INTRODUCTION 



of the older allied professions of architecture and engineering, and 

 are quite as difficult to master within an ordinary lifetime. And in 

 no field is it possible to design effectively "on general principles" with- 

 out a detailed personal knowledge of the materials and technique. 



Like Architecture, its sister profession in the Fine Arts, Landscape Requirements 

 Architecture requires of its practitioner diverse abilities not often %'J^^^^q^ 

 found in the same person : the esthetic appreciation and creative 

 power of the artist, together with the executive skill of the business 

 man. The landscape architect should know the materials of his art : 

 ground forms, vegetation, and structures in their relation to land- 

 scape. He should know on the one hand what results are physically 

 possible of accomplishment with these materials, and on the other 

 hand what kinds of beauty these materials can best produce, and what 

 kinds of beauty were better attained in the materials of some other art. 

 Since, for the most part, the landscape architect cannot produce at 

 will in his design all the forms which he might desire, but must choose 

 from among the forms offered by nature those which will suit his pur- 

 pose, he cannot be confident that his design is possible of execution 

 unless he possesses an accurate first-hand knowledge of the plant ma- 

 terials and of the ground forms from which he must choose the ele- 

 ments of his composition. Since the beauty of vegetation is that of 

 intricacy, of multiplicity, of growth and change, the landscape archi- 

 tect's experience and power in design will come to be quite different 

 from that of the architect, who deals with definite, rigid forms and 

 balanced masses. Since the fundamental organization of his natural- 

 istic designs, of his preservation and enhancement of natural scenery, 

 will be the real or apparent manifestation of the untrammeled forces 

 of nature, the landscape architect must have humbly studied the forces 

 which carv'e the valleys, and which direct the flow of the streams, and 

 he must be keenly sensitive to the esthetic unity of a mountain or the 

 perfect growth of a ground-covering fern, which may dominate or 

 decorate his nature-inspired work. 



The landscape architect cannot carry out his designs with his own 

 hand ; so he must use some means of conveying his ideas to those 

 who are to execute the work. As this work usually extends over a 

 considerable period of time, it is necessary that the landscape archi- 



