I THE FORMAL METHOD 19 



sui generis, as of a wood in which clearings have 

 been made and the grass kept carefully trimmed. 



The word " garden " itself means an enclosed 

 space, a garth or yard surrounded by walls, as 

 opposed to unenclosed fields and woods. The 

 formal garden, with its insistence on strong 

 bounding lines, is, strictly speaking, the only 

 " garden " possible ; and it was not till the decay 

 of architecture, which began in the middle of 

 the eighteenth century, that any other method 

 of dealing with a garden was entertained. 



Before quitting the subject of gardens in 

 general, a distinction should be laid down 

 between garden design and horticulture. The 

 landscape gardener treats of the two indis- 

 criminately, yet they are entirely distinct, and 

 it is evident that to plan out the general dis- 

 position of a garden the knowledge necessary is 

 that of design, not of the best method of grow- 

 ing a gigantic gooseberry. Mr. Robinson justly 

 remarks that " the profession of an architect 

 has no one thing in common with that of horti- 

 culture," and infers from this that the French 

 do wrong to give the control of the Luxem- 

 bourg gardens to an architect. But the question 

 is not one of horticulture at all, but of design ; 

 and just as in the house, the designer is only 

 indirectly concerned with the process of manu- 

 facturing his bricks, so in the garden the de- 

 signer need not know the best method of 

 planting every flower or shrub included in his 



