CHAPTER I 



Introduction 



GARDENS do not happen. A Garden is as much the 

 expression of an idea as a poem, a symphony, an essay — 

 a subway, an office-building or a gown! But ordi- 

 narily we fail to recognize this until the actual work of evolving 

 a garden lies before us. 



And even then the truth is not always revealed, as witness the 

 imcertain efforts which are made — the aimless setting of things 

 into the ground here and moving them afterwards to there — 

 the lack of coordination everywhere evident around the greater 

 number of places. 



It is as if the bricks and mortar and wood which, properly com- 

 bined, will make a house, were assembled on the ground and then 

 arranged by the builder in some sort of way, without a plan or 

 any specifications to guide him. Something would result, of 

 course — but who cotild foresee the form of that something? 

 Not even the builder himself coiild know what the finished 

 appearance of the thing which he was constructing, might be. 

 And certainly there would be very little chance of such a dwell- 

 ing — if dwelling it proved to be — being either practical or 

 beautiful. 



The analogy is extreme perhaps, yet who that has tried, or is 

 trying, to develop his place, and has felt the sense of bewildered 



(i) 



