We lay before you our usual Report for the year upon matters of Design, Construction and Superintendence.

In the work laid out during the year, no essential deviation from the original design has been made, though certain details of importance have been introduced, which will be referred to below. The conditions which had previously prevented work upon the West side of the ground having been [353] removed, the Northern part of the Park has been finished with the exception of a little planting, and this portion of the design will next spring, for the first time, be comprehensively exhibited upon the ground. The main drive on the West side is complete from the entrance to the Lookout Hill, where it meets the Nethermead extension of the East drive, and the public has in use five miles of thoroughly constructed carriageway. A corresponding extent of the surface has been worked over and a large part of it now realizes the design, so far as it can be made to do so by the completion of the mere constructive work.

There are in use, also, five miles of gravelled or concrete walk, and two hundred acres of woodland shrubbery and open meadow surface. The construction of the Park as designed is complete from end to end, East of a line drawn through the middle of it, except at two points, where there are deposits of clay and soil to be used elsewhere. Work is more or less advanced on nine-tenths of the remaining ground, and the larger part of it will be in suitable condition for public use next summer.

The most eventful occurrence of the year has been the completion of the great well, and the Waterworks at its mouth. A very important part of our design depended for complete success upon the practicability of obtaining a certain amount of water by this expedient, and we should hardly have ventured to include so large an extent of lake surface in our design without the encouragement of your President, who had given special personal study to this source of supply, and who had from the outset perfect confidence in its availability. It is therefore a matter of congratulation that the plans prepared by Mr. Martin, as Engineer-in-Charge, and approved after thorough consideration by your Board, have this year been successfully carried out, the present indications being that a considerably larger supply of water will be obtained than it was thought necessary to provide. The general result is, that a provision of excellent cold spring water, sufficient not only to keep the extensive ornamental waters in a condition favorable to health, but to furnish a large number of drinking fountains, has been secured in a manner which makes the Park to a great degree independent of all other sources of supply. A public walk is required to pass the point where, for engineering reasons, the Well occurs, and as many visitors will be desirous of examining it, we have preferred to treat its mouth in such a way that, while perfectly protected, no one can pass without obtaining a somewhat forcible impression of the extent and character of the work. For this purpose the walk, as it approaches the Well from either side, is enlarged so as to include a circular deck, in the middle of which is a railed opening twenty feet in diameter overhanging the outer part of the cavity.

The Boiler House attached to the Well is in a conspicuous position on the lake shore, and we have designed its exterior with special reference to this prominence of situation. In its interior plan a stairway for communication with the pump platform at the bottom of the Well has been provided, so [354] that under proper regulations visitors may have the opportunity of examining the works with ease and safety.

Mr. Martin we are informed, is about to give up the appointment of Engineer-in-charge which he has for some time held under your Commission, having been invited to fill a position in the City of Brooklyn of larger professional responsibility, and we desire to put on record our sense of the value of his services to the Park, not only in the solution of such special problems of construction as the one referred to above, but also in the daily supervision of the various operations that have been necessary to the practical development of the Park design during the last two years.

There has been a more extensive transplanting of trees of a size making the use of special transporting apparatus desirable, upon your ground, than to our knowledge has been attempted elsewhere on the continent. Two trucks of original design prepared by Mr. Culyer, have been used, both operating in a more rapid and economical way than those so extensively employed in Paris. With one of these, trees weighing with the balls of earth attached fourteen tons, and measuring between four and five feet in circumference have been moved. The whole number of trees weighing upwards of one ton and measuring more than one foot in circumference, which have been thus far moved, is six hundred. It is too soon to express entire confidence of permanent success, but from the experience of a single summer of rather trying character, the result promises to be satisfactory and highly creditable to Mr. Bullard, the Park Inspector, who continues the immediate management of the planting.

The Meadow port and Nethermead arches have been completed, and the Lullwood Bridge, constructed of oak on stone abutments, has been carried across an arm of the lake. These works have been under the immediate charge of Mr. E. C. Miller, Assistant Architect.

A building has been constructed on the Parade Ground which has been designed to provide rooms for the use of the military, with apartments for a janitor, and to furnish in addition a partially enclosed shelter for the accommodation of the general public. This structure has been placed at the top of a gentle slope which has been artificially constructed at the western extremity of the Parade Ground for the purposes set forth in the explanation of the design which was included in our special report on the subject submitted for the consideration of the Board prior to the commencement of operations.

