THE GENERAL PLAN OR THEORY OF THE PLACE 15 



(not forgetting the kitchen window) ; in fact, the placing of the 

 house may often be determined by the views that may be ap- 

 propriated. 



If a landscape is a picture, it must have a canvas. This 

 canvas is the greensward. Upon this, the artist paints with 

 tree and bush and flower as the painter does upon his canvas with 

 brush and pigments. The opportunity for artistic composition 

 and design is nowhere so great as in the landscape garden, be- 

 cause no other art has such a limitless field for the expression 

 of its emotions. It is not strange, if this be true, that there 

 have been few great landscape gardeners, and that, falling short 

 of art, the landscape gardener too often works in the sphere of 

 the artisan. There can be no rules for landscape gardening, any 

 more than there can be for painting or sculpture. The operator 

 may be taught how to hold the brush or strike the chisel or 

 plant the tree, but he remains an operator; the art is intellec- 

 tual and emotional and will not confine itself in precepts. 



The making of a good and spacious lawn, then, is the very 

 first practical consideration in a landscape garden. 



The lawn provided, the gardener conceives what is the domi- 

 nant and central feature in the place, and then throws the entire 

 premises into subordination to this feature. In home grounds 

 this central feature is the house. To scatter trees and bushes 

 over the area defeats the fundamental purpose of the place, — 

 the purpose to make every part of the grounds lead up to the 

 home and to accentuate its homelikeness. 



A house must have a background if it is to become a home. 

 A house that stands on a bare plain or hill is a part of the universe, 

 not a part of a home. Recall the cozy little farm-house that is 

 backed by a wood or an orchard; then compare some pretentious 

 structure that stands apart from all planting. Yet how many 

 are the farm-houses that stand as stark and cold against the sky 

 as if they were competing with the moon! We would not be- 

 lieve it possible for a man to five in a house twenty-five years and 



