Page:Report of the Park Board 1903.djvu/40

 more pleasure and satisfaction than a visit to any other sort of park. It is true that some people look upon such woods merely as a troublesome encumbrance standing in the way of more profitable use of the land, but future generations will not feel so and will bless the men who were wise enough to get such woods preserved. Future generations, however, will be likely to appreciate the wild beauty and the grandeur of the tall fir trees in this forest park or reservation, as it would perhaps better be called, its deep, shady ravines and bold view-commanding spurs far more than do the majority of the citizens of today, many of whom are familiar with similar original woods. But such primeval woods will become as rare about Portland as they now are about Boston. If these woods are preserved, they will surely come to be regarded as marvelously beautiful. With the exception of the top of the ridge, the land is either so steep and broken or so inaccessible as to be wholly unfitted for occupation by dwellings of a good character, and for a cheap class of residences, the expense for streets and other improvements would be out of all proportion to the ultimate value of the land. No use to which this tract of land could be put would begin to be as sensible or as profitable to the city as that of making it a public park or reservation, leaving out of it, if it should be found necessary for economy, the top of the ridge, which might come to have a special value for country residences, and may, therefore, have a greater present value for speculative purposes than the steep hillsides.

SOUTH HILLSIDE PARKWAY.
The hillside parkway extending southeasterly from the south end of the row of city squares presents a more difficult problem, in the matter of land acquisition, than the parkway extending northwesterly from Macleay Park, yet, if it should prove possible to secure, with the cooperation of land owners, the needed right-of-way and sufficient land below it to ensure command of the views, this parkway would have great value both to the people using it and to the owners of residence properties which it would make agreeably accessible. It should be carried through to Riverview cemetery, or even further to a forest park on the beautiful ridge south of the cemetery. This parkway would be a feature of which the city would justly be proud, and it would almost certainly be a paying investment through the increased taxable valuation which it would give to the high land along its course, much of which will become available for high-class suburban and country residences. Macadam street, running nearly parallel with the river, below the steep hillsides south of the city, has come to be regarded as, perhaps, the principal pleasure drive leading out of the city. At any rate it is the best one leading in a southerly direction, but it is necessary to