NOTES ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS 



O compare the gardens in the north of England 

 with those in the south, and to note in how 

 many ways local conditions affect the style 

 and character of the garden-maker's work, is 

 decidedly interesting. The influence of 

 locality is very evident in gardening : it 

 determines not only the working out of 

 minor details but, as well, the arrangement 

 of those fundamental principles upon which 

 all the larger facts of the work that is to be done must necessarily 

 depend. The nature of the soil and the quality of the climate 

 naturally have to be taken seriously into consideration by the 

 designer, because they decide what are to be the trees, the shrubs and 

 the flowers that he will plant in the garden that he is projecting ; 

 but the configuration of the ground and the particular surroundings 

 in which it happens to be situated claim not less consideration, for 

 they give him the leading lines of the plan that he must develop, 

 and, in great measure, define what is to be the style of gardening that 

 he must adopt. 



In the southern counties formal gardening is more general than in 

 the north ; the stately Italian garden, with its regular lines, its 

 fountains and groups of statuary, and its carefully ordered beds of 

 flowers and ornamental plants, is a type that finds much favour with 

 designers. But in the north this kind of work is not nearly so 

 popular, because it is far more difficult to carry out properly. The 

 Italian garden is best when it is laid out upon ground that is flat or 

 only gently undulating, and sites of this character are more often 

 available in the south than in the north of England. Again, in 

 many of the northern districts there are great industrial cities which 

 poison the air for miles round with the smoke from a host of 

 factory chimneys, and create an atmosphere that destroys open-air 

 statuary and kills off many of the trees and plants necessary for 

 effective garden-making of the formal type. 



The smoke difficulty, indeed, is a serious one, and has not only inter- 

 fered with the development of formal gardening in northern districts 

 which might otherwise have been suitable, but has also caused some 

 gardens, which once were of the highest importance as examples of 

 graceful and elaborate design, to lose their character and to be shorn 

 of their best features. There is one great place which was originally 

 situated in the open country between two towns, but which by the 

 spreading of these towns is now surrounded by streets and shadowed 

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