NOTES ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS 



of the gardens, with their winding paths and expanses of smooth turf, 

 is exceedingly judicious, and the whole place has a very attractive air 

 of shady seclusion. Some fine cedars of Lebanon and other specimen 

 trees of mature growth are planted in suitable places on the lawns, 

 where they have had room to develop their greatest beauties of form 

 and proportion. 



The rock garden in Messrs. Mawson's Nurseries (Plate CXXXVI.) 

 claims attention as an example of the deliberate planning of a piece of 

 wild scenery. The relation of the garden to its surroundings has been 

 well thought out, and good use has been made of suitable materials. 

 This rockery has been filled with rare Alpine plants. In these 

 nurseries, there are many other cleverly arranged bits of garden 

 design, which afford the fullest possible evidence of Mr. Mawson's 

 understanding of the art in which he has attained so much success. 

 This is the last of the northern gardens which have been selected for 

 record in these pages. Like so many others in the same neighbour- 

 hood it shows the ability of the designer to adapt himself to some 

 particular conditions which the locality imposes and to use existing 

 features as the basis of his work. There are, however, in the series 

 of illustrations instances which prove even more effectively how the 

 site determines the manner of treatment which must be applied to it, 

 and how much readiness of resource the gardener must have who 

 wishes to make the most of the material at his disposal in places 

 where nature asserts herself in a vigorous and definite manner. The 

 rocky valley or the steep hill-side cannot be coaxed into a state of 

 placid beauty as easily as the gently undulating surface of a chalk 

 down or the level expanse of a river-side meadow, and the designer 

 has not the same freedom of action where hard facts are against him 

 as he has where his path is made easy in whatever direction he 

 pleases. 



Indeed, in many parts of the north the gardener who wished to 

 disregard nature's arrangement and do things absolutely in his own 

 way, would have to call in the services of an engineer to prepare 

 the ground for him by blasting away crags and levelling up deep 

 depressions, by diverting the courses of rivers and by draining lakes. 

 He would have to change with infinite trouble and at vast expense 

 the whole face of the country, and to make a blank expanse with 

 nothing in it to remind him of what had been there, before he could 

 begin to work out any design of his own. To such drastic measures 

 there would be, of course, endless objections, practical and aesthetic, 

 and happily no one has had the mistaken courage to undertake a task 

 of such unnecessary magnitude, 

 xxxvi 



