[33: 521] This circular will be addressed to a number of men who may be presumed to have had their minds for considerable periods directed to questions of a corresponding character to those which occur in public parks. It is designed to submit to their consideration without concert, a few simple propositions applicable to the managmnt of a park under the circumstances of the Central Park. The object is to ascertain whether those who have given the subject studious attention free from political biases, agree in holding such propositions to have been established and to be so far authoritative and binding that disregard of them implies culpable ignorance, negligence or perversity.

The circumstances in question to be first more particularly considered [584] are these: [33: 524] The Central Park occupies a body of land two miles square (exclusive of parts given to other than park purposes) in what is expected to be the heart of a great commercial city, interrupting its two central avenues and fifty streets which would otherwise cross from one of its navigable waters to another.

[33: 529–32] The circumstances to be particularly considered are that the ground is to be enclosed by high buildings from some of which no part of it will be more than quarter of a mile distant; its surface is diversified but no part of it of higher elevation than the tops of such of those buildings as have been already erected. It is everywhere underlaid with granite rock of which the usual surface form is that of long undulations.

In five sixths of the field the earth, soil and boulders overlying this rock are not naturally on an average more than three feet in depth while at frequent intervals there are outcrops of the ledge and considerable spaces where it is insufficient to sustain large trees or maintain a tolerable turf. By excavating near the base of conspicuous rocks and exposing portions of rock surface originally thinly covered, material has been obtained for increasing the original depth of earth in selected localities, the aim being to obtain the greatest practicable breadths of greensward in the interior parts of the park.

To avoid frequent interruptions of the distinctive use of the park by ordinary street traffic it is crossed in the 2½ miles of its length by four subways, and where those would otherwise be conspicuous the ground is tunnelled. Elsewhere they are everywhere walled to a height of at least 8 ft., the pavement being generally 10 ft below the natural surface. This brings within the park two miles of masonry which has to be considered in addition to the structures which are to surround it and those by which its two principal parts are divided.

The soundness of certain ends which have been had in view in laying it out and of certain principles which have been regarded in pursuing these ends has been often very vehemently denied, never by any landscape gardener, but by men whose influence and authority has nevertheless been sufficient to induce great departures from the courses which would otherwise be pursued. At the present time there is a complete reversal in important particulars of those courses and a profession of counter purposes and principles. It is desired to obtain the judgmnt of those to whom this circular will be addressed upon the questions thus at issue, and it is proposed after returns from it shall have been received to embody the general sentimnt in a paper which will again be submitted for consideration with a view to a public declaration on the subject.

[33: 523] It is hoped that questions growing directly from actual practice may be presented with this object in view, the answers to which will show that a certain footing has been firmly established for Landscape Gardening among the arts of Design and that it is only ignorance which assumes to conduct a public undertaking involving outlays and affecting the value of property [585] to amounts of many millions of dollars in denial of such laws as may thus be recognized as fixed for that art.

[33: 541] The Central Park is a work of more than local and immediate importance. The direct outlay of public money already made upon it amounts to upwards of $15,000,000, important parts of it being yet unimproved, encumbered and unused. The expense in which it must indirectly involve the city will be much larger than that of this direct outlay. Great public treasures in addition to those classed with the park are accumulating within and adjoining it. Not only will these circumstances give it extraordinary celebrity but from its situation in the heart of the principal city of the continent it will be brought more under general observation than any other work of its class.

[33: 526–28] The managment of the Central Park, directly and through the discussions growing out of it must largely influence customs, fashions, manners, opinions and tastes throughout the country. The differences of opinion which now appear upon the subject are so radical they touch the value of property of such enormous value and they are sustained with so much assurance as to leave open to question among all to whom the subject has not been one of special study, whether there are any fixed principles applicable to the treatmnt of pleasure-grounds public or private, or by which the administration of trusts with regard to them needs to be regulated. Doubt on the subject is doubt of the value of all study that has been given to the art of Landscape Gardening by a large number of eminently wise and worthy men and of the utility of the profession of landscape gardening. It is thought that something may be done to lessen this doubt if an expression of conviction can be obtained from the gentlemen to whom this circular will be addressed upon a few simple points, even though a wide field for difference of opinion and diversity of policy shall be left open, and that these points can be best presented in answers to questions having reference to the particular circumstances of the Central Park.

[33: 533–39] Thirty millions of dollars have already been invested in parks by a few of our leading cities and the outlay upon them is continuous. Their actual value depends on their managment from year to year—Their managment is generally controlled by boards the composition of which is subject to change from year to year. No previous knowledge or consideration of anything distinctive in the business of parks is required in the members of these boards. There is a custom of using the term landscape gardening as if there were a recognized art, with fixed laws, in some degree applicable to a part of the business, but some regard this as cant to cover quackery and to few has the term any meaning so far fixed and clear that its use serves otherwise than to darken counsel. It is substantially denied that there are any principles or canons covered by the term that any man of ordinary intelligence may not be presumed to be familiar with or which he may not honorably assume himself [586] qualified to apply under any circumstances, even in cases where the value of millions of trust property is at stake.

If there is ground for this denial it lies in the fact that within the proper field of landscape gardening and under such laws and precepts as constitute the frame work of the art, there is room for such differences of opinion and of practice that to superficial observers there is nothing settled.

This circular will be sent to a number of persons who are known to have given the subject more thorough study than is common and who if not of professional standing may justly be regarded as experts within the limits of landscape gardening which will be brought under consideration. The object will be to demonstrate that, within these, under given circumstances there is a perfectly well established understanding among all men having any authority in landscape gardening, as to what is right and wrong, true and false, reputable and disreputable.

[33: 522] The first proposition is that by no other treatmnt of such a property consistent with its designation as a park can it be given as much value to the people of a great city, as that which will make available to them upon it the enjoymnt of beauty in natural scenery, or in scenery designed to affect the imagination and sensibilities of men by a semblance to natural scenery such as may be accomplished through the art of landscape gardening as its objects, principles and processes have been defined by Gilpin, Repton, Price, Loudon, Downing and other standard authors on the subject.