Changes Coming To City Parks?

In early spring it is a real thrill to go south and then dash home again. When I leave Vermont, as early last month, there was plenty of snow and ice around. New York had no snow - although snow would have been a blessing over much of the city. Then all night I rumbled South and when I woke up I was in Georgia, and it was full Spring. By noon I was in Jacksonville and saw palms.

By night I was in Miami, dining under the stars in the patio of a friend with oleanders, hibiscus and flame-vine all around and above - Summer in full fact. Then three days later I was back in Vermont with the same snow. However, along the south side of the house, the whiteness had vanished and, sure enough, there were some crocuses, gold and purple crocuses, in bloom. You know, those few flowers were worth all the wealth of Florida to me.

Probably I am wrong, but it seems to me that a change is coming over our city parks the past 20 years. My idea of a public park is a place of peace and quiet, shaded by trees, and gracious with flowers and lawns. Although I hate potted palms and beds of coleus, cannas and castor-oil bean, they at least are plant material.

Lately I have noticed many parks are being transformed into what I am told are recreation areas. The idea seems to be to do away with flowers and trees and to replace the lawns with pavement of concrete of one kind or another. It seems that people need room in which to play. I am old-fashioned no doubt, but I think people also need a cool and beautiful place in which to rest and think. Could it be that we Americans are too sports-minded for our own good?

All my life, I have been fighting for conservation, particularly for forests. Often, I have been impatient at what I believe to be the stupidity of my fellow citizens. Part of the time I have argued on aesthetic levels; most of the time, as was necessary, I have battled on crass economic grounds. Now, I am delighted to see, people are waking up to the fact that our coal, oil and metals, will not last forever, and that we must rely more and more upon the products of plants - from trees in the forests right down to bacteria in the soil. I hope it is not too late. I am moved to be pleased nowadays by reports of progress being made in the new activity called chemurgy. This is the effort to "conserve our non-renewable resources, such as oil and coal, and to replace them with products from the inexhaustible earth, which means plants.