Editor's Preface 



last lines of his preface, for in his know- 

 ledge of the secret of their beauty he had 

 found real joy and thankfulness for him- 

 self. 



But Forbes Watson was not only a student 

 of Plant-life and Plant-beauty ; he was also a 

 gardener, and the second half of the book 

 " On Gardens" was the most powerful ally 

 that natural gardening had at that time, and 

 the one that gave the most important help in 

 the destruction of the tyranny of bedding-out 

 gardening. If it did not give the actual 

 death-blow, it certainly gave the first of the 

 death-blows and the one that had most effect. 

 What that tyranny was at the time the book 

 was published few can nowadays realise : to 

 have hinted a doubt that bedding-out garden- 

 ing was the perfection of artistic taste was to 

 be ranked as a Philistine heretic, and to 

 have suggested its destruction, and the substi- 

 tution of any other style, would have been 

 considered only worthy of a lunatic. Even 

 such scientific books as the Botanical Maga- 

 zine, when describing hardy plants, gauged 

 their beauty and usefulness by their fitness 

 or otherwise for carpet beds. Against this 

 system Forbes Watson raised his voice, and 



xn 



