There are, therefore, good reasons why Boston should bear its proportion of the cost of acquiring these metropolitan reservations.

Not only is this proposed action of great value to Boston in securing desirable sites for such pleasure grounds in all directions about the city for the benefit of its teeming and rapidly increasing population, but it is of equal value in assuring the permanence and increase of one of the most essential elements of the city’s present and future development; that is, its attractiveness as a great and thoroughly equipped social centre.

The number of persons drawn to Boston by its general advantages in the way of a beautiful and well-cared-for modern capital—its educational facilities, its music, its museums, its artistic character and its beautiful suburban and rural surroundings—is enormous. The numbers increase extensively year by year, and this forms one of the chief elements in a city’s growth in desirable population and its marvellously augmenting prosperity.

It is therefore essential that these elements of attractiveness should be maintained and enhanced, and their permanence assured. Many of these picturesque and beautiful sites in the surrounding country form features by no means slight among these elements of attractiveness. Hence it seems important that these various tracts should be immediately acquired, for the reason that all of them can now be secured at comparatively small cost, and all would be for the common benefit of the metropolitan district.

Massachusetts. Metropolitan Park Commission. Report of the Board of Metropolitan Park Commissioners. Boston, Mass.: Wright & Potter Printing Co., 1893.