THE BOOK OF GARDEN DESIGN 



CHAPTER I 



OF GARDENS AND GARDEN DESIGNERS 



FROM the earliest times the garden has been regarded 

 as a fitting adjunct to the dwelling-places of man. The 

 very name seems to suggest a place of beauty and 

 repose, where the fairest of fruits and flowers are 

 collected into a small compass for our special pleasure 

 and edification. The term " garden," too, is often 

 employed in a broader sense, meaning a tract of country, 

 so lavishly endowed with natural beauties, as to almost 

 suggest that it is the special property and care of some 

 master hand, who cultivates his broad acres where we 

 are content with inches. Eden, where, according to 

 Milton's famous description in " Paradise Lost," the 

 " cedar and pine and fir and branching palm," mingled 

 together in a tangle of sylvan loveliness, was a garden 

 of Nature. We speak of Italy as the " garden" of the 

 world, and are accustomed to attribute the same term 

 to some specially favoured district or locality in each 

 county at home. From each of these all suggestion of 

 design is absent ; a mightier hand than ours has planted 

 their groves, watered their fertile valleys, and strewn 

 the meadows and hedgerows with flowers. To these 

 favoured spots of earth, those at any rate which are left 

 us, the garden designer must cast his eye, as he sets 

 out to learn the rudiments of his craft. Not that garden 



