I think it best to offer a few written remarks on some of the matters of my conversation with your Committee last Thursday.

The most important of these matters in my opinion is that which was introduced by your remark upon the forlorn appearance of the turf on the Parade Ground. You rightly attributed this to the habit which some people have of walking across the ground as suits their convenience, chiefly in taking short cuts, and in such a manner that the turf is trodden out in lines and patches. The tendency to sacrifice public to private interests in this respect has seemed to me stronger in the public grounds of Buffalo than in any other with regard to which I have had professional responsibilities. If it continues, as population in the vicinity of the Park increases, it is but a question of time when the beauty of all your public grounds will be destroyed because of the shabby character of what have been designed to be fields of living green. There is no duty resting upon a Park Commission so imperative as that of arresting any tendency that may be seen to such a custom. If it is not arrested the end will be the ruin of the Parks for their main use and the consequent waste of all that has been paid to acquire them. The inconvenience which people seek to avoid in making these short cuts across the turf is the price of the Parks. The evil has only to grow enough through the continued sacrifice of permanent public interest to momentary private interests, to destroy the value of the property which your Board is specially commissioned to guard.

There are two ways in which such waste of the property may be resisted. One is by constant watch for places where a path is beginning to appear and as soon as it is seen, placing obstructions compelling people to avoid walking in those places. In most cases, the simplest and best obstruction will be a light hurdle made in a strong way of stakes like rather thick bean poles, but not more than four feet long; these stakes to be connected by two rails of the same size and material and the whole firmly pegged together. The uprights to have each a sharpened end that they can be set into the ground. Made by the thousand, under contract, they would cost, I suppose, in Buffalo, not more than 25 cents apiece. There should be a lot of them kept on every public ground. It should be the first business every day in summer of some one appointed for the purpose to inspect all the turf spaces of each of your Grounds and so set and shift these hurdles that they will cause people crossing the turf to take courses deflecting from lines upon which a tendency to tread out the turf appears. As many hurdles should be used as may be found necessary on any particular line [593]of transit and no more. With proper vigilance in shifting them, I should think that a hundred would be all sufficient for the Parade. Quite possibly a dozen or twenty would be sufficient after skill had been acquired in so placing and shifting them as to accomplish the purpose with the least number, and after the people who do the mischief had come to understand that the Commissioners and their servants were really anxious to preserve the turf.

In particular cases, some other method of obstruction may be needed, but from my experience it is to be inferred that nine times, at least, out of ten, a judicious use of such hurdles by a vigilant man suitably impressed with the importance of the duty, would serve the purpose. There will be places where a thicket of bushes, or a rock, or some more prominent form of obstruction can be used to advantage, and of course more substantial barriers to passage can be used. They may be of iron, or they may be of scantling in the form of carpenter’s horses. But these will cost more at the start; will be more conspicuous, and as long as the light pole hurdles remain sound, they will be equally effective. All that is needed is a sufficient obstacle to direct passage to make it easier for a man to pass to one side or the other, rather than to keep on a straight course.

The same forms of obstruction thus advised to be used to prevent cross-cuts can be used to check people from walking on the turf outside of made walks. For this purpose such hurdles are to be placed at right angles to the course of the walks. They should be so placed wherever a tendency to form a foot path by the side of the walk appears.

I have never seen a reasonable degree of vigilance and industry employed for the object in the manner I have thus suggested without success. All your Commission has to do is to supply a few hundred suitable cheap hurdles; have men appointed to set and shift them as occasion appears; discharge these men as they are proved incompetent by failing to accomplish the object, and replace them. It is but a question of wages whether competent men shall be had for the purpose. Let wages be advanced, if necessary, until such men are found. Your Board has no duty plainer, simpler, more important than this. It is my deliberate opinion that there is no other outlay to be made on the Parks that will be as profitable as that, whatever it is under vigilant management, which will be necessary to secure the result.

Nothing so much needs to be constantly impressed upon the public with respect to the use of its pleasure grounds as the maxim that “you cannot have your cake and eat it.” A city cannot have Parks if its people cannot be restrained from a destructive use of them. Of course there will be cases of wanton and persistent abuse of turf that are only to be dealt with by police and magistrates, but they will be few in number. The hardest work of a park commission is not that of guarding against intentional misdoing, but of guarding against thoughtless misdoing; against misdoing carelessly assumed to be harmless.

