248 LANDSCAPE DESIGN 



joyment without carefully counting its cost, his commoner problem 

 and in a way his greater service to the community is in those cases 

 where such beauty as is produced must lie in skillful esthetic handling 

 of objects and areas economically necessary, rather than in extensive 

 construction for the sake of beauty alone. 



In the great majority of designs for private places which the land- 

 scape architect makes, in our time and country, the owners are not 

 very widely different one from another in their ways of living and in 

 their more important requirements in use and enjoyment for living on 

 their land. Each man will wish, first of all, a proper and convenient 

 house in scale with the life which he expects to lead. He will also 

 wish to own a piece of land which, together with the house, satisfies his 

 sense of possession and plainly expresses his ownership. Usually a 

 part of that expression will be some sense of boundary between what he 

 owns and the neighboring properties. He will want a place for hos- 

 pitality, for entertainment of his friends ; and for himself and for his 

 friends he will want a variety of interesting things to look at, and a 

 number of interesting things which can be done. Further, he will 

 wish to enjoy the expanse of free spaces, he will be glad to have a 

 piece of property from which a distant view is obtained. He may wish 

 to take more or less active exercise of various kinds ; he will also wish 

 an opportunity to sit and rest, at his ease. He may wish to make his 

 life as much as possible that of a "country gentleman," and so he may 

 develop at least a part of the estate as a farm, even though he knows 

 that it may never be a financially successful farm. 



Then there will be also in the minds of different owners innumerable 

 different and special desires. One man may wish a special place for 

 his children to play. Another man may be particularly interested in 

 golf, and may desire at least a putting green, or a small golf course. 

 One man may build a private squash court, another a swimming pool, 

 or a skating rink, and so on. The form in which the owner will real- 

 ize all these desires, or some of them, will vary from the country estate 

 of many acres to the unpretentious suburban lot, according to the means 

 and the taste of the owner. 



Now the ordinary owner has not, himself, the special knowledge 

 necessary to make his estate properly satisfy these desires ; indeed, it 



