AMERICAN LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE. 107 



hourly across the meadows of current Hterature. Mr. William 

 Dean Howells has written many books, but his critics have written 

 five pages to his one. The newspapers are full of talk about 

 Kipling, Barry, and Mr. Dooley; and if there is a dinner party 

 an^-where in the land where novels, plays, and biographies are not 

 discussed the guests must be very stupid or very interesting, for 

 they are very rare. 



Does all this flood of criticism serve any use? Does it fertilize 

 the soil from which literature springs ? Or, to change the figure, is 

 it a mere parasitic growth ? A good deal of it does indeed represent 

 a cheap parasitism, but proper criticism is nevertheless the very 

 life of literature. Criticism is to literature what the cultivator, 

 the pruning knife, and the spray pump are to the apple orchard. 

 Apple trees will grow without care, but the wild pasture trees never 

 bear fruit of any value. It is only when the trees are set in proper 

 soil, in orderly rows, primed, fertilized, and cleansed, and given 

 continual expert care by the horticulturist that they bear full loads 

 of perfect apples. 



No, a progressive literature without constant criticism is an 

 impossibility. Most productive writers recognize this. They 

 welcome intelligent criticism, even when it rests heavily on their 

 own works. Some writers and all publishers industriously cultivate 

 criticism. 



In like manner the arts of acting, painting, sculpture, and music 

 enjoy the stimulus and direction of a well organized criticism. 

 What would be the value of the annual picture salon without criti- 

 cism ? And the great music festivals are partly for present enjoy- 

 ment, but partly too for the sake of future improvement. 



On every hand, in every art (except only landscape architecture) 

 criticism is welcomed and the critic is recognized as filling a position 

 of legitimate service. Not every critic is himself an artist. Proba- 

 bly the best dramatic critics are not actors nor the best critics of 

 pictures painters, but the field oft'ers attractive emplo}Tnent for high 

 talents. 



I have recently organized and conducted a somewhat extensive 

 correspondence with the landscape architects of America. Natu- 

 rally I have written most freely to my own acquaintances, but I 

 have also writtenfpersonal letters to many others. In this corre- 



