The attention of the Board has frequently been called to the manner in which the turf of the Central Park is abused and to the need of more effective measures for preserving it, especially to the necessity of employing a large number of men with the duty of cautioning visitors against breaking the rules for its proper keeping. Two years ago the Board adopted a plan under which a great improvement was gained, but from a necessity of reducing expenditure for maintenance it was soon discontinued and during last summer the misuse of the turf continued and was, as I reported in September, greater than ever before. It followed that during the dry weather fully a quarter of all the turf of the larger open spaces of the South Park was trodden out and eradicated; [140] the soil having no protection was pulverized by those walking on it and blew away in dust. I earnestly beg that the Commissioners will now personally examine these grounds and observe the result. The surface is very uneven owing to the depressions formed as above described and what should be, and once was, a smooth even fabric of fine close turf is a patch work consisting of three parts of poor and tufty grass with one of brown bare earth. The bare parts will probably now soon green over with weeds and annual grasses which will alternately wither and brown and spring up and become temporarily verdant according as the weather shall be hot and dry or cool and moist. These annuals having feebler roots and being in all respects less tough and fibrous than the proper turf grasses will wear out under foot more rapidly and the process above described will, if it is allowed to continue during the present summer, extend further. The result will be that although in the early summer the park will still appear green and promising, at that period when it {is} most resorted to by the mass of the people of the city and it is most important that its appearance should be cheerful and refreshing, it will lack the element most essential to its beauty and without which it can have but little rural charm.

To repair this loss in the most direct, rapid and effective way the ground should be broken up, finely tilled and reseeded. A fine fresh turf might thus be had next year—but the small fund at the command of the Department must for the present prevent any such thorough operation; the next best thing is to level up the worse depressions by the addition of fine soil and to rake in the seed of good perennial grasses on all the bare and thinner parts.

It would be of no avail to do this if the ordinary use of the turf shall be allowed this year as the tender young grass would be at once trodden to death.

If such use is discontinued—if the public can be kept off and the turf be allowed a few months respite from wear—it may recover a tolerable condition. If such use cannot be discontinued it is certain to present a dreary and mortifying appearance and to bring discredit to the government of the city by midsummer of the centennial year.

That the difficulty may be better understood I will repeat and state more fully in what way the turf is abused. First, however, it may be necessary to observe that the greater heat and drought of this climate is most unfavorable to the maintenance of good turf as compared with that of Great Britain and the north of Europe. During a certain period, usually in August, the grasses here lose their ordinary elasticity both in blade and root, their vitality is low and under pressure and friction may be completely exhausted. The dryness of the soil at this period is in the Central Park greater than elsewhere because of the fact that it has nearly everywhere a shallow made soil laid upon a solid flooring of rock. Almost anywhere for example on the Green and between the elm trees of the mall, when the ground is saturated with moisture a walking stick may be thrust down to the rock. When these grounds were prepared it was intended to provide a system of watering by the method in use in the Bois de Boulogne, but the plan which I laid before the Board for this purpose was [141] rejected, partly to avoid the expense of the piping and partly because it was thought that at the season when alone it would be necessary the city could not spare the water for the purpose. Even with watering, however, no such use as the public has here demanded and the Department allowed is made of the turf in the Bois de Boulogne.

The misuse of the turf which has resulted in its present condition as above described has been of three kinds: first, on the days when the public school boys are allowed to play on the Ball Ground & the Green hundreds of others, many of them beyond the school age have mingled with them. Foreman Manning says that often as many as 50 and sometimes as many as 200 full grown men have been on the Green at once, most of them rude fellows who by main force take possession of considerable parts of it, practically excluding the boys & depriving them of their legal rights. On every fair day the number of men and boys has commonly been much larger than should have been allowed.

2d   On days when it has not been legally permissable to walk on the turf it has been much trespassed upon. It is so now. While examining the turf of the Ball Ground this morning, there being but few visitors yet on the park, I saw in ten minutes 15 persons crossing parts of it illegally, without caution, protest or reprimand. Two of them were lying down in a conspicuous position during all of the time. I am informed that last Saturday a party of boys were for sometime playing ball there and I myself checked a party going on with bats, evidently with the intention of playing.

