The Natural Style in Landscape Gardening 



These sacred landscape arrangements were then 

 reproduced in other localities, but, as in a drawing, 

 to a scale considerably smaller than the originals. It 

 was considered obligatory to preserve this reduced 

 scale throughout the copy. Thus if the copy was 

 at one-tenth the size of the original, each hill and 

 each tree must be reduced in the same propor- 

 tion. While obviously this theory has not been 

 rigidly adhered to in all examples of Japanese 

 gardening, it has been carried far enough to make 

 most gardens seem very curious to occidental eyes. 

 But the Japanese gardener sometimes asserts that 

 his is the only natural style, and from his point 

 of view he is just as nearly right as anybody else. 



In America there have been less radical but very 

 plain differences of opinion as to what really con- 

 stitutes a natural style. The idea which has had 

 the widest vogue has certainly been the native flora 

 cult. A very respectable number of very respecta- 

 ble gardening persons (with perhaps the tender 

 sex predominating) have made themselves quite de- 

 lightful grounds with plants selected strictly from 

 the local flora. Of course there have been some 



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