36 GARDEN DESIGN 



best landscape gardener I have known, 

 and I never saw one of his many gardens 

 where he did not make an ample straight 

 walk where an ample straight walk was 

 required as, indeed, many may re- 

 member is the case in the Botanic 

 Gardens in the Regent's Park, laid out 

 by him. 



Again, Nature is said to prefer a curved line to 

 a straight, and it is thence inferred that all the 

 lines in a garden, and especially paths, should be 

 curved. 



The utter contempt for design of the landscape 

 gardener is shown most conspicuously in his treat- 

 ment of paths. He lays them about at random, 

 and keeps them so narrow that they look like 

 threads, and there is barely room to walk abreast. 



The opposite of this is indeed the 

 truth, for many gardens and parks laid 

 out with some regard to landscape beauty 

 are partly spoiled by the size and number 

 of the walks, as in the gardens around 

 Paris the Pare Monceau and Buttes 

 Chaumont, for instance. The slightest 



