HISTORY 21 



simply made the topography suit their needs, and this soon became the 

 prevalent style in England. 



Versailles, the famous palace of the French kings, near Paris, 

 France, was designed by Le Notre in the seventeenth century, and 

 is a distinct and characteristic achievement of the period of Louis XIV 

 and set the fashion for some time until displaced by the English style. 



With the introduction of these three types of gardens, many more 

 freakish styles were introduced, and an attempt was made to introduce 

 into England, a kind of garden in which all the elements were to be 

 symbolic, such as the stepping stones, trees, etc., of the Japanese gar- 

 den. The idea of the garden owners at this time seems to have been 

 for each man to try to outdo his neighbor in the creaticn of as many 

 styles of gardens, all on one estate, as he could conceive. The be- 

 holder was led from one style to another, French, Dutch, Italian, 

 Chinese, Japanese, etc., and as a last enormity, they even tried to 

 create gardens symbolic of mythology, caves, grottoes, gardens depict- 

 ing the terrors of the lower regions, etc. The visitor to these gardens 

 was supposed to view each one with increasmg awe and amazement 

 and no doubt they did. 



In about 1 750 a man by the name of Kent made his appearance 

 in gardening work jand from that time dates the worst affliction that 

 has ever been visited upon gardening. His idea was to create a natu- 

 ralistic effect, nothing was to be artificial — everything was to be as in 

 its wild state. He was a landscape artist and had been engaged to 

 paint an estate and when the owner saw how he had "beautified and 

 improved" it, he was engaged to carry out these suggestions on the 

 ground and thus started the period known as the naturalistic. H'^. 

 was followed by Sir Uvedale Price, an author, and Lancelot Brown, 

 commonly known as "Capability Brown", from his habit of speaking 

 of the capabilities of places upon which he was engaged. None of 

 these men were trained in architecture or even in horticulture, and yet 

 to their unskillful hands were entrusted beautiful old gardens that had 

 existed for centuries and bade fair to become as softened and mellowed 

 by time as the old Italian villas. They proceeded to tear out all that 

 they possibly could of the old garden features, destroying all formal 

 portions and replacing them with native flora as much as possible, 



