior opening of the Grand
Concourse (laid out long after the establishment of Bronx Park
and the design of most of its roads), opens through the Garden,
on roads very ill adapted to the purpose, what is plainly destined
to be one of the most busily thronged automobile thoroughfares
leading in and out of Manhattan.

25

Both for the benefit of this through-traffic as such and for the
benefit of the Botanical Garden as such, a radical improvement
in this situation seems almost imperative. It is possible that the
City may find a Way to open a new and more direct connection
for this great line of through-traffic independent of the Botanical
Garden, between the Grand Concourse near its present northern
end and a point in the southerly part of Bronx River Parkway
north of the Garden. (See Map B.) Also there is even more
reason to hope for the contemplated connection of Bronx River
Parkway Drive with the northern end of Bronx Park East, the
complete opening and improvement of the latter to Pelham
Parkway, and its ultimate extension across Pelham Parkway
into Boston Post Road. Such by-passes, if provided, would
greatly ease the situation, but even so 1t would remain far from
satisfactory.

Certainly if this is not done, and probably even if it is done,
there should ultimately be a shorter and less tortuous road, on
good lines and grades and of ample width, following as closely
as practicable the westerly boundary of the Botanical Garden
and substantially independent of all its routes of interior circula-
tion, from Bronx River Parkway Drive at a point north of the
northwest corner of the Garden lands to Southern Boulevard,
which borders the southern part of the Garden on the west, and
connecting at grade, conveniently, with the roads which cross into
the Garden over the railroad at Woodlawn Road, at Mosholu
Parkway and at Bedford Park Boulevard (200th Street).

Such a road or parkway for through-traffic, because of the
necessity for connecting with the bridges over the railroad,
should be built largely in heavy fill, on a broad embankment
that would provide a platform for a tall and dense border planta-
tion serving ultimately to screen from the landscape of the
Botanical Garden not merely the railroad but the very conspic-
uous miscellaneous buildings on the higher ground to the west,
far better than they can ever be screened otherwise. And fetes
such an embankment-road the throngs of people using it would
be able to overlook and enjoy in passing the neighboring portions
of the Garden without invading it or coming into conflict with
those who resort to the Garden primarily for its own sake.

As a matter of intelligent city planning we believe that ulti-
mately a branch of such a thoroughfare should be, and probably
will be, provided directly south near the railroad to Fordham
Road along the edge of the Fordham University property. We
understand that this is now prohibited by legislation secured in
the supposed interests of Fordham University; but looking to

[ 26 |

the remote future we cannot but believe that the time will come
when it will be to the interest of all concerned to complete such
a connection in a properly designed manner. ‘This possibility
obviously reinforces the importance of such a through-traffic
line as we have suggested along the westerly boundary of the
Garden, whether the City does or does not open the independent
connection between the north end of the Grand Concourse and
‘Bronx River Parkway.

There has long been an agitation for a street across the Bronx
valley from the end of Burke Avenue on the east to some point
on Webster Avenue. This proposal first took the form of a high-
level viaduct substantially on the north line of the Garden lands.
This was indefinitely postponed because of its excessive cost.
The project now comes up again in the form of a descending earth-
fill embankment from the end of Burke Avenue, crossing by
bridges over the road which connects the Garden with Bronx
River Parkway, and over the Bronx River, coming nearly down
to the elevation of the meadow along the northerly line of the
Garden land at a point between the river and the railroad, thence
curving across the northwest corner of the Garden land and rising
on an embankment adjacent to the railroad so as to meet the
grade of the existing bridge over the railroad at the Woodlawn
Road Entrance. This latest proposition, besides being less costly,
can be made in its ultimate effect a much less conspicuous in-
trusion on the landscape of the Garden than a high-level viaduct.
Its immediate effect would be very distressing through the sub-
stitution of high, raw earth-banks where many well-grown trees
now exist; but if these banks are liberally and skilfully graded and
composed of material suitable for the vigorous growth of permanent
trees and underplanting, and if they are properly planted, they
can be made in due time to furnish a good enframement of the
Garden, especially desirable on the railroad side.

The portion of this embankment road which would parallel
the railroad from the north boundary of the Garden to the Wood-
lawn Road Entrance bridge would coincide with the west-side
through-travel route previously discussed, and if the City under-
takes the work it is highly important for the Garden that the
grading plans be worked out in such a way that the slopes can
be counted on as permanent, that trees can be promptly planted
on them and grown to maturity. It would be a shame to permit
the work to be done in such a way that after beginning by the
destruction of the now-existing trees it would leave the new
plantations subject to probable destruction by a future widening
of the embankment when the west-side through-route is opened.

ed

South of the Woodlawn Road Entrance the construction of the
west-side through-route may be quite remote, but we believe it
would be most unwise to proceed except upon the assumption
that it will ultimately be constructed. Its precise location and
grades and the eastern limits of the regrading necessary in con-
nection with it we have not attempted to determine. Obviously
the operation as a whole should be so designed as to minimize the
disturbance to the Garden to the utmost degree consistent with
securing (a) satisfactory grades, alignment and width for the
through-road, (b) the best possible permanent bordering planta-
tion for the landscapes of the Botanical Garden, and (c) inciden-
tally attractive park-like qualities for the enjoyment of users of
the through-road, including pleasant views over the Garden while
maintaining an effective barrier, for police purposes, between this
road and the interior of the Garden. Our impression is that a con-
tinuous, dense, high, but narrow screen of trees and under-
growth should be provided between the road and the railroad;
that the slope toward the Garden should be more openly and
intermittently planted; and that the permanent fence between
the road and the Garden might in many places take the form of a
mere parapet supported by a high retaining-wall so as to permit
unobstructed views of the Garden without facilitating trespass
and at the same time minimize the encroachment of the slope-
grading on the present plantations of the Garden.

