The establishment of these reservations will add strength to the movement now in progress at Sacramento to recede the Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Big Tree Grove to the United States. The necessity of more securely guarding these two great treasures ought now to be more apparent than ever to the people of California. They ought to see the wisdom of allowing control of the entire tract to be consolidated in the hands of the General Government. In this way alone can it be secured for all time against the ravages of ignorance, the greed of "rings," and the onslaughts of vandalism. If the effort to procure voluntary recession shall fail, it will be the duty of Congress to repeal the grant of 1864. For this course it is certain that a congressional inquiry will reveal only too substantial grounds. Once the valley is in the hands of the Government, the services of Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted should be secured to lay down the principles on which it should be treated. Meantime he should be selected to act as adviser to the bureau in charge of which the scenic portions of the new parks shall be placed.

That the vandals are always on the watch was shown anew by the attack which was made upon the Yellowstone National Park in the late Congress. Cooke City, a small mining-camp situated on the northeast corner of this park, had two bills before Congress which ought to have been embodied in a single measure, and entitled "An act to mutilate the Yellowstone National Park, rob it of its most beautiful natural scenery, and ruin it as a game-preserve.' "One of the bills gave Cooke City the right to build a railway across the Park, and the other, in order to evade the technical objection to a railway within the Park, proposed to cut off all that portion of the Park including and lying outside the line of railway, restoring it to the public by making the railway line the new boundary. In exchange for the tract thus cut from the park it was proposed to add another tract, somewhat larger, but which is an inaccessible mountain region, which tourists could never visit, and which heavy winter snows render incapable of supporting game. It was proposed by the Cooke City vandals to substitute this practically valueless region for what is undoubtedly the most beautiful portion of the Park, to run a railway along the route which is destined by nature as the great scenic route of the Park, and to drive all game away from the best pasturage by putting a railway through the center of it. The only defense of this outrageous proposal was that the Cooke City mines are in need of a railway outlet. Granting the paramount importance of this need, the proposal to ruin the Park in its behalf is disposed of by the fact that a railway outlet can be secured in several other directions, outside the Park. There is, in fact, no possible excuse for this vandalism, and no Congress ought to listen to its advocates for a moment.

The policy set on foot by the Harrison administration should also be of use in the establishment or management of State reserves. In regard to the preservation of the Adirondack forest in New York State, a very great advance was made in 1892, when the legislature passed an act creating the Adirondack Park. This was the final result of a long and discouraging struggle. Originally the Adirondack wilderness comprised 12,000 square miles, but this area has been reduced by clearings, till it now contains only about 5600 square miles, or about 3,700,000

acres. Of these 3,700,000 acres, about 900,000 are owned by the State, but not in an unbroken tract. In fact fully one half of the State's lands were, at the time the Park was authorized, situated in detached places around the borders of the wilderness. Under the Park Act the commissioners have power to sell some portions, and with the money thus obtained buy new ones, and thus create a solid tract which shall be owned by the State, and, in the language of the act, "be forever reserved, maintained, and cared for as ground open for the free use of all the people for their health or pleasure, and as forest lands necessary to the preservation of the head waters of the chief rivers of the State, and a future timber supply." By this act the State, it is believed by the commissioners, will be able to increase its acreage, and, by consolidating its holdings, will be able to adopt and carry out a rational system of forestry, which will preserve and protect the forests, and make them a blessing to all its people. About 8000 acres have already been purchased under the act.