3d   Many walk across the turf, especially near the edges of the walks without reflection that they are doing it an injury or transgressing any rule. This chiefly occurs when the walks are crowded and knots and clusters of people stand so as to force others wishing to move rapidly to step off. As soon as the turf is thus trodden smooth at any point, especially if a distinct foot path is formed, every visitor seeing it reasonably assumes that when so many have been allowed to go before him he is free to follow. In a hot day, especially, the turf or the bare ground where the turf has been is more agreeable than any prepared walk can be, consequently once partially formed the wear upon these foot ways is very rapid.

Experience shows that greater standing, sitting and passing room is required at some points and I should recommend measures for this purpose if I did not know that the Departmnt was so stinted in its means that it would be useless. But such measures would help but little.

There are two ways in which the abuses which have been described may be guarded against. First, by fencing in the walks of the parks. To a certain extent this is done already and the foremen responsible for the condition of the turf, shrubs & plants, knowing that it is the only effectual means which they are at liberty to use are inclined to resort to it much more. It is a means which destroys the charm of the park as the pleasure ground of the people and which proclaims that it is impossible to secure a proper regard for regulations [142] absolutely essential to its preservation except by physical force; a proposition which the earlier experience of the park demonstrated, in my judgment, to be fallacious and unjust.

The other means of guarding against these abuses is that of properly distributing a sufficient number of men who incidentally to other occupations shall have the duty of cautioning visitors against disobeying the laws, of interrupting and remonstrating with those engaged in doing so and in case of need of causing their arrest.

It is utterly futile to expect the park police as at present organized to accomplish the purpose. The Board has sought in vain to obtain means for enlarging its number and has been compelled on the contrary to reduce it. It is insufficient for the proper regulation of the use of the roads alone.

Runaways and collisions owing chiefly to disregard of the rules are of almost daily occurrence, and by each one of them the lives of innocent and orderly visitors are put in peril. Five persons were thrown out or knocked down last week and one lady dangerously injured. A runaway horse has been able to pass at full speed for a distance of more than two miles through the park and out of one of its most frequented gates without arrest. As for the interior walks I have frequently been for hours upon them without seeing a single man bearing a sign of authority to caution or warn visitors or to help them on their proper ways. It is so evidently absurd to interfere with a single visitor in doing what hundreds of others may be doing, that the regulations for preserving the turf and tender plants are practically regarded by the keepers themselves as a dead letter.

I will add that it is also practically impossible for the foremen to repair damages as fast as they occur and to keep the park in as good order as has been usual, with the present force employed. Notwithstanding an unusual degree of activity and industry there is not a single class of all the work of the Departmnt that is not now behind hand or a single division of the park that is adequately manned. The roads are not sufficiently watered and their more rapid wear in consequence will cost more than the wages of the additional force required for watering them.

There is but one working gardener rated and paid as such for each 100 acres of the park and for the care on an average of more than 50.000 trees & shrubs to say nothing of the herbacious plants. The gardeners report from every division of the park the stealing of plants; the withdrawal of the gate keepers from two gates as a measure of necessary reduction of force is at once followed by an invasion of goats, some of them driven in by their owners to browse on the shrubs and girdle the young trees. They may easily damage the park in a single hour to an amount ten times their value to their owners and much more than the wages of the watchmen who would be required to guard against them.

I mention these facts that the Commissioners may be the better prepared for the inevitable consequences of the present policy of the city in reference [143] to the park. It is absolutely necessary that the force should be still further reduced in order to keep the expenses of the Departmnt within the limit fixed by the Board of Apportionmnt or that this limit should be practically enlarged by a reduction of wages.

With respect to the turf, I must advise the Board that the Ball Ground and the mall cannot be put in a condition to be used this summer as heretofore, without causing such injury to them as will destroy their value and as cannot be properly repaired except by breaking up and reforming them another year.

I believe that it would cause the least privation to the public and the least dissatisfaction to suspend ball playing & croquet playing and the usual Saturday and Sunday free range over all the turf of the South Park during the present year. The North Meadows might be prepared for the use of the school boys while the ball ground is recruiting.