HORTICULTURE AS A PROFESSION FOR WOMEN. 73 



adjusted to the engagements of the client, the contractor, the engi- 

 neer, and the landscape gardener. 



"No one should attempt the profession who has not by nature a 

 quality which corresponds to the musician's ear for music, that is, 

 the power to perceive and assimilate the characteristics of land- 

 scape : in other words, no one can be a landscape gardener who has 

 not an eye any more than a musician can be made from a person 

 who has no ear. This means the appreciation of the texture as 

 well as the colour of the landscape, the peculiar quality of each 

 individual place and its adaptation to specific treatment; for it 

 cannot be too strongly borne in mind that landscape gardening 

 is the profession of a painter built on the substructure of that of an 

 engineer. 



"If after consideration the young woman decides that she wishes 

 to become a landscape gardener, a thorough preparation should 

 follow this determination. The actual studying should be supple- 

 mented by a journey to Europe, as essential to the landscape garde- 

 ner as it is to the architect, and for the same reason that it tends to 

 form and educate the eye and train it to perceive what has been 

 done with the opportunity given. At present the work of women 

 in the profession consists almost entirely of what may be called 

 the domestic branch. By this is meant the laying out and manage- 

 ment of private places as opposed to public parks or land develop- 

 ments or town planning. The landscape gardener's equipment 

 must consist of a sufficient knowledge of engineering to read and 

 comprehend a survey and to detect any errors, which means of 

 course the capability to make a survey, however halting and labori- 

 ous the effort. The drainage of land must be well understood, as 

 well as the various methods of road construction and the ability to 

 calculate the grading cross sections and the quantity of soil to be 

 removed. In the architectural department the landscape gardener 

 must know enough of construction to build proper retaining walls 

 and terraces, balustrades, steps, summer houses, etc., suited to the 

 architecture of the house and the general character of the country. 



"The technique of the planting is one of the most important 

 parts of the landscape gardener's education, and here is where the 

 instinctive appreciation of the appropriate cannot be dispensed with. 

 A wide familiarity with the growth, needs, and expression of the 