What the National Government has done for the Pacific Slope, and what New York has done for the Adirondacks, New Hampshire is called upon to do for the White Mountains. A loud cry of alarm in their behalf has been sent forth during the past few months, and, unless it be heeded before the present year rolls away, the chief natural glory of New England may have been ruined forever. The danger lies in the fact that the White Mountains are owned by private persons, Mount Washington itself being to-day private property. Experience everywhere has shown that private ownership cannot be depended on to preserve natural beauty in scenery which has a high market value. Year by year the lumbermen have been cutting their way into the White Mountain region till now they threaten to destroy those tracts which are its greatest glory, and which constitute the chief charm for the thousands of visitors who resort thither year after year from all quarters of the land. Contracts were made several months ago under which the Pemigewasset wilderness, that magnificent stretch of pathless forest, was to be invaded by the destroyer with his gangs of cutters and his steam sawmill. Another assault was also planned upon the region about the Flume, and still another upon Albany Intervale. These attacks, if carried out, would completely strip the mountains of their magnificent and imposing vesture, depriving the region of its glory and beauty, and taking from the rivers of the State their supply of water. Small wonder that the threat of such appalling devastation - nay more, such desecration · aroused the whole country, and that appeals were sent from all quarters of the land to have the hand of the destroyer stayed.

The alarm was first sounded by Mr. J. B. Harrison of Franklin Falls, N. H., the leader in the successful movement by which Niagara Falls was made a State reservation. He has done a great deal to arouse the people of the country to the danger, and to induce them to bring pressure upon the people of New Hampshire to act at once, and save from annihilation their greatest treasure, not merely in its natural beauty, but in its power to attract visitors and money to the State. He started a fund which received contributions from public-spirited persons everywhere, and expressions of warm sympathy which have done a great deal to arouse the astonishingly lethargic public opinion of New

Hampshire to the need of action. Professor Charles Eliot Norton, of Harvard University, was one of the first to respond with a contribution to the fund, saying of its object:

The saving of the forests of New Hampshire is not a mere local interest. It is of national concern,-nay, it is more than this, it is a patriotic duty. Each generation is a trustee of the natural wealth and beauty of its native land for the generations to come. We are not owners in fee, and we have no right to squander the inheritance which belongs to others equally with ourselves.

That might well be applied to every movement for forest-preservation, and it ought to be made the text for missionary work in all parts of the land, for there appears to be no quarter in which the destroyer is not at work. Simultaneously with the plea for the White Mountains one was heard for aid to save the beautiful forests in Southern Kentucky and Tennessee, in the vicinity of Cumberland Gap. A tanning company is working for the ruin of this region by removing the bark from thousands of trees, leaving their trunks to rot upon the ground, and making great rents in the forests thousands of acres in extent.

This wide-spread raid upon American forests ought to have the effect of greatly arousing public sentiment throughout the country to the need of national concentration of effort for forest-preservation. It ought to result in the creation of active interest in the work which the American Forestry Association is seeking to accomplish-that is, the "advancement of educational, legislative, or other measures "tending to the promotion of an interest in the preservation, renewal, and management of our forests. A great deal has been accomplished by this association, but a great deal more will be accomplished if all persons interested in its useful and most genuinely patriotic work will become members of it, and give it all the aid in their power. Public sentiment is visibly aroused, but it is only by unity and systematic direction of effort that results can be achieved.

Parks in and near Large Cities.

AN act was passed by the Massachusetts legislature of 1892 which ought to be imitated by the legislature of every other State which contains one or more large cities. It provides for the appointment by the governor of three men, to constitute a board of metropolitan park commissioners, whose duty it shall be to "consider the advisability of laying out ample open spaces, for the use of the public, in the towns and cities in the vicinity of Boston," and to make a report, accompanied by maps and plans, to the next session of the legislature. Governor Russell appointed Charles Francis Adams of Quincy, Philip A. Chase of Lynn, and William de las Casas of Malden as members of the commission, and they proceeded immediately to a vigorous prosecution of the work assigned them.

It is the intention of the commission to ascertain first what is the present public holding of every community within twelve miles of the State House. The next step will be to inquire what more is needed. All public beaches near Boston will be examined with a view to seeing what rights the public already has in them, and what additional rights and improvements are desirable. River borders, like those of the Charles River, will be examined with a view to ascertaining if the river

can be made a pleasure waterway with public rights upon its banks. Finally, the question of making a State reservation of about four thousand acres of Blue Hills, the highest tract of land near Boston, will be considered, and a recommendation made.