We assume, then, such a west-side through-traffic road, as a
fundamental part of a comprehensive plan for the Botanical
Garden.

With this new through-traffic line and the complete improve-
ment of Bronx Park East, the interior roads can be wholly or
almost wholly relieved of the burden of through-traffic, and some
of them could advantageously be eliminated. One road in par-
ticular seems to us unnecessary and undesirable under such con-
ditions. This is the one which extends past the easterly corner
of the Museum and across the Water Gardens. As long as it
remains, it will offer a temptation to high-speed through-travel
by automobiles and motor cycles between the Southern Boulevard
Entrance and Bronx River Parkway. It will also interpose a
very objectionable traffic-line between the Museum, with other
features yet to be developed in its vicinity, and the entire area
of the Garden to the east of it. Incidentally it constitutes a
strongly marked line in the landscape composition, having a very
awkward and unpleasant relation to the orientation of the large
and dominating architectural mass of the Museum itself.

We are inclined to think that the steep road which now runs

[ 28 |

from the hollow below the Iris Garden up over the ridge and
down to the junction of Southern Boulevard and Pelham Park-
way, could advantageously be eliminated. To do so would cer-
tainly be advantageous to the great majority of people who visit
the Garden on foot, and would remove one element of danger
and complexity at the important traffic-junction where it now
makes a five-corner intersection. It would also facilitate a more
useful and more beautiful treatment of the Iris Garden unit
through which the road now runs.

On the other hand, certain additional road construction is
necessary to complete a satisfactory system of interior circula-
tion for the Garden.

One such addition of unquestionable importance is a link
across the river somewhere south of the Gorge, so as to avoid
the necessity of going outside of the Garden enclosure into
Pelham Parkway and back again into the enclosure in passing
between the southeasterly and southwesterly parts of the land.
In our opinion such a road and bridge, while ultimately neces-
sary, are far less urgent than many other improvements. But
it is extremely important to fix the precise location and grades
of such a future road because of its intimate relation to the
design of all the adjacent areas, within which improvements in
maintenance, in planting, in the path system, etc., are needed.
These should all be directed toward a well-studied landscape
treatment into which this road will fit perfectly whenever it is
built. In other words, the design of this road and bridge ought to
be part of a design for the permanent treatment of the two land-
scape units to the north of it—namely the Hemlock Gorge
unit and the suggested Landscape Garden unit — and of the
picnic grove unit to the south of it; and no permanent improve-
ments should be attempted in any ‘of these areas until the plans
for all have been worked out with a considerable degree of
finality. Our present impression is that the best line for the road
would be, very roughly, as indicated on Map A. This shows
alternative lines for the easterly end of the road, choice between
which can not be made without working out the details with
much care. In any case the road ought not to be permitted to
encroach upon the natural southern and southeastern limits of
the topographic unit suggested for development as a Landscape
Garden. And probably in any case an underpass should be
provided for a foot-path connecting that unit with the picnic
grove unit.

The proposal of a west-side parkway for through-traffic out-
lined at the beginning of this portion of the Report, together with

[29 |

the development of the vicinity of the Museum, discussed in the
following section, Part V, necessitates a revision of the vehicular
approach to the Museum and of the connection along its west-
erly side with the roads in the Fruticetum. As to the latter con-
nection, it would be almost as undesirable to force vehicles, cir-
culating within the Garden between the vicinity of the Frutice-
tum and the vicinity of the Museum and points further south,
to go outside the Garden enclosure into the contemplated through-
travel road and back again, as it is to force out into Pelham Park-
way the vehicles that need to cross the Bronx River in the
southerly part of the Garden. And for reasons already indi-
cated we believe it would be far better to provide such an in-
terior circuit west of the Museum and the Water Gardens, even
at the expense of considerable local regrading and replanting,
than to maintain permanently the present road in the heart of
the Garden northeast of the Museum.

The location of the present east-and-west road south of the
Museum through the center of the valley which lies between the
Museum and the ridge northeast of Conservatory Range No. 1,
and the concurrent splitting of this valley into two halves of con-
trasting treatment — the northeast half occupied on the Museum
axis by a formal approach to the Museum which begins abruptly
in the very middle of the valley unit, while the southwest half is
treated as an open informal landscape — is to us very distress-
ing and esthetically self-contradictory. Some permanent cross-
connection for the interior circulation of vehicular traffic some-
where between the Museum and Conservatory Range No. 1 seems
essential. The best place for it we are not yet sure of, because
it is involved with three other very perplexing problems which
will be discussed in the next section of the Report.

