70 XanOscape Hrcbitecture 



principles of improvement and the whole face of 

 nature were a little more the appearance of a park. 

 In three days' time I was tired to death; a thistle, 

 a nettle, a heap of dead bushes, anything that wore 

 the appearance of accident and want of intention, 

 was quite a relief. I used to escape from the made 

 grounds and walk upon an adjacent goose common 

 where the cart ruts, gravel pits, bumps, irregulari- 

 ties, coarse ungentlemanlike grass, and all the vari- 

 eties produced by neglect, were a thousand times 

 more gratifying than the monotony of beauties the 

 result of design and crowding with a luxuriance and 

 abundance utterly unknown to nature." 



Although there is no question that many grand 

 estates have their place and serve a good purpose, yet 

 the best taste will often suggest something quite differ- 

 ent, as may be seen in Central Park, New York, and 

 the great park at Muskau, Germany. As much beauty 

 and display as belong to an intelligently designed park 

 is of course admissible, but it does not therefore neces- 

 sarily place it in the highest rank of artistic endeavour. 

 In these days of rapid accumulation of great wealth 

 the tendenc}^ is to develop wonderful plant effects 

 rather than beautiful, finely modulated landscape 

 studies. Nor can it be said that landscape gardening 

 designs are generally nowadays inferior to those of 

 fifty or a hundred years ago such as the creations made 

 by the designers of Central Park, New York, and Park 

 Muskau, and certain English estates; but the display 



