LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE. 25 



sticking them in the ground as guides for the planting of 

 elms, maples, ash trees, pines, hemlocks, and cedars, and 

 there before him is a single elm covering in the spread 

 of its branches a larger space than he has devoted to the 

 whole group. The truth flashes upon him that he is 

 working at a trade at which he has never served an 

 apprenticeship, and he speedily arrives at the conclusion 

 that it will be safer and cheaper to seek the aid of one 

 who has learned the business. 



Let me not be understood to say that there are not 

 frequent instances of the exercise of the highest degree of 

 skill and taste as evinced in the results of the work of 

 amateurs who have had no professional training. To 

 one such I am indebted for some of the most valuable 

 lessons I have ever learned, but it is worthy of note that 

 such men are ever the readiest to seek the aid of compe- 

 tent professional authorities, while inexperienced men 

 will proceed without hesitation and commit the grossest 

 blunders with a blind confidence that nobody can instruct 

 them. On the other hand it cannot be denied that many 

 of the so-called landscape gardeners are men whose prac- 

 tical knowledge is not governed by an innate taste, and 

 whose pedantry and arrogance is the result of their ignor- 

 ance on all other subjects. A little experience with one 

 of this class is apt to prove so offensive that a man 

 possessed of ordinary sensibility becomes disgusted, and 

 prefers falling back on his own common sense, and work- 

 ing out the problem for himself with such aid as he may 

 incidentally secure. 



It will, I trust, be evident that this primary work of 



