TOPIARY 



" If I do not defend the taste through thick and thin, I am prepared 

 to admit that much may be said in its favour, and it is far from my 

 intention to denounce it as either extravagant or foolish. It may be 

 true, as I believe it is, that the natural form of a tree is the most 

 beautiful possible for that particular tree, but it may happen that we 

 do not always want the most beautiful form, but one of our own 

 designing, and expressive of our ingenuity." Shirley Hibberd. 



MODERN horticultural works, and especially those that 

 are of the Dictionary type, do not as a rule take any 

 notice whatever of Topiary, and those in which it 

 is noticed deal with the subject with a brevity that is 

 provoking, inasmuch as the student is little or none 

 the wiser for the information given. " Johnson's 

 Gardeners' Dictionary" is silent on the subject, and 

 " Cassell's Popular Gardening " may be searched in vain 

 for any reference to it. 



Mr G. Nicholson, F.L.S., V.M.H., in his celebrated 

 " Dictionary of Gardening," writes, under Topiary, 

 " Although the absurd fashion of cutting and torturing 

 trees into all sorts of fantastic shapes has, happily, 

 almost passed away, yet, as the art of the Topiarist was 

 for a considerable period regarded as the perfection of 

 gardening, some mention of it is desirable here. When 

 the fashion first became general in Britain, it is probably 

 impossible to ascertain ; but it reached its highest point 

 in the sixteenth century, and held its ground until 

 ' driven out of the field in the last (eighteenth) century 

 by the natural or picturesque style. From an archaeo- 

 logical point of view, it is not to be regretted that 



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