76 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



The instinct which inclines one to beautify his immediate 

 surroundings by means of various decorative plants is char- 

 acteristic of civilized man, but there are right and wrong ways 

 of performing' the work. The man who sets out his plants 

 indiscriminately is not a landscape gardener. One must be 

 something of an artist and enter into the spirit of the land- 

 scape to be successful. He must have constantly in mind the 

 production of attractive pictures and alluring vistas in which 

 water, sky, forest, and meadow are each considered with ref- 

 erence to the effect to be produced. The formal garden with 

 its geometrical beds, its hedges and borders of clipped box, 

 its sheared trees, and its balanced plantings was once con- 

 sidered perfection, but the tendency now is toward a style 

 of planting which more nearly simulates nature. According 

 to Frank A. Waugh, whose book "The Natural Style in 

 Landscape Gardening" has just been issued by Richard J. 

 Badger, Boston, "the natural style of landscape gardening 

 endeavors to present its pictures in forms typical of the natural 

 landscape and made vital by the landscape spirit." His book 

 is an elaboration of this idea, as may be indicated by such 

 chapter titles as "Form and Spirit", "The Landscape Motive", 

 "The Art in Grouping", and "The Open Field". Those to 

 whom a park is something more than a collection of trees, 

 grass and flowers will find the book both entertaining and sug- 

 gestive. It is not a manual of directions for producing 

 desirable effects, but rather a presentation of certain artistic 

 and philosophical aspects of the subject. The book contains 

 150 pages and there are a number of excellent illustrations 

 from photographs made by the author. The price is $2.50 net. 



Adolph Kruhm appears to have discovered a new style 

 of gardening book and one that is likely to become immensely 

 popular. It not only tells how to perform all kinds of garden- 

 ing operations, but shows how to do so as well. At the top 

 of nearly all of the 280 pages there is a clear photograph of 



