Evening star., 1924-06-18
BY WILL Il. KENNEDY

ACQUISITION by the government of
four great forest areas stretching
through scenic and historic territory
from the Great Falls of the Potomac
TO Baltimore as fitting background
for the Nations Capital and linking
them in with the park and play
ground system of the city of Wash
ington is the great conservation and
recreational project-challengi the
support of hard headed business men
as well as artists-which is being
pushed by the Southern Maryland So
ciety. Representative J. Charles Lin
thicum of Maryland is the advocate
of this project before Congress and
is a member of special committee
acting for the Maryland organization.
The area about the Great Falls on
the Potomac, which was before Con
gress at the session just closed. when
extensive hearings were conducted on
the proposed hydroelectrlc develop
ment of the river is but one link in
this great parkway chain. William
NJ Ellicott of Baltimore, one of the
foremost advocates of national park
about the Capital. visioning TINS
background. points out that agrlcui-
certain areas unconquel because OF
their unfitness for cultivation. and IN
some of these rests the hope OF future
generations. one of those tracts, al
though sadly mutilated, has renamed
70 our day vast forest useful for no
other purpose. Provfdentially, also,
il exists in a place which above all
others should recommend 1T for pro-
lection and improv ement to the peo-
pie of the United States.
II forms the background of the
National Capital, beginning at the
bounding line of the District of Co
lumbia at Bladensburg and extend
ing northeast nearly twenty miles
until it crosses the Patuxent River,
a tract of $1,000 acres. Separated
from it by a narrow strip between
Washington and Laurel, there is an
other tract of 10000 acres. Beyond
the Patuxent it swings eastward,
touching the Severn and South Rivers
and reaching the outskirts of An
napolis, the seat of the United States
Naval Academy. and thereby adds
another area of 43,005 acres.
Another forest district of vital i'm
portance to the Nations Capital, con-
tanning grand scenery which, though
separated from the main bodies just
mentioned by the breadth OF Mont
gomery County, should be included in
the purchase, borders the bank of the
Potomac River from the District line
to point beyond Great Falls, an
area of 10000 acres. Conditions here
are distressing in the extreme, as no
effort has so far been made to care
for it and year by year grave injury
to the landscape is done. Surely de-
votion to the public welfare should
prompt Congress to protect this great
II is proposed that the forest serv-
ice should ascertain the merits of the
various districts for forest purposes
and study the replanting of certain
narts. and that commission should.
plan for the maximum OF beauty ana
utility which are lost for want of
skillful and intelligent handing;
and artificial lakes could be made as
beautiful as natural ones and the at
fraction of the woods may be en-
HANGED by erection Of suitably de-
signed and properly located buildings.
Here. then, at the gateway to the
Capital lies a splendid domain such
as the kings of the earth from the
earliest time have taken for them
selves and jealously guarded as
among their dearest possessions. We
see IL in the New Forest In Eng
land, with its 10000 acres, established
by the conaueror; we see it in Fon-
tainebleau, and in that one which
existed in the shadowy past within
the present borders of the city of
Paris. of which the Louvre retains
the name of the kings hunting lodge;
there is the proud forest possession
of the city of Zurich, given to 1t by
Charlemagne.
At the southern apex Of the Capital
forest is the old town of Bladens-
burg and neighboring hamlets. Here
are found historic specimens of colo
NAL architecture-the Calvert Man
sion, the inn at which George Wash
ington used to rest when he was
planning the great city. and Par