THE COUNTRY PLACE 1 3 



little attention was paid to the fundamental principles of design in the 

 organization of the plan so as to bring the surrounding landscape into 

 the scheme and provide for convenience and pleasure. The real begin- 

 ning of the movement to the open country began after the profession of 

 landscape architecture had arrived at a point where the real underlying 

 principles of design had become the basis in the solution of a landscape 

 problem. 



The owners had brought back with them from abroad an apprecia- 

 tion for good work, and although the first plans may have shown more 

 of the nurseryman's art than old-world traditions, the basis of the 

 plan was such that careful study and reconstruction had brought about 

 a gradual realization of the model which was the inspiration. A factor 

 that has had an important bearing on the bringing together of under- 

 lying principles of arrangement has been the garden clubs, magazines 

 and books dealing with gardening in its relation to the open country. 



Early landscape architecture in America had no distinctive style of 

 its own, but was based on traditions of the old world. The Colonial 

 houses, with their well arranged building groups, with door-yard gar- 

 dens and the house grounds enclosed by a fence, was, for general 

 arrangement of plan and plant material, almost transplanted from 

 Europe. 



Although the final result may give the effect of natural conditions 

 or informality, the same principles have been used in its organization 

 as in the most formal and intricate plan. The problems of design are 

 essentially the same. Depending upon nature or accident, is not a safe 

 basis for the important views. The principles of design govern not 

 only the fundamental organization of each problem in the design of 

 a country place, they govern also in the study of even the smallest 

 detail. 



This close relation of natural open country landscape and archi- 

 tecture fused into an organic whole brings one to the secret of the 

 underlying charm of the English estates, the correct basic organization 

 or plan and the following of the fundamental principles of design in 

 the working out of these plans. 



An English country place in which the open country is made an 

 important feature, and the organization of the plan becomes in itself a 



