CHAPTER II. 



The foregoing brief sketch of the history of garden making, so far as it relates to 

 Great Britain, naturally raises the question What should be the aim and position of 

 the ART AND CRAFT OF GARDEN MAKING at the present day ? 



To understand thoroughly the bearings of this question, we must first of all realize The term 

 that garden design, or the Architecture of Gardens, is only a part of a much greater "Landscape 



subject of infinitely wider application, the profession of Landscape Architecture, and, if Arcnitec- 



tuYe 

 we examine the aims, scope and intention of this art, we shall by that means most 



easily arrive at the answer to our question. 



Before proceeding to do this, however, we would explain that the term " Landscape 

 Architecture " is not of our choosing.* Its unfortunate etymological significance, which 

 would seem to suggest puerile interference with natural scenery or, worse still, the attempt 

 to reproduce Nature's glories on a mean scale in competition with artificial surroundings, 

 has undoubtedly helped to obscure the real purpose of the art and to reduce its practice 

 to the debased level at which we find it in the average town garden, where sickly exotic 

 plants and blood-red terra-cotta predominate. 



Shortly defined, Landscape Architecture is the art of co-relating the component parts 

 of a scheme over large areas. It aims at the rhythmic, balanced or co-ordinated relation 

 of all the units, utilitarian or decorative, employed within the area under treatment. It 

 aims at producing a collective effect from the scattered units presented by the component 

 parts, whether they be ecclesiastical, public, or domestic buildings, trees, greensward, 

 roadway or flower beds, giving everything its proper place in relation to the whole, 

 and marking fittingly by their arrangement the relative importance of each object. 



This leads to the reflection Are not architecture, horticulture, engineering and all the 

 other factors which go to the making of a city or domain, parts of one great art or 

 science ? Yes, in one sense, and this art is Landscape Architecture. In another sense 

 they are not, for it is impossible to conceive of an art without an artist or art-craftsman 

 capable of grasping even the technicalities of his art, and the whole of these subjects 

 could not be undertaken by one man within the ordinary span of existence. 



As an art or science comes to be more fully known and the volume of its precedent Specializa- 

 increases, its adherents find it necessary to specialize and devote themselves to one tion. 

 portion of the subject, leaving the development of other branches to their confreres, each 

 specialist sharing in the advance made by others and contributing to the general progress 

 of the science as a whole. 



* "Topographical Architecture" would probably be a term less liable to be misunderstood. 



