1 68 Xan&scape Hrcbitecture 



makes one despair of trying to manage to create these 

 natural-looking features. There are bits of views that 

 have a beauty that cannot be imitated, and therefore 

 it is often better to let a fine view alone when we can, 

 because we can rarely improve it. Fortunate is any 

 one who already has a natural and beautiful island. 

 Best set out a water-lily or two or some other aquatic 

 flower, but leave the trees and shrubs of the island 

 untouched except a little cutting out of dead wood here 

 and there or lopping off a rampant branch. 



A landscape gardener learns above most artists to 

 exercise restraint and humility. Nature is so much 

 better an artist than he can hope to be. Many a place 

 should never be planted at all except with vines and 

 low shrubs and a tree or two immediately adjoining 

 the house; nature herself having done the work so 

 supremely well. 



It has been already noted that to make an island 

 after nature's standard, or type, there may well be 

 more than one island, one in several and yet the whole 

 constituting an island scheme, a unified effect. The 

 most natural and beautiful island is one that is growing, 

 one that has other small islands around it, emerging 

 into sight, consisting, in some cases, of no more than a 

 rock or a few square feet of earth and one or more 

 small shrubs, an island very much like the larger one 

 was at an earlier stage of its existence. To build such 

 companion islands successfully, the controlling forces 

 of the environment must be carefully studied and taken 

 into account, the character of the current and the pre- 



