DESIGN 39 



have no quarrel with, the formalists, if only they 

 will admit the usefulness of the informal school. 

 It is the sentimental "landscaper" who has slid 

 over the surface of things who alone is bold 

 enough to state that nature will take care of her- 

 self in a harmonious fashion about the artificial 

 habitations of man, though unrestricted in any 

 way. It must be a very crabbed and perverse 

 formalist who will not acknowledge the beauties 

 of informal design, and it must be an equally 

 narrow-minded informalist who will admit no 

 good in the opposite school. At any rate, the 

 extremists run the best chance of being misunder- 

 stood. 



The conditions governing a problem, such as 

 location, use, extent, topography, and other exist- 

 ing natural surroundings, the style of architec- 

 ture, present or proposed, and the taste of the 

 client, will determine the style to be employed. 



In most cases it is very desirable to use native 

 material in planting rather than to go far afield, 

 though the fact that a specimen is indigenous to a 

 locality is not sufficient in itself to warrant its use 

 in a planting scheme. Its shape, color, or habits 

 of life may unfit it for use in the particular type 

 of problem in hand. The golden elder, Sambucus 