The Dairy is now complete so far as the main structure is concerned, and is ready for occupation. The need which this building is designed to serve can be met under very advantageous circumstances in the Brooklyn Park, and is of a different character altogether to that which will be responded to in the Refectory, which is the next building of importance that should be proceeded with. The latter building is intended to occupy a conspicuously prominent position in the immediate vicinity of the Breeze Hill Carriage-Concourse, [355]

the Lookout Hill, the Lake Shore, and the Nethermead, which is a stretch of greensward in the heart of the Park. The Refectory is proposed to be a house of entertainment on a liberal scale, agreeably situated so far as outlook is concerned, but with no more suggestion of privacy or retirement than would be found in a suburban hotel. The Dairy, on the other hand, is intended to meet the same physical need for refreshment, but it is designed to be used by visitors only when in search of a more thoroughly rural experience than can be looked for at any point which furnishes accommodation for an assemblage of carriages. It is of course impracticable anywhere within the necessary limits of a city park, to make sure that visitors shall enjoy a sense of complete rural seclusion, but the inclination which influences those who are able to go far into the country for recreation, is often strong with thousands, who are in no position to leave their business and their families. While, therefore, results which would seem forced or improbable are to be avoided, [356] it is desirable to meet this requirement on a scale that shall be adequate for the purpose. We therefore abandon all ideas of contrasting the publicity of the city with the privacy of deep woods, mountains, lakes, and rocky fastnesses, and accept another ideal altogether, that of pastoral rural life, as the most valuable and universally available one, for the purpose we have in view.

The development of the pastoral idea in its most favorable aspects is possible in a large City Park, and it is the peculiar natural advantage of the ground under your control, that it offers an unusually favorable opportunity for the purpose. A stretch of greensward a mile in length, surrounded by woods, and unbroken by any carriage road, should certainly offer a field of ample dimensions for an illustration of the idea, and this we have in the Brooklyn Park. Thousands of people, without any sense of crowding, stroll about the level or undulating, sunny or shaded turf-spaces that are to be found in this strip of pasture and woodland; and with a careful arrangement [357]

of the planting yet to be done, the number of visitors may be much increased without any interference with the general suggestion.

If, as is now frequently stated in the public prints, the Brooklyn Park is in some respects more attractive than the Central Park in New York, it is because we have from the outset been sustained by your Board in our effort to improve a considerable portion of the ground, with special reference to the development of this element of pastoral effect, in the pursuit of which we have at a few points made considerable changes in the surface of the ground, so as to connect a series of dissevered and isolated patches of comparatively level ground, into one sweep of grass-land that is extensive enough, to make a really permanent impression on the mind. Before this important feature in the general design can be adequately realized by the visitor, it will of course be necessary that sheep and cattle should be allowed to graze in the meadows; beautiful specimens of fine breeds should be selected, and ample provision for their accommodation should be made in suitable stables, connected with an establishment of which the Dairy building would properly form the most important feature.

Full details of the progress of the work during the year, and interesting statistics of the public use of the park, will be found in the appended [358] reports of the Engineer-in-charge and his principal assistants, Mr. Bogart and Mr. Culyer.

It will be observed that the public use of the park has been largely greater than it was during the previous year. It may be remarked also, that a gratifying improvement has occurred in the character of this use; a much smaller proportion of the visits recorded having been from curiosity to examine a new thing, and a much larger part having been made with a view to family and social recreation. The number of domestic pic-nic parties was large, and more than two hundred and fifty Sunday schools and other neighborly and friendly organizations, found suitable accommodations for their pleasure excursions in the woods near and opposite to the Dairy. We are strongly convinced that no other element in the design of your work compares in importance with that which is calculated to suggest, facilitate, and encourage the choice by the people of the City of simple, temperate, healthful, rural and domestic forms of recreation, instead of such as involve a liability to the development of habits of extravagance, and a morbid inclination for the unwholesome excitements of city life.

We desire, in conclusion, to draw attention to the unsettled state of the question in regard to the treatment of the land under the control of the Commission on the East side of Flatbush Avenue. The fact that it continues to be impracticable to make definite calculations as to the disposition of this ground, has a prejudicial effect in reference to the general development of the Park design, and the long continued delay is also attended with many practical disadvantages. The whole subject was fully discussed in our Report made to your Board in 1866, prior to the commencement of active operations, and again in that of last year; and we have simply now to say that the views we have heretofore expressed remain unchanged.