208 ORNAME^'TAL GARDE^^IKG. 



as well as in cemeteries. The managers of Lincoln Park, 

 Chicago, and in Battersea Park, London, England, easily 

 take the lead in this style of adornment, and tlie display 

 now annually made in each of these, as well as in some 

 other parks that could be named, would be difficult to 

 excel. That these embellishments are in the main well 

 conceived and find appreciation from the public is easily 

 seen in the fact, that in these parks, which abound in a 

 variety of interesting garden and other features — the 

 former both in the natural and other styles — the parts 

 devoted to these showy arrangements of flowers are those 

 among all comj)eting ones in interest, that are the most 

 constantly thronged by admirers. 



I am well aware that some advocates of a strictly nat- 

 ural style of garden making, pronounce against the 

 bedding or massing system as being wrong both in prin- 

 ciple and taste. But it will be difficult to ever educate 

 the people to have none of it, for that it has a legitimate 

 place in the ornamentation of grounds is obvious to most 

 gardeners and other persons. When the mass of the 

 people may be brought to see that there is more real 

 beauty in the coarse primitive Zinnia, Balsam, or Iris, 

 than in the splendid improvements on these that have 

 been accomplished by art, then they may also learn to 

 despise art in the arrangement of flowers. And as to the 

 use of geometrical lines and outlines, delicate tints and 

 rich colors combined in contrasts, Avhere can be found 

 more suggestive examples, in such arrangements, than 

 in nature's own work-shop, in the mutiplicity of such 

 forms and combinations as are everywhere in the flowers, 

 fruits and foliage of the yegetable kingdom. 



That disagreeable effects often do arise in this, as in 

 other uses of flowers, is very true, but a chief cause 

 for this, it should be understood, comes from disregard- 

 ing the true relation of flowers and plants in such ar- 

 rangments to garden scenery generally. It should be re- 



