GROUND, ROCK, WATER 143 



portance by making its bed seem to express the work of a greater flow 

 of water than now occupies this bed, so you can magnify the impor- 

 tance of a waterfall by making its setting and the pool at its base ap- 

 parently the work of a greater carving power than there really is. 

 Indeed this relation of stream to stream bed is what most of us city 

 dwellers are accustomed to see who visit the wilder country in Summer 

 or Autumn, since the mountain stream flows bank-full and does its 

 work almost entirely in the Spring, and during the rest of the year the 

 shrunken flow of water occupies but a small portion of the bed carved 

 by the Spring flood. 



The landscape architect is not infrequently called upon to design a Rocks in 

 unit in a naturalistic landscape, or to treat a part of a natural land- Naturalistic 

 scape, in which rocks form the principal objects to be arranged. 



The use of rocks as a material in landscape design is subject, like 

 the use of all other materials, to the laws of design with which we are 

 familiar. If rockwork is to be esthetically good, it must be apparently 

 organized. If it is to look man-made it should be organized into some 

 recognizable man-made shape, it should form a wall, a terrace, a pav- 

 ing, a structure ; if, on the other hand, it is to simulate the work of 

 nature, then it must be organized as groups of rocks in nature are, 

 the rocks must be related one to another as though they formed part of 

 a sea beach, of a talus slope, of a water-eroded slope, of an outcropping 

 ledge, or of whatever natural rock-made form the designer chooses, or 

 the circumstances require. This choice between style and character 

 is, as always, the first choice the designer must make. For instance, 

 if the rocks are used only as a place for the growth of rock plants on a 

 small scale, and no rocks are naturally visible in the landscape, the 

 designer should carefully consider whether it would not be better to 

 make a frankly constructed wall or pavement, in the cracks of which 

 his plants might grow, rather than to attempt an imitation of nature 

 so small as perhaps to appear incongruous with the surrounding land- 

 scape.* If, however, the area in which rock is being used as an element 



* Cf. " . . . where the ground cannot be made to look natural, it is better, at all 

 times, to avow the interference of art than to attempt an ineffectual concealment of it." 



Repton, Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening, 1794, P- 27-28 (end of 

 Chapter III). 