It is easy to see at a glance what a public-spirited movement this is, and what important and far-reaching results may be the outcome. It is a very necessary movement for Massachusetts to make, for the most desirable portions of the waterways and beaches about Boston are being so rapidly absorbed for private dwellings and summer residences, that the public is in a fair way to be shut out entirely from enjoyment of them. It is the purpose of the commission to evolve a comprehensive plan for saving open places here and there in all directions about the city, to be set apart for public uses and pleasure-grounds for all time, and to urge its adoption by the legislature.

At the same time, the interior needs of Boston itself ought not to be neglected. In this direction a good example has been set by New York, which all other cities would do well to follow. Not only have large tracts in the upper and newer sections of New York been acquired and set apart for park usage, but liberal provision has been made for constructing in the most densely populated districts of the older city an indefinite number of small parks, which will bring the benefits of light and air to the inhabitants of the crowded tenement-houses. Under an act of the legislature passed in 1887, one million dollars a year is available for this purpose, the city being authorized to issue bonds to that amount annually for an indefinite period. In accordance with the terms of this act, work is at present in progress on two small parks, and proceedings have been instituted for the acquisition by the city of the land necessary for the construction of four others, all situated in portions of the city in which their advent will be an inestimable blessing to thousands of poor people, old and young, to whom the large and remote parks of the city are virtually inaccessible because of the time and money required in reaching them. No more worthy or humane use of public money could be devised than such expenditure of it as this. It beautifies the city, and at the same time adds immeasurably to the happiness and health of the most helpless portion of its inhabitants.

What the commission is doing for Boston and its suburbs another organization, called the Trustees of Public Reservations, is seeking to do for the whole State of Massachusetts. It has issued a public appeal in which the scope of its work is defined as follows: TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN :

beaches, bluffs, hilltops, ravines, groves, river-banks, or In your part of Massachusetts are there any beautiful roadsides?

Would it not be well to secure for the public the most interesting of these places before their beauty is destroyed, or they become fenced in for private gain or pleasure?

Owners of such places, by giving them into the keeping of the Trustees of Public Reservations, will enhance places, by giving them into the charge of the trustees, the value of adjacent real estate. Neighbors of such may profitably increase the attractiveness of their district. Men and women of Massachusetts who have gained wealth within or without her borders, can find no more dedicating one or more of her places of beauty to the acceptable way of benefiting their native land than by enjoyment of all, forever.

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It would be difficult to conceive of projects more deserving approval than these we have mentioned. We have urged many times, in this and other departments of THE CENTURY, the great public value of park-creation and -preservation. Every city in the country ought to have a commission like that of Boston appointed to secure park-preserves in its suburbs. The time to secure such preserves is before the suburbs are closely built up and before the land becomes too valuable to be spared for such use. There are suburbs within the vicinity of New York and other large cities which have been allowed to be built up solidly without leaving a single large open space for public uses. This is a blunder which will be seen to be more and more grievous as time goes on. Other cities ought to see to it that so far as they are concerned the blunder shall not be committed.

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In regard to the preservation of spots of great natural beauty in the States at large,- that is, in parts remote from large cities, the matter of public ownership and public preservation is comparatively a simple one. The actual value of such places is usually not great, and the cost of acquiring them for public use would not be I high. The value of their acquisition and preservation as a means for cultivating the esthetic sense of the people cannot be overestimated. Every picturesque hillside, rocky bluff, tumbling waterfall, shady ravine, cool grove, or sandy beach set aside for public enjoyment would be a constant object-lesson in natural beauty to all beholders —an object-lesson which local pride would be constantly enforcing. Aside from its esthetic usefulness, by enhancing the attractiveness of a community possessing it, it would add greatly to the marketable value of all adjoining property. There is scarcely a village in the land which has not within its borders at least one spot of this kind whose natural beauty well entitles it to preservation. What an immeasurable gain it would be to us as a people, if all these spots could be spared destruction, and set apart forever for public use and enjoyment! Why should not the example of Massachusetts be followed by that of every other State in the Union? The obvious advantages of the proposal are so great that if a few zealous persons take up the work of advocacy, there can be no doubt of speedy and hearty public approval.

