Size and Extent 19 



appearance in given surroundings, and it is here 

 that landscape architecture has the widest of fields. 

 For instance, a tree a hundred feet high, which 

 in the middle distance hardly rises above the 

 horizon, will at a short distance tower above it ; 

 hence, with intelligent management, with due 

 appreciation of the value that a relation of fore- 

 ground has to distance, it is possible to give 

 character and expression to the landscape and to 

 secure an effect of grandeur and extent. 



I cannot help remarking here that if I have 

 always held up as a model the general appear- 

 ance of English parks, which testify to a uni- 

 versally diffused taste for park culture and em- 

 bellishment, I still believe that in many ways 

 England might have done much better. It seems 

 to me that with much beauty most English 

 parks have one blemish which makes them, on 

 long acquaintance, rather tedious and monoto- 

 nous. I have in mind neither the English *' pleas- 

 ure-grounds" nor their gardens, — which are full 

 of variety, — but their parks. For instance, in re- 

 gard to the deliberate treatment of these parks as 

 features laid out on a diminutive scale, the effect 

 seems to be altogether inadequate when com- 

 pared to the grandeur and magnificence of the 

 open country around them. Indeed, in my opin- 

 ion, the outside country not infrequently resem- 

 bles far more a region ennobled by art in variety 

 than the parks. 



Many English parks are in fact nothing but 

 interminable meadows serving as pastures for 



