TNG* LANDS 

 EFFECT 



CHAPTER XVII. 



f\ 



As time goes on and the appreciation of the garden grows greater and more 



widespread, especially for the quaintness and studied charm of the old English 

 formal parterre, it is more and more evident that the revival of interest in the one 

 direction has been attained at the expense of others, for, while the garden makers of a 

 hundred years ago could see no beauty in any form of gardening which was not a direct 

 attempt at imitation of Nature, they planted all those magnificent plantations and 

 groves of trees which we are enjoying to-day, and which, unless a sudden change of 

 policy takes place throughout the country, of which there are at present no signs 

 whatever, posterity will be entirely bereft. 



It is not so much that we are not planting, as that we are not giving that care 

 and thought to the creation of the picturesque which animated the planters of past 

 generations. This is, in a measure, accounted for by the swing of the pendulum from 

 the extremes which a too zealous and undiscriminating desire to reproduce the beauties 

 and immensities of Nature in half an acre of ground led the old gardeners into. Their 

 eccentricities in other directions have discredited their only great and really successful 

 work, and now it would seem that we are about to run to the other extreme and admire 

 only that which is formal, and the immediate accompaniment of architecture. 



Another cause of this state of things would seem to be a lack of that educated 

 imagination which will allow us to see, in the mind's eye, the ultimate effect of a newly 

 formed plantation. It is quite easy to predict the result when an avenue of young 

 horse chestnuts shall have reached maturity, and so we plant in straight lines, but to 

 grasp the meaning of a new mass of planting is a totally different matter, and involves 

 a careful estimation of probabilities. In the young and newly planted group of trees, 

 the eye is first attracted by the nursers and undergrowths which are already bushy in 

 habit and have a substantial appearance. The very weedy and unattractive-looking 

 saplings which will some day give the whole its effect are not by any means things of 

 beauty, and the Writer has even been asked by disgusted clients why such " toothpicks " 

 and " gaspipes " were included, when the small hollies, mahonia, privets and so on gave 

 so much greater immediate result. It would seem as though many people had no power 

 of seeing anything beyond the status quo, and thus we get a great deal of unintelligent 

 criticism of the planting of modern gardens, " like a tea garden with a lot of little 

 shrubs." 



With the planter of a hundred years ago this was not the case. He was content 

 that his work should be judged, very largely, by posterity, consequently his designs were so 

 framed that they would develop as the trees he planted so lavishly reached maturity. 

 He had been to Nature and studied her methods, had noted how in mass as a part of 

 the landscape, and in detail as one examined each portion, her work in the woodland was 



Neglect of 



picturesque 



planting. 



Lack of 

 imagina- 

 tion in 

 modern 

 planting. 



265 



