THE ARGUMENT 



NATURE supplies the living material, and this is the 

 best part of a garden ; craft can vary its growth, art can 

 accentuate and frame its charm, but its ever changing 

 beauty is the gift of God. 



In the world's history horticulture as a craft has never 

 before reached its present state of perfection, and has 

 never included such an amazing variety of trees, shrubs, 

 and plants. The scientific spirit of the age has im- 

 pelled botanists to seek new specimens at the ends of 

 the earth and to naturalize the most far-fetched exotics 

 on English soil. But if all this wealth of vegetation, 

 indigenous and outlandish, is to answer other than 

 practical and scientific purposes, it must be taken in 

 hand by art as well as by craft and science. To give 

 the utmost pleasure to people neither horticulturists 

 nor botanists, a collection of plants, forming a garden, 

 should be treated as an artistic composition. 



Unfortunately, garden design has not advanced at the 

 same rapid pace as horticulture and botany; in fact, 

 until within the last few years it has gone backward 

 rather than forward in England, ever since the period 