Briefly there seem to be four possible solutions: One would
be to leave the cross-road substantially where it is but to unify
the valley by applying the same kind of landscape treatment to
both its halves; either by extending a generally formal treat-
ment southwesterly across the valley from the Museum to the
opposite ridge, this treatment being traversed by the cross-road;
or by curtailing the formal treatment to the immediate vicinity
of the Museum and leaving the entire heart of the valley treated
informally but still traversed by the cross-road. A second would
be to shift the cross-road much closer to the Museum and leave
the entire heart of the valley open for treatment as a single unit,
either informal or formal, but undivided by a road. A third
would accomplish a similar result by shifting the cross-road much
further from the Museum to a position fairly well up the slope

L 30 J

on the southwesterly side of the valley. A fourth would be to
remove the road entirely from the valley by resorting to the old
road line just to the northeast of Conservatory Range No. 1.

Upon the whole, as well as we can judge without working out
thoroughly the problems discussed in the next section of this
Report, it would seem that number three or number two of the
above alternatives would hold the best promise of first-rate
ultimate results. These two are roughly indicated as alternatives
-on Map A.

Under the circumstances, clearly, no considerable permanent
changes should be undertaken in the area between and surround-
ing the Museum and Conservatory Range No. 1 until a satisfac-
tory general plan for this whole area has been worked out and
agreed upon, unless they are such as would surely fit in with
any one of the above mentioned alternatives.

Only one other additional road for interior circulation has oc-
curred to us as at all desirable, and we are not yet entirely con-
fident that it 1s worth while. The road now under construction
from the Rose Garden to the Allerton Avenue Entrance is in part
ugly and positively dangerous in alignment and grade. The
most objectionable points are where it crosses the Lake Valley
and near the undeveloped Arboretum Entrance. It is apparently
possible to lay out a substitute for this section of the road on
good lines and grades, by swinging off from this newly built
road at a depression southwest of the Propagating Houses,
crossing by an arch over the ravine east of the Lorillard Mansion
and from there to the Rose Garden following approximately the
old Lorillard approach road. In this position the road would
overlook, without intruding upon, the Landscape Garden dis-
cussed in Part III, Section 4, and would make it possible to by-
pass or entirely to eliminate that section of the newly constructed
road which now injures by its embankment the Lake Valley and
which has the only steep and dangerous gradient and curve in
the Garden road-system.

There are various other adjustments of roads and road-junc-
tions, mostly of a minor sort but important in the aggregate,
which ought to be made in order to adapt what were designed
as park drives for horse-drawn vehicles to use as automobile
roads in a botanical garden; but we will here mention only one,
the very confusing junction in the Fruticetum north of the Water
Gardens. This ought to be radically changed and simplified for
the convenience and safety of traffic, and we believe it can at
the same time be so handled in connection with the readjustment
of the Fruticetum planting as to improve the appearance of
this part of the Garden very materially.

srl

PART V
VICINITY OF THE MUSEUM

Three main problems are here presented which we have found
very perplexing, and the best solution of which we do not yet
feel confident that we have found. One problem is that of the
appearance of the Museum building in relation to its surroundings
and of those surroundings in relation to it. The second problem
is that of the most effective use, for the purposes of the Garden,
of the area immediately surrounding the Museum and lying
between it and Conservatory Range No. 1 and westward to the
railroad. The third is that of making a far better impression
upon the great number of visitors who enter the Garden in this
vicinity, both from the rapid transit lines and by automobile; and
at the same time, while making such a strongly agreeable im-
mediate impression, inducing them to disperse rapidly to various
parts of the Garden instead of congesting near the entrances.

As to the first, our frank opinion is that the present conditions
are esthetically very bad. Considered simply as a piece of
architecture, apart from relation to surroundings and without
allowance for any limiting conditions which may have necessitated
the present design, the exterior of the Museum building could not,
we believe, be regarded by any competent critic as an artistic suc-
cess. The story above the main cornice is peculiarly unfortunate
in its effect on the silhouette and general proportions of the building.
And for a building situated, as this is, in a large open landscape,
the high-shouldered effect thus produced is particularly unhappy.
Looking forward to the time when extensive additions will be
made to the north, it would seem worth while seriously to con-
sider the total elimination or radical change of the present top
story at that time. It may even be worth while to consider,
in connection with the possibility of very extensive future addi-
tions, whether the present building could be entirely enclosed
in and masked by such extensions, with a radical change of
architectural character; as was done with the original ugly units
of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The effect of the building is very much worse as seen from a
westerly direction, where the ground falls away rapidly from the
basement level of this high building-mass and where there are
no supporting trees near it, than as seen from southerly and
southeasterly directions, where the ground is more nearly level
and there are numerous large trees to compose with it.

It was doubtless this rapid falling-away of the ground to the
westward which dictated the narrowness of the formally sym-

L 32 J

metrical treatment of the axial approach to the building from
the southwest. The strip of land occupied by this approach,
with its four rows of fine tulip trees, is in considerable fill all
along its northwestern edge and this fill drops off abruptly and
rather skimpily to what appears to be the original natural sur-
face of the ground just outside the outermost row of trees; whereas
the facade of the building extends far beyond this line.

The result is to divide the landscape opposite the long facade
of the building into three distinct parts, of three totally different
characters, the combined relations of which to the building seem
to us most unfortunate.

The formal treatment on the axis is too narrow to furnish
in itself an adequate setting for the frontage of so wide a building,
and yet is so massive that, instead of seeming a mere incident
within a unified open space relating as a whole to the whole
facade, it almost completely divides the open space. This effect
is exaggerated by the marked lack of symmetry between the
two resulting pieces of open space on opposite sides of the axis,
both as to levels and as to the presence and absence of trees.

