150 STUDIES IN GARDENING 



puzzle. It is in the treatment of trees and shrubs 

 that naturalistic gardening has failed most com- 

 pletely, since it has forgotten their uses and treated 

 them as mere instruments of illusion. As Mr. Maw- 

 son says, they should be employed for use, and there 

 should be no concealment of the fact that they are so 

 employed. " The various flower gardens or tennis lawns 

 . . . would have their divisions, whether hedges or 

 other arrangement, so treated as to express at once 

 their use. To get shade, instead of creating it entirely 

 by means of loose masses or clumps of trees, he (the 

 designer) would obtain it by means of alleys, covered 

 bowers, pergolas, or avenues, each of which would 

 show at once the designer's intention." The ordinary 

 mixed shrubbery certainly does not show at once 

 the designer's intention, since as a rule he has no in- 

 tention whatever, except to find a place for shrubs; 

 nor does it usually serve any useful purpose, since it 

 provides neither shelter nor shade. Its purpose, in 

 fact, is purely aesthetic, and in ninety-nine cases out 

 of a hundred it fails entirely in that purpose, as a mere 

 hotch-potch of decorative objects must usually fail. 



Mr. Mawson insists that the main lines of a gar- 

 den should usually be straight, or as straight as they 

 can be made; and this is a safe rule to follow, pro- 

 vided the designer does not make a fetish of it. They 

 should be straight, not because we are growing tired 

 of the fashion of curving lines, but so that they may 

 express the designer's purpose as simply and plainly 

 as possible. A path, for instance, if it is a means of 



