Gentlemen,—The principal work on the Back Bay continues to be that under the management of the City Engineer, which advances steadily in pursuance of the plan originally adopted, with good results, economically acquired, but mostly under ground or under water and little open to public observation.

In the outlet section, only, a near approach to finished condition has been attained, and, as this comes in view from much-used thoroughfares, increased attention is drawn to the work, and it may be desirable in your Annual Report to meet inquiries that the present appearance of it naturally suggests to those unfamiliar with the circumstances.

It should be understood by all to whom it may have recently come to be of interest that there had originally been a scheme for a public pleasure-ground in the locality, but that, upon representations of the City Engineer and the Superintendent of Sewers, this was, after long deliberations, set aside, because of the necessity of occupying the space with basins in which salt and brackish waters could be temporarily stored, and with other arrangements for regulating the drainage and sewerage of the city. The plan of the works now in progress is determined in its main features and controlled in its leading details by this necessity. It was anticipated that the elements of sanitary security would be so costly that at best it would be impossible to obtain appropriations for carrying on the work with the steadiness and rapidity demanded by the large interests at stake; and it was feared that any considerable modifications of them or additions to them possible to be made, with the object of obtaining results of architectural or gardening stateliness, would perilously overload the scheme.

When, in the midst of a city, much work is seen to have been done in the materials commonly employed in landscape gardening, as earth, soil, manure, trees, plants, rocks and water, it is difficult to suppose that the entire operation is not designed and directed for the gratification of taste. In this case the fact is quite otherwise. It is not from considerations chiefly of taste, for example, that the banks of the basin have been made in considerable part of somewhat monotonous steepness; that the central feature of the entire arrangement has been made with a soil of salt mud instead of a soil adapted to a turfy lawn; that a possibility has been accepted that the water in the basin [229]could not at all times be kept of an agreeable approach to purity or its margin be kept perfectly nice.

There is a question whether, accepting difficulties such as are thus suggested, it will be possible to avoid an offensive incongruity of character between the basins and the structures presumably to be built in the neighborhood in extension of the Back Bay residence quarter of the city, and to be separated from the basins by a broad road and steep banks. The hope is that by means of formal lines of trees on the roadsides and an informal disposition of trees, copses, and thickets on the slopes falling away toward the basins from these lines, the two things will be so far separated by an intermediate element, agreeable in itself, and markedly inharmonious with neither, that the incongruity will be little felt.

However that may be, what is certain is this: that if a pleasing interest of character is to be obtained in views over the basins, it will be far from the interest of a park or a garden. It will necessarily be an interest dependent on conditions of unmitigated rusticity, not at all of the affectation of rusticity, sometimes playfully introduced in close association with polished and elegant conditions. It must depend on elements of scenery and largely on forms of vegetation that may be associated—as they often are by nature with most agreeable effect—with the margins of salt creeks and harsh, weather-beaten headlands. I have an increasing confidence that pleasing results may, in time, be thus obtained, and, probably, before the city will be built about the property; but if so, they will be wholly unconventional, and, it is to be hoped, will not plainly manifest their artificial origin.

In that part of the work now more nearly completed, being the outlet part, north of Boylston Bridge, there are special local features, some reasons for which may be stated.

The circumstances allow a contrast of character to be sought between the banks of this short narrow passage and the miles of banks to be found about the broad basins on the south side of the bridge and the parkway beyond them; and, to make the most of the opportunity, it is desirable here to aim at a degree of variety of form and slope that would otherwise be excessive.

The outflow channel is required by the plans of the Street Department to be carried between two straight lines of bridge abutments at five different points within a distance of less than 600 yards. The intermediate reaches of the channel are too short for expanded pools or a quiet character in the shores and what would otherwise be an excessively wriggling disposition of the banks has the advantage of avoiding a sewer or canal-like directness of channel. Much would have been gained if all the bridges had been of masonry; but the conditions would have made them excessively costly.

It is necessary to use a certain amount of stone at points in the facing of the banks to guard against drifting ice. This gives reason for a buttress-like [230]

[231]abruptness of bank at these points. Such abruptness being accepted, it is better to make a decided feature of it, and let it control the character of the scenery of the outlet in contrast with that of the basins above where there can be no headlands. Large field-stones, have, therefore, been procured from the waste of the city’s gravel banks and piled together to obtain boldness of projection. At present the stones, somewhat unhappy in color, are offensively conspicuous, and the several points have too much repetition of character. They will not only, in time, lose their present rawness of color, but will all, in a great measure, soon disappear under leafage, while, through the difference in the forms of vegetation growing out from between the stones and upon their flanks, their similarity of aspect will be lost.

The ground has been planted with a density which would be excessive were the conditions not extraordinarily bleak. It has been planted also with an excessive variety, and in parts not harmoniously, with the expectation of thinning out a part of the plants when they shall have served their purpose of nurses, and in the meantime of determining experimentally whether certain of them can be depended upon to grow satisfactorily under the extreme exposure of the situation.

Lombardy poplars have been planted on the side of the road by which Boylston Bridge is to be approached from Commonwealth Avenue. The situation is an exceedingly trying one, and, until buildings shall break the force of the wind from the north-west, hardly any trees can be expected to grow in it without acquiring stunted and distorted habits. It is hoped that the poplar, if frequently cut in, will by its vigorous, compact growth, for a time, serve a good purpose.

This row of poplars terminates on the north at a point where, if continued, it would interrupt the prospect from Boylston Bridge over Charles River. The entire scheme of planting is determined with regard to this view; to the reverse view from Commonwealth Avenue through the arch of Boylston Bridge, and to the subordination, as far as practicable, of the railroad and other rigid and uncongenial features of topography.

Respectfully,