The Native Landscape Reader

“The Use of the Axe” (1889)

224 From Landscape Architecture 3, no. 4 (July 1913): 145–52. Original note: In 1889, F. L. Olmsted, Sr., and J. B. Harrison prepared, at the instance of the Park Commissioners of New York and several other organizations interested, a paper entitled, “Observations on the Treatment of Public Plantations, more Especially Relating to the Use of the Axe.” The report was never given any wide publicity. We reprint excerpts from it here, as a particularly clear presentation of one side of a question on which, unfortunately , the public still needs education. fRedeRick Law oLMsTed aNd J. B. haRRisoN the use of the axe (1889) It has been said of our frontier settlers that they seemed to bear a grudge against trees, and to be engaged in a constant, indiscriminate warfare with them. If this were so, a strong reaction has since set in, of which a notable manifestation appears in the fact that with regard to no other matter pertaining to the public grounds of our cities has public interest taken so earnest, strenuous , and effective a form as in respect to the protection of their plantations against the axe. It has occurred repeatedly of late years that ladies and gentlemen, seeking their pleasure during the winter in public parks, have chanced to see men felling trees, and have been moved by the sight to take duties upon themselves that nothing else short of a startling public outrage would have led them to assume. Sometimes they have hastened to stand before a partly felled tree and have attempted to wrest the axe from the hand of the woodsman. Oftener they have resorted to the press and other means of arousing public feeling, and not infrequently a considerable popular excitement has resulted. At the time of such excitements a strong tendency has appeared in many minds to assume that the act of treecutting marks those who are responsible for it as unsusceptible to the charm of sylvan scenery, and to class them with the old indiscriminately devastating pioneers. Naturally, an effect of such manifestations of public sentiment has been to make those in direct superintendence of public plantations, and the governing boards supervising them, extremely reluctant to use the axe. In some cases, for years not a tree has been cut down; in others, only decaying trees which were prominent eyesores or dangerous to passers-by; and, even when these were to be dealt with, the work has been done in stormy weather, when it thE usE of thE axE 225 was little likely to be observed by visitors, and care has been taken to put the fallen wood out of sight as soon as possible. To guard against the provocation of public feeling even in such extreme cases, a standing order has been made by one Park Commission that not a tree should be cut in its plantations till leave had been granted for it by a majority vote of its Board. One of the best trained and most successful tree-growers in the country having been dropped from the service of this Board, a member of it gave as the reason for his dismissal that he had been too anxious to obtain leave to cut out trees. In another case, the effect of the agitation was such that a laborer refused to fell a tree when ordered, fearing that he would be punished for it as for a crime. While no sensible man will deliberately maintain that a tree can never be wisely removed from a public plantation, it will be seen from what has been said that a public sentiment is liable to be cultivated , the effect of which, in numerous instances, may be to keep trees standing for years that might more wisely be cut, and in a general way to prevent the free exercise of any specially competent judgment upon the question. Hence, instead of simply reporting our own view of the particular case that we have been asked to consider, we have thought it better that we should set forth by quotations what may be regarded as the Common Law view of the duty, in respect to the cutting of trees, of a professional public servant to whom has been given the direction of plantations. We venture to say that no man, however well informed he may be in other respects, can have a respectable understanding of this duty to whom such precepts as are about to be cited are not familiar. It is greatly...