The Partnership between Nature and Art 7 



think of. Additions to the garden are made impulsively, and 

 merely happen to be right or wrong. Every architect can tell you 

 harrowing stories of how clients have quite spoiled the effect of 

 some of his best houses through inconsistent, haphazard fur 

 nishings within and planting without. So every landscape gar 

 dener cherishes resentment against certain of his clients who, not 

 having the knowledge or the inclination to look after their own 

 gardens, turn over the care of them to ignorant labourers, whose 

 power to spoil the best garden picture ever devised is practically 

 unlimited. He justly complains that he is rarely permitted to 

 retouch the picture after the first planting. Nature, however, 

 never ceases trying her utmost to obliterate all trace of his art and 

 the hired man does his worst; while the owner usually either leaves 

 all to them or indulges in an annual orgie among the catalogues. 



&quot;Perhaps, I don t know good art,&quot; said a self-complacent 

 lady at the Royal Academy exhibition, &quot;but I know what I like.&quot; 



&quot;Madam,&quot; replied the withering Ruskin, &quot;even the beasts of 

 the field know that.&quot; 



It is as necessary in the art of gardening as in theology to have 

 a reason for the faith that is in us. Anyone may at least learn the 

 principles of art out-of-doors and the technique of it, although, 

 without the gift of imagination and a sense of proportion, form 

 and color, one may never hope to become a great artist. But 

 these gifts are by no means commonly possessed by the landscape 

 gardeners of the present or any other day, much less monopolised 

 by them. Expensive horrors are too often perpetrated on innocent 

 soil by trained men who should know better. And it is conversely 

 true that some delightful little gardens have been made by un 

 trained amateurs, who nevertheless possess the natural artistic 

 gifts. However, ignorance is never a help but a hindrance in any 