The World's Fair and Landscape-Gardening. THE most remarkable point about the Chicago Fair is its beauty as a whole. Its great artistic success has been achieved because, at the very outset, before any of its buildings was planned, Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted was commissioned to lay out the site, and determine their positions and the character of the means of access to them.

This fact, we think, is now fully understood, not only by artists, but by a large part of the public. It cannot fail to be recognized by every intelligent person who visits Chicago this summer; and it will undoubtedly do more than anything else has ever done, or than any achievement of another kind possibly could do, to make Americans understand that the art which, for want of a more broadly inclusive term, we call the art of gardening (or landscape-gardening, although this word is quite as inadequate) deserves to rank with architecture, painting, and sculpture as a genuine fine art—as VOL. XLV.-125.

an art of design in a very noble sense. The Fair will do this; it will show how important the assistance of the artist in gardening may be to the architect, and also that his help should be secured before the architect goes to work, and not, as is our common practice when we employ him at all, to "touch up" architectural results after they are finished.

Thus the Fair will be of great advantage to American art; or would be, but for a most unfortunate state of things. The Fair will stimulate our desire to employ landscape-architects; but unfortunately landscape-architects at all deserving of the name are very difficult to find. One can count on the fingers of a single hand the trained and tasteful workers in this department whom the United States possess. This was recently proved by the way in which the untimely death of Mr. Codman, Mr. Olmsted's young partner, was lamented as a public calamity. In any branch of art the death of so capable and energetic a man would have been a serious loss; but in his branch it has left a blank as great as though a score of our prominent painters or architects had died.

Probably more young Americans do not enter this profession because we have no regular schools of landscape-design, and it is consequently hard to determine how one may secure the best training. Therefore, in pointing out the probability that, for once, our demand for good artistic work may exceed the available supply, we hope to attract the serious attention not only of young men about to engage in their life's work, but also of the directors of our educational institutions, and of liberal citizens anxious to work for the public good. The establishment of a department of gardening art in connection with one of our universities or great technical schools would be both a novel and an extremely useful way of investing money for the benefit of the American people. It might best be established, perhaps, in Boston or Cambridge, owing to the neighborhood of the Arnold Arboretum, and to the fact that a more intelligent popular interest in such matters can be noted here than elsewhere in America-doubtless because of the influence of Mr. Olmsted and Professor Sargent, and of the late H. H. Richardson, who was the first among our architects practically to recognize the inestimable advantage of a brotherly accord between his profession and that of the landscape-architect. But in any place where facilities for acquiring at least the rudiments of architectural, engineering, and botanical knowledge already exist, a school of landscape-design would be of very great public benefit.

Arbor Day.

THE CENTURY needs to make no apology for devoting a considerable space in the present number to a day which, to the credit of our people, is coming to be celebrated more and more throughout the country. Mr. Bunner's poem and Mrs. Robbins's account of that unique institution the Arnold Arboretum, though bearing more directly, do not bear more importantly upon Arbor Day than the editorials in this department dealing with other phases of the subject, such as forest-reservation, landscape-gardening, and the establishment of city and suburban parks; for it would be but saving at the spigot and wasting at the bung to direct the ener gies of our people through laborious national organizations to the observation of Arbor Day, even with its

registering for employment were sent merely as available persons to vacancies in their particular lines of work. This, in brief, is the manner in which the public employment system was inaugurated. Practically there has been no change in the method of operation.

A statement of the work accomplished at the outset by each office, from the date of opening in 1890 to January 1, 1891, is herewith given:

The Toledo office, in 27 weeks, registered 7021 applications, of which 3053 were from employees, and 3968 from employers; positions were secured for 1826 persons.

The Dayton office, in 26 weeks, registered 6289 applications, of which 4027 were from employees, and 2262 from employers; positions were secured for 817

persons.

The Cleveland office, in 25 weeks, registered 8220 applications, of which 3800 were from employees, and 4420 from employers; positions were secured for 2180 persons.