In relation to so big a building, emphatically symmetrical in
design, the formal treatment on the axis seems to us, therefore,
an unfortunate compromise between two alternative schemes
either of which might be good.

In one of these possible schemes the building would face upon
a broad park-like space of more or less undulating topography,
not rigidly symmetrical about the axis of the building, but not
so markedly unsymmetrical as to the grades in immediate contact
with the walls of the building or its terraces as to produce a
limping effect. In such a scheme, not predicated upon extending
the perfect symmetry of the building far beyond its walls, the
approach road, instead of being straight and axial for a distance of
some 400 feet (or about half-way across the topographic unit
in front of the building) and there breaking into asymmetry,
would probably sweep up on curving lines from right and left
to a formal forecourt in immediate contact with the building.

The other scheme would be to formalize the treatment of
the land on which the building fronts to a width comparable
with that of the facade itself, and would probably extend this
forma] treatment out along the axis of the building (although
not necessarily at the same width throughout) to the opposite
side of the topographical unit over which the eye sweeps as one
looks out from the building; in other words, to the opposite side
of the valley.

The first scheme could originally have been carried out success-

pag

fully at less expense than the second. It probably could now be
carried out at less expense, although only by the sacrifice of the
well-grown tulip tree avenues and some other features of the
present scheme. It would, however, require that a large area,
certainly not less than 20 acres, near the Museum and between
it and the Conservatory, should be kept permanently in a rather
broad, open, park-like treatment, which would be suitable for
the exhibition of a limited number of well-grown specimen trees
but for hardly any other specifically botanical garden purposes.

We are inclined to believe that this area, so conveniently ad-
jacent to the Museum, to the Conservatory and to transporta-
tion services, ought to be much more intensively used than would
be possible under such a broad, simple, park-like treatment; that
it should include, for example, provision for diversified exhibition
gardens and kindred purposes.

Such intensive use for various appropriate botanical garden
purposes might conceivably be worked out in a series of units
almost wholly informal and naturalistic in character; but for
many of them there would be much more assurance of securing
results good of their kind and at the same time compact, efficient
and easily maintained when visited by large numbers of people,
if they were frankly artificial or formal in their arrangement.
Such units, suitably designed and disposed, could be provided
with backgrounds and enclosing and separating masses of trees,
whether deciduous or coniferous or both, which would constitute
part of the botanical collection of trees and would be quite as
numerous as could be provided for in a rather open park-like
treatment such as has hitherto been attempted in this region, if
not more so.

On the theory of more intensive use, therefore, the second and
more ambitious scheme involving a considerable amount of for-
mally planned development as distinguished from a mainly nat-
uralistic landscape, would seem to be the better.

With either kind of general scheme, although more readily
perhaps in one characterized by the more extensive use of formal
elements in the plan, it would be feasible to provide in this vicin-
ity for the proposed Garden House and a representative Formal
Garden of the most exquisite sort, as previously discussed in
Part III, Section 4.

In our preliminary report we ventured to suggest one possible
site for such a Garden House and for the Garden in connection
with it, but we are by no means satisfied that these would be the
best locations, nor can the best locations be determined without
developing a complete plan for the entire area in question.

L 34 J

Whether a mainly informal scheme or a more largely formal
scheme is adopted, a permanently satisfactory result in this part
of the Botanical Garden can in our opinion be attained only by
radical, extensive and costly changes. Plans for either kind of
scheme, sufficiently well worked out to be dependable and to be
clearly explanatory of the results to which they would lead—
such plans, in other words, as the Managers should have before
them at the time of reaching a definite decision in a matter of
such importance and involving commitment to such large expendi-
tures—can be prepared only with much study and labor. Every
- part would be so interlocked with other parts that it would be
unsafe to stop short of working out all the parts in considerable
detail, continually revising and adjusting until a satisfactory and
harmonious whole is quite certainly assured.

We have made numerous diagrammatic and partial studies in
hopes of being able to illustrate and clarify our general state-
ments above, but those which show enough features to be really
explanatory go further and appear to commit us to more definite
conclusions than is safe without much more thorough and de-
tailed planning than we have felt to be justified at present.

If it is thought that there would be a reasonable prospect of
carrying out such a radical plan of improvement in the vicinity
of the Museum as we have outlined above, we should be interested
to work it out in definite form so that at least the pros and cons
could be thoroughly canvassed and clearly understood. To do so
is so much of an undertaking that we hesitate to embark upon it
and to ask the donors of our services to pay for it, without know-
ing whether the Managers would be inclined to consider such a
proposition favorably.

There is, however, one part of any plan for this vicinity about
which more needs to be said, and about which something even
might be done in the way of execution without dangerously com-
plicating the main problem of how to treat the valley between
the Museum and the Conservatory ridge. We refer to the recep-
tion and initial distribution of the throngs of visitors who enter
from the terminal of the Elevated Railway.

It is important, as has already been pointed out, to induce the
rapid dispersal of visitors, and it might be held that a more in-
tensive development in the vicinity of the Museum and Conserva-
tory would necessarily defeat this purpose and lead to congestion.