I said above that there are two ways in which the turf can be protected from ordinary misuse. I have described one of them. The other is to prevent [594]all passage across the turf—all use of the turf except that of looking at it. This is the plan generally adopted in the London Parks where turf has twice the life that it has in Buffalo. In the London Parks nearly all walks are bordered by iron fences. These detract greatly from the beauty of their scenery, and are costly. To be obliged to use them, as you will be in Buffalo if a stop cannot otherwise be put to present practices, will be a great misfortune. It will add much to the cost and deduct much from the value of your Parks.

It is most desirable that people should be allowed to make use of the turf if they can be induced to do so only in such a manner as not to tread it to death in streaks and patches. It is especially desirable that little children should be allowed to play on the turf, as, in the larger Parks, with a little skillful management, they may be without injury to it.

I repeat that in my judgment your Commission has no duty as important as that of preserving the turf of the Park for all proper and practical uses of it, as it may by preventing its improper use. It should expend no money for any other object while any money is needed to accomplish this first and most essential purpose. The turf is the heart of all the beauty of a park. Kill that and all other beauty dies.

It is perfectly possible to have public recreation grounds without turf. That is true, but such grounds ought not to be called parks, and they should be designed and managed in a very different way from that in which parks should be. If you think it best to let a few people through the practice of thoughtlessness, selfishness or improvidence, destroy your turf, you ought to have your parks redesigned and re-made in an entirely different fashion, with reference to ideals of beauty and means of refreshment for the people very different from those that have been contemplated in their original design.

Upon the subject of exhibitions of animals, about which you questioned me, I will say that I have examined many Zoological Gardens, a majority, I believe of all in the World. I have seen several intimately and have officially supervised one for a series of years. With possibly a single exception, I know of none that have been well managed or that, if long established, are creditably serving their purpose, which are maintained by proceeds of taxation under the management of Park Commissions or other public officials. The best are institutions occupying land provided by municipal or national governments and leased, often at a nominal rent, but managed by voluntary societies, which societies are led by Zoologists, and generally by practicing physicians of the locality who are Zoologists and comparative anatomists.

Most wild animals, and all wild animals brought from the Tropics to regions with a climate nearly corresponding with that of Buffalo, are practically in the condition of people in extremely delicate health, and if they fail to receive constant judicious treatment from men skilled in administering such treatment, they become miserable invalids and, in collections of them, losses by death are heavy. The situation and subsoil conditions of the neighborhood of Buffalo are unfavorable to the successful management of a Zoological [595]Garden. Exceptional ability in the management and arrangements of an unusually costly character would be required to economically and creditably maintain a Zoological Garden in the region. Before any steps are taken therefore, in any project that is likely to be even the forerunner of a Zoological Garden enterprise, there should be a circumspect counting of the ultimate cost of such an affair to the tax payers. It will be an extravagant proceeding to let such matters as the heating, ventilation, feeding and medical direction of the collection depend of the ability of the management, from year to year, to convince a City Council that the necessary expenditure for these services is indispensable rather than optional. The reasons for caution against entering upon the undertaking of a Zoological Garden do not apply to the preparation of well selected bodies of land and the introduction upon them of paddocks and shelters in which numbers of such animals as in the climate of Buffalo would be hardy and healthful, may be kept and during the Summer satisfactorily exhibited. Provision suitable for a herd of deer, of elk, of antelope, of bisons, were made in the original plan of your North Park, which was adopted 20 years ago, and I have repeatedly suggested that your Board should proceed to carry out this element of that plan as soon as the necessary small outlay could be afforded.

Neither would it be a matter of extravagant cost to provide at various points for a really good exhibition of various thoroughly hardy animals, such as bears, foxes, opossums, raccoons, squirrels and prairie dogs; or of certain birds, the cages of which, being small and movable, would be inexpensively kept within doors during the winter. In the report of your Landscape Architect twenty years ago, provisions for a collection of this character was advised, to be placed in the woody part of the Parade Ground. This proposition could be carried out in a good way, creditably to the city, at comparatively moderate cost. Probably at five per cent of the cost of a barely tolerable Zoological Garden of the usual type, taking all outlays into account that would be required for a term of years.

Very Respectfully