INTRODUCTION. XXVU 



gardens, and be a considerable improvement in point of 

 taste on the starved examples of the massing style that 

 is too often observable in them. There are gardens of 

 all kinds, many of them, perhaps, with means and re- 

 sources abundant enough to meet all desirable demands 

 in connection with the massing system, situate in cold late 

 districts in the north, and not altogether solitary in the 

 south where " bedding-out " cannot be called summer gar- 

 dening at all — where the design in the flower-garden is no 

 soonerbegun to make itself intelligible and enjoyablethan 

 it is cut off. That is carrying the summer fashion of the 

 massing style into the domain of winter, of course, where 

 it cannot but come to grief; and if flowers are to be en- 

 joyed out of doors in such gardens, they must be sought 

 for in selections of hardier subjects, and the style of plant- 

 ing, if it must be altered by the adoption of these, will 

 surely lead to a more gratifying result to all concerned. 

 Perhaps not the least advantage that would accrue 

 from the introduction of the mixed style of planting, 

 and along with it more or less extensive collections of 

 hardy perennials into every garden where the circum- 

 stances are favourable, is the educational value that 

 exists in the possession of many and varied objects for 

 the exercise of the mind. The opportunities for the 

 exercise of taste afforded in the arrangement of a mis- 

 cellaneous collection of plants of distinct and varied 

 forms, stature, and colour, are not inferior to those 

 offered in the massing system with more limited and 

 same materials. The distinct and broad features of art 

 that are characteristic of the latter may be wanting in 

 the former, but that is no proof that art cannot be ex- 

 ercised in the production of less striking, though not 