There are, however, two sides to this question. A large propor-
tion of the visitors, especially of those on foot delivered by the
rapid transit lines, have no definite objective when they enter the
Garden. Also most of them are lazy about walking far; and, if

sal

confronted, upon entering, by a relatively uninviting prospect
with few objects of much attractiveness immediately beyond
them, are extremely apt to settle down or to “mill around”’ near
the entrance without going much further. The mere fact of the
existence of interesting things half a mile away, which they can
not see and do not know about, is very little inducement to their
dispersal. We believe that a better theory even for the mere
purpose of dispersing the public and inducing them in large
numbers to penetrate into the interior of the Botanical Garden,
and certainly a better means of making them promptly interested
and satisfied, is to provide from the very start a series of markedly
attractive prospects, leading on from one to another in several
different directions, so as to “toll” them along; making what they
see at each step offer a direct inducement to go further; drawing
some to the right and some to the left and some straight ahead;
but, no matter which course they choose, leading them onward
step by step and making continued movement psychologically
inviting.

We think that no one who studies the conditions on the ground
can deny that those who arrive by the Elevated Railway at the
western corner of the Garden (the route of approach which is
apparently used by the largest numbers and is likely to remain
so) upon arriving at the end of the causeway near the men’s
toilet house are confronted with a very uninviting prospect.
They debouch abruptly on a disagreeable and dangerous grade
crossing of two automobile roads. Some of them are deflected
at once into the not unattractive little cu/-de-sac between the
railroad and these roads. Those who cross the roads find
themselves crossing a broad path nearly at right angles
to their course and in neither direction showing anything that
is very inviting or likely to draw them aside. Ahead of them
rises an uncomfortably steep path in rather poor condition and
again not presenting any immediately inviting prospect, al-
though beyond the top of the rise the Conservatory looms above
the foliage in a way that suggests something interesting in that
direction.

If in the absence of other immediate attraction and of a
knowledge of just how to reach more distant points of interest,
they pursue this mild invitation to a slightly toilsome ascent,
they reach the west corner of the Conservatory terraces in a
rather unimpressive way and find their way around either to the
main entrance court on the southwest side of the Conservatory
or to the flower garden on its northeast side, whence they can
drift along pleasantly enough through part of the Pinetum to the

L 36 J

Herbaceous Grounds and so to the east or southeast, entirely
by-passing the vicinity of the Museum.

To reach the latter from this important entrance the normal
route is to turn abruptly to the left after crossing the two road-
ways and descend on a distinctly uninviting path, shut off
from the main body of the Garden area by a hillside rather un-
interestingly planted. This hill must be passed by a walk of a
sixth of a mile, parallel with and looking toward the automobile
roads and the railroad, before entering the main cross-valley
between the Conservatory ridge and the Museum. This valley
is entered at an elevation which does not present an attractive
or inspiring view of such landscape quality as the valley has and
does not lead the eye and invite the steps to the very delightful
region east of it. The Museum looms into view in one of its less
attractive aspects, but to those who are more interested in out-
door than in in-door matters a walk of fully a third of a mile in-
tervenes before they begin to find themselves in surroundings
which have the quality so much to be desired, upon entering the
Garden, that of giving immediate delight while stimulating to
press onward.

This is negative criticism. To take the constructive side,
without pretending to submit a final solution, let us imagine
how a solution might be approached from the point of view, let
us say, of a stage manager bent upon getting certain fairly
definite pleasurable reactions from large numbers of people and
ready to spend money freely to get his “effects.”

Starting from the station of the Elevated they would be led,
as now, through a belt of trees rising from the low land on either
side of the causeway which they must traverse to reach solid
ground. This is the one admirable feature of the present ap-
proach — a sort of sylvan screen, in passing which to brush off,
as it were, the impressions of the utterly urban commonplace-
ness of the railway mechanism. The sylvan character could well
be more complete, more overarched and umbrageous; it could
well extend somewhat further along the route; and instead of
adhering to the boundary of the property the causeway might
well strike at once diagonally into it, so that the surroundings on
both sides would be permanently controllable. It would almost
certainly be made to rise on a gentle gradient so as to pass
across the two automobile roads, above grade, probably by an
arched bridge of sufficient width to carry a narrow plantation of
shrubbery on either side, after the manner of the bridges which
carry roads and paths across the transverse traffic-roads of
Central Park, arriving at grade upon the flatter portion of the

L 37]

hillside west of the Conservatory, where the main lead would
debouch from the shut-in sylvan vestibule upon an open sunny
space, rich with color of flowers and well-kept, smooth, green
turf; strongly enclosed on the northwesterly side, toward the
railroad and the city and the direction of bleak winds, by a dense
enframement of tall-growing full-foliaged trees. The present
enframement of the space on the southeast is fairly good, with
its inviting glimpse of the Conservatory dome and its suggestion
of specifically horticultural interest. This unit of first impres-
sion, about a hundred yards in length from southwest to north-
east, would occupy the space where the word “ Pinetum ”’ first
occurs upon the Guide Map, but where in fact are ill-kept, im-
poverished slopes of grass, bordered by weak and dwindling
firs, of species which have proved not to thrive in such a locality.
In character of design this unit might be anything rich and vigor-
ous and gay and inviting, but perhaps a rather sophisticated
naturalistic treatment might be best, a foretaste im petto of the
prevailing characteristics of the Botanical Garden as a whole,
as an antechamber to the principal elements of formal design
adjacent to the Conservatory and the Museum, through which
or past which lies access to the main body of the grounds.

