region, is more characteristically Appalachian- as opposed to Laurentian— with its mantle of trees akin to those of the mountains of northern New Jersey of Pennsylvania. Pre-eminently in the Fells are summits that remind the observer of the New Hampshire and Maine mountaintops above the timber line. So that to all these hills, "Boston's miniature White Mountains" is not altogether far fetched. If the beautiful hill country of the Switzerland of America has its Old Man of the Mountains, so has the metropolitan reserve its Old Lady of the Woods, with likeness rudely sculptured by snow and wind from a granite boulder. The three Winchester reservoirs and Spot Pond are like so many lakes of central New Hampshire. The mountain climbing in the Fells is, of course, less arduous than that of Mt. Washington; but the prospects are hardly less pleasing-as may be proved by the ascent, on any fine day, of Pine Hill, 240 feet; Cairn Hill, 300 feet, or Bear Hill, 320 feet. With a little help from a topographical map a fine circuit can be made out. "By taking half a dozen of these tiny peaks in an afternoon," observes an enthusiastic climber, "I get the same exercise and the same exhiliration as from mounting Monadnock or Greylock. Mountaineering in Boston's back yard is better than a passable substitute; it comes very near being the real thing." Improvement of the appearance of this magnificent park of all the people has progressed from year to year since Mr. de Las Casas described some of the opposition which the Park Commission, in the late nineties, was encountering in its schemes. Purchases of private property along the Winchester side and elsewhere have somewhat enlarged the area. A new and handsome administration building has been opened in the southern part of the reservation. Carriage roads have been extended to pass through beautiful and hitherto inaccessible tracts. Concrete bridges have been thrown across ravines, and concrete seats disposed in shady nooks. An unsafe observa tory has been removed; the approaches to those that are safe have been made easier. Above all, the principles of scientific forestry are being applied. When the reservation was first set off one of its manifest limitations was the insignificant, not to say scrubby quality of the wood. There were a few handsome pines and hemlocks, as in the celebrated Virginia woods on the Melrose side; but for nearly three hundred. years, "The Rocks," as the district was anciently known, had been chopped over and burned over until suggestions of the glory of the primaeval forest were found only in a few isolated spots. Coppice growth-that is of trees which shoot up from the stumps of felled trees-is, by nature, degenerate as compared with the trees that come up from seed. Most of the stand in the Fells, was, and still is, coppice. It was also found to be overcrowdeda confused tangle of small oak and birch, amidst which individual trees could not reach their proper maturity. The Fells, furthermore, are in the very heart and centre of the moth-infested region. Their wooded valleys were hence a source of corruption to the whole neighborhood. To save and better the condition of the forest a great deal of cutting was done a few years ago-in face of considerable popular clamor. Residents of the suburban towns complained of the resultant rawness. Even yet the openness of the woods is in soine places a little apparent, and on a warm day, not altogether agreeable. But the steady progress of the trees that were left toward nobler dimensions than are usual in an old woodlot is already demonstrating the wisdom of the excisions. There has been a perceptible deepening of the shade in five years, and the underbrush no longer shuts out what breeze there is. the valleys and on the hillsides it is already possible to discern the beginnings of a real forest which, without imitating the European public forests, will have something of their impressiveness. The Park Commission found In NEW BEDFORD The wonderful growth of a Massachusetts cotton manufacturing city which has acquired the leading habit. N By W. H. B. REMINGTON EW BEDFORD has acquired cloth every minute of the working day. the leading habit. The time was, and not so very long ago, when every encyclopedia and every geography used in the public schools referred to New Bedford as, "The Whaling City," and emphasized the fact that while New Bedford was somewhat interested in the manufacture of fine cotton goods, it led the world in the whaling industry. While it is true that New Bedford still leads the world in point of whaling tonnage locally owned, the New Bedford man of the present generation chooses to forget it, and when anybody asks him what claim New Bedford has to distinguish it from other cities, he proudly says that New Bedford leads the country in country in the manufacture of fine cotton goods. When he adds that New Bedford makes, of fine cotton cloth, a mile a minute, the listener commences to wonder, and to figure the miles on miles of yarn which must be spun to give New Bedford such a reputation. As a matter of fact, New Bedford makes a mile and an eighth of cotton A few years ago the calamity howlers who delight to portray the decadence of New England, and, thank goodness, they are growing beautifully less as the years go on,-declared that the lapse of but a few years would see New Bedford's cotton manufacturing industry transplanted to the Sunny South, near the source of supply THE NEW BEDFORD WATER WORKS PUMPING STATION of the raw materials, cotton and coal, following the pathway of the departed iron industry which once flourished in this section. New Bedford mill men heard the prediction and inwardly smiled. Instead of throwing their cotton mill stocks upon the market before the crash came, they watched and waited. And while they were waiting, they bought new machinery and built new mills. They are buying new machinery and building new mills to-day. While the South is undoubtedly a factor in cotton manufacture, New Bedford, with a conservatism which is proverbial, continues on its way, making, each day, more and more of the finest cotton cloth woven in this country, and fearing little in the line of Southern competition. There is a reason for New Bedford's supremacy in the manufacture of fine cotton goods; indeed, there are several reasons. In the first place, the climatic conditions are favorable. The moisture which the combination of sun and sea produces, on this favored arm of Buzzards Bay, creates a condition of humidity which makes possible the spinning of the finest cotton yarns at the least expense. Then, again, the pioneers of New Bedford's cotton mill business determined upon the manufacture of the finest quality of cotton goods. While other cotton manufacturers put their money into print cloth mills, looking for the profits which followed along that line, New Bedford's capitalists maintained a steady course, turning out fine fabrics. In the history of the New Bedford cotton mills, but one mill out of the many now in existence was built for the particular purpose of making print cloths, and that mill, to-day, is transformed into a fine-goods mill. The wisdom of the pioneers of New Bedford's cotton mill is proven. The fine work, at the start, attracted an intelligent class of operatives, and the skill of the New Bed |