72 



LANDSCAPE DESIGN 



Landscape 

 Characters in 

 Relation to 

 Economic Use 

 and Main- 

 tenance 



and the various different and perfected landscape characters, properly 

 related, will greatly aid each other in the final effect of the whole de- 

 sign on the observer, perhaps by contrast of characters, perhaps by a 

 culmination of effects which brings the attention well prepared to the 

 most important object or view which the whole scheme may offer. 



When natural scenery is preserved or re-created by man, not wholly 

 as something to be looked at, but at least in part for some other use, 

 the choice of the designer as to what characters shall make up the total 

 character of his design is much limited. For example, a municipal 

 forest may well serve the community which owns it in three ways : as 

 a cover and shade and protection for the catchment area of the munici- 

 pal water supply, as a source of supply for timber, and as a recreation 

 place where approximately natural scenery may be enjoyed. These 

 three uses are not necessarily incompatible, but the exact method of 

 use in each case must be worked out with the other two uses also in 

 mind. The trees which are planted for forestry purposes must of 

 course be those of the greatest market value, those that produce the 

 most, and the most valuable timber, in the shortest possible time. They 

 must be so set out and so cut that this timber may be sent to market 

 when it is at its maximum value and in the most economical way. 

 Nevertheless it should be possible in a forest of any size and variation 

 of topography to plant several different kinds of trees, perhaps plant- 

 ing evergreens on the higher land and deciduous trees in the river 

 bottoms, and choosing the outlines of the different stands of timber 

 so that they shall develop rather than obscure the various landscape 

 units suggested by the ground. It should be possible to preserve or 

 to plant, along the rivers and along the main roads, about the places 

 where people would principally congregate to enjoy a view, trees purely 

 for the sake of appearance, studied entirely for their enhancement of 

 the natural character, and allowed to grow old and perhaps to replace 

 themselves in natural close-growing groups, purposely sacrificing the 

 commercial value of the timber which is thus kept out of the market. 

 It might be possible, even in that part of the forest which was handled 

 as a commercial asset, so to regulate the spacing of the trees, so to en- 

 courage certain types of undergrowth, that while the timber could still 

 be economically cut, it would not produce an effect of stupid artificiality. 