Before entering this unit of first impression, but just within
sight of it, would branch easily to the right a path of direct
approach to the main entrance court on the southwest side of
the Conservatory, so treated as to give a glimpse suggestive of
the kind of interest to be found by following that course. Passing
through the unit of first impression one would cross the main
path or paths of the flower garden which lies northeast of the
Conservatory at a grade and in a way which would give glimpses
of that garden, inviting some to turn aside, while the main lead
would continue northeasterly at easy grades through successive
minor units of informal character but individual, distinctive
interest, all backed up by heavy tree plantations on the north-
westerly side, to a point on the hillside pleasantly overlooking
the valley southeast of the Museum. Here the choice would
be open of proceeding, on the one hand, directly toward the Muse-
um, from a point on its axis at a distance of rather more than
two hundred yards from the building, or, on the other hand,
through the valley to the plainly visible and very pleasant and
inviting region south of the Museum, through which to reach
the Herbaceous Grounds, the Economic Garden, the Hemlock
Grove, the Water Gardens, and all that lies beyond them.

Because of its grades, because of the sense of at once getting
into the heart of things, and because of leading on insensibly

L 38 J

from one point of attraction to others beyond it, such an entrance
scheme would be incalculably more effective than the present
one, and as already indicated could be made to fit in with almost
any final treatment of the main cross-valley near the Museum.

If actually put into execution before the latter was finally
planned, it would involve some path-building and other minor
changes in the valley which would have to be regarded as tem-
porary and subject to modification. For that reason and because
they are otherwise so closely related to the vicinity of the Museum
we did not include this group of entrance improvements with
the others listed in Part IIJ. But if the Managers, in view of
the urgency of other matters and the large cost of any radical
improvement in the vicinity of the Museum, should see fit to
postpone decision as to the latter for a long time it might be
worth while to consider the improvement of this entrance inde-

pendently thereof.

IN CONCLUSION

The purpose of this Report is in part to point out needs and
opportunities for bettering the grounds of the New York Botanical
Garden, in part to set before the Managers, some of the rather
complicated and far-reaching considerations which ought con-
stantly to be kept in view whenever a decision affecting any part’
of the grounds confronts them, in order that they may make
each decision wisely for the Garden as a whole and avoid snap-
judgments.

It is not in itself a program, but it may become a useful basis
for a program to be adopted by the Managers, definite as to the
near future and tentative as to the more distant future.

It is not at all in the nature of a set of plans and specifications
for all or any of the modifications suggested. So far as any of the
suggestions it contains may be embodied into a program by the
Managers, the first step in the physical execution of any part of
that program should be the preparation of plans and specifications
so thorough and detailed that the Managers, with the aid of their
various amine advisors, can assure themselves in advance
exactly what is proposed to be done, just how it is to be done,
how it will affect other parts of the program, and what it involves
financially and administratively both in first execution and in
proper maintenance. The Managers and the Director-in-Chief
of the Botanical Garden are in a wholly different situation in
such matters from the owner of a private estate, whose purposes
may be admirably served if, with a fairly consistent and intelli-
gent idea of the kind of place he wants, he authorizes a succession

L390

of improvements in general terms and leaves the details of execu-
tion of each, within reasonable limits of cost, to be settled as the
work proceeds by designers and executives in whom he has
confidence, without requiring complete plans and specifications
in advance. The difference is not merely that the Managers
have a fiduciary obligation to take fewer chances than a man may
reasonably do with his own property, but also that the purposes
to be served are far more complicated and enduring and proposals
need to be scrutinized in detail from more diverse technical
points of view before final commitments are made.

Respectfully submitted,
(Signed) OLMsteD BroTHERsS

L 40 |

APPENDIX A

A record of actual cases giving comparative figures of maintenance labor and
maintenance costs. Referred to on pages 7 to 9 of the Report.

We have classified this record in accordance with the three
classes of maintenance given on page 8 of the Report.

It should be stated that these figures are only approximate,
because in some, and perhaps most, cases it was not possible to
eliminate all the factors that should have been eliminated or
to include all the factors that should have been included. How-
ever, they are close enough to serve as a basis for discussion and
estimating. Labor is figured on the basis of $4.00 for an 8-hour
day, 288 days in a year. The reason for not stating where the
various areas referred to are located is that some people preferred
not to have their data openly published; although none of them,
probably, would object to having them passed around privately.

Crass |

In this class the labor upkeep for the year consists of the equiv-
alent of one man per year for 24 to 2 acres. It comprises such
areas as described under (e) on page 7, examples being the Rose
Garden, Herbaceous Garden, the gardening effects immediately
around Conservatory Range No. 1.

There are about 40 acres of this class in the Garden.

A Pusuic Rose GARDEN
Maintenance costs
Labor peracreperyear. . . SL Sano BPO OOO
Supplies and teaming per acre per Vette Ain (nel aOlOo

$2,000.00
Rate per year = 1.327 acres per man.
A Private Format (walled-in) GarDEn,
a part being a rose garden. Area 4/5 acre.
Rate per year = 0.53 acre per man
(A little teaming extra.)
An HERBACEOUS AND ANNUAL GARDEN,
for supplying cut flowers for the house.
Area 34 acre.
Rate per year = 1.12 acres per man.
(A little teaming extra.)