The Cincinnati office, in 23 weeks, registered 12,171 applications, of which 6581 were from employees, and 5590 from employers; positions were secured for 2956 persons.

The Columbus office, in 17 weeks, registered 4589 applications, of which 2675 were from employees, and 1914 from employers; positions were secured for 1209 persons.

In all, 20,136 applicants were registered, 18,154 calls were received from employers, and 8988 persons were furnished employment.

During the year 1891, there were 57,579 applications filed with the five offices, 34,371 by employees, and 23,208 by employers; 15,525 persons were furnished employment. In 1892 there were 49,159 applications filed, 26,957 by employees and 22,202 by employers; 13,845 persons were furnished employment. The falling off in 1892 was confined to the fore part of the year, and was due to certain contingencies in the management of the offices for which proper provision had not been made. From the date of the opening of the first office, June 26, 1890, to January 1, 1893, a total of 81,464 applicants registered for situations, 54,507 being males and 26,957 females; 63,564 calls for help were made by employers, 29,395 being for males, and 34,169 for females; 38,358 persons were placed in positions, 18,529 being males, and 19,829 females. Of the total number of applicants for situations 47 per cent. have been furnished employment, and of the total number of wants of both employees and employers 52.8 per cent. have been supplied. Eliminating from the list of applicants for work a transient class, who after registering never call again, and giving the offices credit for those who procure situations through intelligence received from these sources at second hand, a much better showing would be made. The proportion of common labor and domestic help to the total number of situations procured has steadily decreased, while the trades and other skilled occupations have shown a constant gain.

The figures given represent a vast saving of individual effort. The wants of capital and labor have been in a measure concentrated and fitted together, resulting in economy of time and energy to both industrial factors. From a practical business point of view, the

usefulness of the public employment system has been demonstrated in the extensive and continuous use made of it by the general public.

On the humane side of the question, also, the most gratifying results are seen. According to a conservative estimate, $100,000 are annually saved to the working people of the State by forcing the private intelligence bureaus from the field. Though always in disrepute, an investigation of this evil disclosed a state of affairs much worse than had been credited. Through systematic misrepresentation money was taken from the pockets of those who could least afford to spare it, and but little, if anything, was given in return. These institutions have entirely disappeared in three of the cities where the free offices are in operation, and must eventually go out of existence altogether. Working people have been quick to perceive in the public employment office something that has a tendency to do away with the humiliation of seeking the means of livelihood from door to door. They appreciate the independence of being able to meet the employer on common ground. The paths to industry are made more accessible. Under stress of circumstances, applicants of high education and abilities often eagerly accept some menial work which they would shrink from personally soliciting.

The employment office is a democratic institution, embracing among its patrons all classes of people. Being a public office, operated by the State, there is no atmosphere of charity surrounding it. The superintendent, whose duties consist, in part, in gathering information for the annual report of the department with which he is connected, is afforded peculiar opportunities for studying the labor question. He is in constant touch with all branches of wage-workers, and gains a knowledge of their conditions of life which could be learned in no other way. The five free public employment offices of Ohio cost less than $10,000 a year, including the salaries of superintendents and clerks, paid by the cities. The hindrances incident to any new departure having been to a large extent overcome, much greater results for this outlay will be realized in the future.

Labor organizations all over the country have watched the progress of the Ohio experiment with deep solicitude. Much interest has also been manifested by charitable organizations in various cities. Letters of inquiry come from nearly every part of the United States and Canada, many of them bearing the signatures of prominent officials, including representatives of foreign governments.

Now that the experimental stage has been passed, action is being taken to introduce the system in other States. A year ago Governor Boies, of Iowa, in his annual message to the legislature, recommended its adoption. The labor commissioners of all the principal States of the Union, assembled in national convention at Denver, Colorado, last May, passed resolutions urging the general establishing of free public employment offices. Other organizations have since then expressed themselves to the same effect. The most advanced sentiment appears in Pennsylvania and Missouri, but from present indications a number of State legislatures will be called upon to consider the question in the near future.

C. C. Johnston.