2 The Landscape Gardening Book 



helplessness which sometimes overwhelms his aspirations, 

 will say that it is exaggerated? To svicceed in only having 

 trees and shrubs and flowers instead of a Garden — is it not a 

 common experience? 



Yet a Garden is what we all want. The vague disappointment 

 in an effect, the feeling of incompleteness, of falling short of 

 what we hoped for and were seeking to attain, all of these are the 

 indication of that desire for a definite something — a something 

 so subtle that to express it in words often eludes us, though 

 we may feel it ever so keenly. 



Obser\dng that " when ages grow to civility and elegancy, 

 man comes to build stately sooner than to garden finely ; as if 

 gardening were the greater perfection," Bacon went, as usual, 

 straight to the heart of the matter. For gardening is the greater 

 perfection. Distinguished by refined subtleties that may escape 

 even a keen perception, it is probably more elusive than any 

 other art; but it is by no means indefinite nor incapable of 

 analysis on this account. 



That we fail to attempt such analysis usually comes from our 

 failure to appreciate the necessity for it — from lack of a true 

 conception of the art. But without such analysis, and the defi- 

 nite understanding which it brings, it will rarely happen that 

 even the most enthusiastic attempts succeed. 



Suggestions for such analysis are the aim of this volume — to 

 help in Garden Making rather than in gardening. There is a 

 vast difference; though it is not to be expected that one may 

 do the former without learning the latter. Many books, how- 

 ever, which deal with gardening in all its branches, are to be had 

 for the asking. Therefore plant culture is only touched upon here. 

 Indeed, so highly specialized a subject has properly no place 

 here, demanding, as it does, volumes devoted to it alone. 