L 41 ]

A Pusuic City Park,

of a highly ornate and sophisticated kind, comprising
ornamental trees and shrubs, hand-mown lawns,
“bedding-out,” statues, pools, and so on. Area
24 acres.
Maintenance costs

Labor per acre per year

Supplies and teaming per acre per year

Rate per year = 1.272 acres per man.

A Pusiic HerBaceous GARDEN
Area 4 acres, about half of which is lawn,
Maintenance costs
Labor per acre per year
Supplies and teaming per acre per year

Rate per year = 1.087 acres per man.

Crass: il

$906.40
154.00

. $1,060.00
: 375.00

$1,060.40

$1,435.00

In this class the labor upkeep for the year consists of the

equivalent of one man per year for 2-6 acres.

It comprises such

areas as described under (d) on page 7, examples being the
Cherry Garden, Fruticetum, and perhaps the lawn areas around
the Museum. There are about 75 acres of this class in the

Garden.

A SupurBan Prace. Design rather complex, outline of lawn very irregular.

Area 1.80 acres, composed as follows:
Buildings . .
Roads and yards.
Garden (mostly vegetable)
Lawn.
Balance (trees and shrubbery ‘with a few paths
and herbaceous beds) .
Maintenance costs
Labor per acre per year
Supplies and teaming per acre per year

Rate per year = 2% acres per man.

SHRUBBERY AND LAWNS ON A SUBURBAN PLACE
Area, 30 acres.
Rate per year = 4.09 acres per man.
(A little teaming extra.)

Quasi-SuBuRBAN Country Pace, excluding farm lands,
including considerable macadam road about 16’ wide,
mostly grass-bordered.

[42]

.18 acres
13 «ce
13 «
Bo en
Bot. oe

$512.00

127,22

$639.22

Landscape portion, 22 acres, composed as follows:

Grounds immediately about house, largely in

turf terraces, with a few beds of annuals. .° . about 3. acres
Nursery . PARA REGS wn
Balance made up of lawn, partly hand-mown among

trees and partly horse- mown, with considerable

areas in trees with undergrowth cake Soh Oy ale elas Ny 27 ae
Rate per year = 2% acres per man.

(A little teaming extra.)

Crass III

In this class the labor upkeep for the year consists of the
equivalent of one man per year for 6-18 acres. It comprises such
areas as described under (b) and (c) on page 7, examples being
the general woodlands of the Garden and the North Meadow.
There are about 265 acres of this class in the Garden.

A Mounicipat Park, of a simple kind, consisting of tree and
shrub plantations, and large areas of meadow or lawn
roughly mown.

Area, 103 acres.
Maintenance costs

Babes peracte peryear) 24 = = | pI27-45
Suppliesand teaming peracreperyear . . . 60.06
$187.51
Rate per year = 9.04 acres per man.
A Country PLace
Area 250 acres, composed as follows:

Brbeiuctcebacldst fo hoy egal ba ee ies eb Re GOO acres
AGEL EN OP EE UD fc NRO. Reese cee Sem aia ek QR
Garden .— - ate N, eater es wees Sees
Orchard, golf- links, rad eens. Counts HL MET REO. Oie Ye
Lawn and shrubbery near garden... Rr
House-grounds (lawn, shrubbery, perennials, % ale oe

road, complex design) : Sy tied oe cul ALON os
Cottage grounds (lawn and scattered trees) CE La io leg
Woodland, about . . . AMOR eet eer kegs Ul 0 i aia

Rate per year (average) = 25 acres per man.

[43 ]

APPENDIX B

More in detail, our ideas as to the Rhododendron Glade and
the ends to be aimed at in its establishment are as follows, sub-
ject, of course, to modification by further conferences with Dr.
Britton.

The scheme of planting would be such as to produce in a large
general way and at all times the esthetic qualities of beauty and
picturesqueness. The effect of hybrid rhododendrons or azaleas
in variety at times of bloom could be gorgeously magnificent so
that the beholder might be fairly carried away in his admiration.

At other times the display of bloom, while perhaps in equally
large masses and equally effective in stirring the beholder, would
be of a more delicate kind, such as is produced by the mountain
laurel, which might be further enhanced by being combined with
ferns, some of which, notably the gossamer fern (Dicksonia
punctilobula), are at their most delicate stage of beauty when the
laurel is in bloom. When not in bloom, there would be the
beauty and interest of variety of form, of varying shades of
green, of the play of light and shadow produced by the thought-
ful disposition of the plants in masses and groups or as indi-
vidual specimens. During the leafless season of deciduous plants
there would be the pleasing contrasts between the greens and
the bronzes of these evergreen ericaceous plants and the leafless
branches and twigs of deciduous subjects.

Hybrid rhododendrons, Carolina rhododendrons, azaleas, lily-
of-the-valley shrub, Japanese fetter-bush, Japanese bell-flower,
would be some of the kinds occurring in large numbers, par-
ticularly over large areas on the slopes; and sorrel trees would
rise above the general mass here and there. Combined with
these would be such smaller growing plants as heath, heather,
bearberry (effective cataracting over rocks), box huckleberry,
lambkill. All of these would be distributed well up and down the
slope, some of them even occurring sparingly on the floor of the
valley.

The many ledges and little rocky declivities would be taken
into account in planting so that these would not be unduly con-
cealed, because they would be an important factor in the beauty
and charm of the place and could be made to compose and con-
trast agreeably with the vegetation.

