PARIS, PLASTER OF. See Gvrsum, ante.
PARK (Fr. pare), a term still employed in some parts of Britain, in its original sense, to denote a field or inclosure, but more generally applied to the inclosed grounds around a mansion, designated in Scotland by another term of French origin, policy. The park, in tb:s sense, includes not only the lawn, but all that is devoted to the-growth of timber, pasturage for deer, sheep, cattle, etc., in connection with the mansion, wher ever pleasure-walks or drives extend, or the purposa of enjoyment prevails over that of economical use. Public parks are those in the vicinity of towns and cities, open to the public, and intended for their benefit. Au increase of public parks is a pleasing feature of the present age, and not a few towns enjoy parks recently bestowed by wealthy per sons somehow connected with them.
PARK (ante), ground used for purposes of pleasure and recreation, and possess ing some characteristics of woodland and grassy ground. It need not necessarily be a large area. The original French word part signified first an inclosure for game, and :iftetward one for domestic animals. A decorated half-acre of trees and flowers in Montreal is called a park, with the same propriety as the deer park of hundreds of acres; and with more correctness than when those vast extents of natural meadows flecked with trees in Colorado are called parks. The evident needlessness of shutting people out of the enjoyment of nature's beauties which their use will not harm, has long made the great parks of England and the continent almost as free to the people as recognized "commons." A grassy expanse, large or small, stocked with shade trees, and used for rest and recreation, is a park; whether it be as formal as Versailles, as wild and pictur esque as Fontainebleau, or as trim as an old Dutch garden. Even grass may be omitted, andyet the park remain. The park of the Tuileries in Paris is so swarmed with people thatno grass could be maintained under the trees without limiting to an intolerable degree its use. The entire surface among its trees not occupied by pavements, groups
of shrubs, or parterres of flowers, is covered with loose gravel, through which water per colates to the tree roots, and over which there is no restraint of popular use.. The beauty of the park is lessened, but its value greatly increased for the use intended—viz., the recreation of the greatest number of people. The distinction between a park and a pleasure garden is this: the decorated garden where no crop is grown is cultivated to exhibit a growth of grass, trees, shrubs, or flowers with reference to the special beauty of each, as well as the beauty of harmonious arrangement. The perfectness of develop ment of each part of a pleasure garden is the object aimecr at. The garden becomes a park whenever freely used for recreation by persons not interested in its special growth. It is the tendency of our modern suburban home gardening to make playgrounds of their grassy surroundings, where croquet and all out-door family sports may be freely indulged. Thus they 'become our little parks, rather -than gardens. Frederick jaw Olmsted. the highest American authority on parks, suggests that little open spaces in cities, designed for public 'use, should be called places, when not large enough to have grass and trees; and place-parks when barely large enough to have grass plats and a few trees; that thoroughfares planted with trees for special adaptation to promenades or as a venues to parks, should be called parkways; and public forests without roads simply woods. The Spanish have a word to designate long walks under avenues of trees which are neither thoroughfares nor park-ways, and yet admirably adapted to small cities, viz., alameda. The main streets of many old American towns arched with elms or maples, are some of the finest examples of alamedas, or park-ways, if the country beyond them might be considered park.