The Natural Style in Landscape Gardening 



ground of their essential unnaturalness, especially 

 after the compromise has already been forced from 

 another quarter. 



What is true of the formal tree row will be even 

 more readily admitted in the matter of the informal 

 row. In all the regions of the Old World where 

 men have lived long and numerously, and in those 

 parts of America which have approached the same 

 conditions, we find the informal irregular tree row 

 a very common unit in the landscape. Such ragged 

 rows represent the borders of old fields, old fence 

 lines, the position of lost roads or of property di- 

 visions. As a rule they are picturesque and pleas- 

 ing often extremely so. Look on the paintings in 

 the art gallery and see how frequently their beauty 

 has moved the artist's brush. It would be folly to 

 reject from our landscape gardening a unit of such 

 approved power. We are not even justified in ex- 

 cluding it from the natural style, for indeed these 

 picturesque tree borders do not fit any better, nor 

 half so well, into any formal gardening. 



If we are able to adopt as we surely shall be 

 within the next century the agricultural land- 



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