[ 44 ]

In passing it might be mentioned that Rhododendron maximum
and Rhododendron catawbiense would not occur in this scheme
except as a few plants of each merely to represent the species,
because they have been used abundantly elsewhere in the Garden
and because to make them effective scenically, they would have
to be used in such large numbers as would seriously curtail other
more important effects.

The greater part of the floor of the valley would be a more or
less continuous cover made up of low-growing members of the
family. There might be a quarter to half an acre in cranberry
bog, serving purposes of scenic effect and affording a lesson in
economic botany at one and the same time. Other plants that
should appear over considerable areas, in simulation of the way
they occur in nature, are leatherleaf, Labrador-tea, Rhodora
(if it can be made to thrive), Kalmia angustifolia, Kalmia glauca,
Andromeda polifolia. While in the main this floor-cover should
be low, there could be relief here and there from its continuity
by individuals and small groups of highbush blueberry, swamp
azalea, sweet pepperbush, and even of rhododendrons and
mountain laurel.

While the main appeal would thus be to the esthetic and hor-
ticultural sense, the botanical or scientific would be well pro-
vided for. There would be as complete a representation of the
Ericaceae (including such other families as formerly were a part
of it) as the climate, soil and location would permit; but many
kinds, especially those that would contribute little or nothing
to the general scenic or floral effect by being present in large
numbers would be represented, each by a few individuals or
small colonies so disposed that they could be easily discovered
and examined, especially by those interested in learning about
the family in detail. Examples of this class are species of Da-
boecia, Pyrola, Kalmiella, Dendrium, Menziesia, Epigaea.

It would undoubtedly be desirable to include some plants not
of the Ericaceae for the purpose of enhancing the artistic effect.
Ferns it seems should surely be added. Further, we have in
mind some of the conifers, especially various dwarf yews and
junipers; also hemlocks, both our northern and the Carolina,
and particularly the common inkberry.

The system of paths would be such that the people would be
led around to the various vantage points for obtaining the best
impressions, and also that access would be afforded for the en-
joyment and study of the plants in detail.

Besides path-building, considerable other work of a con-
structive nature would be required. The bottom of the valley

[45]

would have to be filled two or three feet in depth above its
present elevation and drained somewhat in order to provide
the condition suitable for growing the floor-cover vegetation
mentioned in the foregoing. Quite likely it would be found ad-
visable to deepen and otherwise to improve the soil conditions
on the slopes by adding and incorporating leaf-mold, swamp
muck, and the like, and, perhaps, some of the prevalent friable
soil native to the region. Here and there a tree might have to
be cut and the existing tree growth otherwise manipulated in
order to regulate, to as close a nicety as possible, the proportion
of light and shade, a factor to which some of the Ericaceae are
more sensitive and responsive than the common run of plants.
Other constructive work would be that described and implied
in the body of our Report.

The area under consideration comprises about ten acres, but
it is quite possible that it might be increased to fifteen acres
should the growth of the collection of plants make this necessary
or desirable.

[ 46 ]

Resolution of the Board of Managers of

THe New York BotanicaL GARDEN
adopted November 20, 1924

ResoLveD, that the Report of Olmsted Brothers be approved
in principle as a guide for future treatment of the grounds in the
Garden except that there be reserved for future consideration
that part of the Report which deals with the proposed modifica-
tions of the present road system; and that this Report be printed.

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INDEX

Arnold Arboretum, 25
Automobile highway, 26-28
Automobile traffic, 25-31
Border plantations, 13, 26
Botanic Garden style, 16
Bridge across Bronx, 29
Bronx Park East, 26

Bronx River Parkway, 25-27; and Grand Con-
course, 26

Burke Avenue, 27

Cherry Garden, 13, 42

Elevated Railway entrance, 36-39
Fordham University, 26

Formal Garden, 22-24, 34, 41
Formality of gardens, 22
Fruticetum, 12, 42

Gardeners, lack of, 9

Garden House, 22-24, 34

Gorge of Bronx River, 23

Grounds: Classification of, 7-8; cost of main-
taining, 9, 41-43; Herbaceous, 12; mainte-
nance of, 6-11; men required for maintenance
of, 9; need of classification of, 10; importance
of superintendent for, 11; preferential areas
of, Io

Guards, 16
Herbaceous Grounds, 12, 38, 41, 42
Horticultural Garden, 20

Improvements: Constituting new features,

17-24; of existing features, 11-17

Infections in Garden, 10
Iris Garden region, 20
Kew Gardens, 12, 25
Lake Valley, 17, 31
Landscape Garden, 21, 24
Lorillard Mansion, 23-24

Maintenance, 6-11; effects of inadequate, 6;
qualities to be sought in, 16

Model Gardens, 18

Museum: Vehicular approach to, 29-31; vicin-
ity of, 32-39

New features, 17-24

Park Department Greenhouses, 21

Park Department Stables, 18, 21

Path System, 13

Rhododendron Glade, 17, 44

Roads: Across Bronx, 29; across Rhododendron
Glade, 18, 31; east of Museum, 28; from Iris
Garden Entrance, 28; in Fruticetum, 31; in
general, 14; interior, 28-31; near Museum,

29-31
Rose Garden, 31, 41
Superintendent, 11
Tidiness, 16
Visitors, dispersal of, 13, 35
Vistas, 20, 21
Water Gardens, 28, 30, 38

Weediness, 16

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