AMERICAN ESTATES AND GARDENS 



ested in arboriculture, and has already established an arboretum which ranks among the most 

 extensive in the world. Here forest culture is carried out on the largest scale yet attempted 

 in this country; a school of forestry is in active operation, and many valuable results have 

 already been obtained. 



And in this lies one of the chief characteristics of this estate — its vast size enables most 

 extensi\-e experiments in ]ilant and tree life to be carried out on it. These experiments all have 

 an economic value, for the owner's idea is not to experiment for the sake of experimenting, 

 but to obtain results of positive value that will be helpful not alone to the management 

 of this pro])erty, but which will be available to landowners and land cultivators throughout 

 the entire country. Much has already been done in these directions, and much more will 

 doubtless be done. But it is a notable fact that this great estate is not kept ttp as a place 

 of pure enjoyment for its owner, but it is intended to be a great practical college in 

 agriculture and forestry. And so it is that, while planned as a private, personal estate, it has 

 already become a national institution, whose value to the country at large increases each year. 



Mr. Vanderbilt has, and perhaps wisely, chosen to regard the interior of his magnificent 

 dwelling as personally 

 belonging to himself. 

 Freely permitting the 

 photographing of the 

 exterior, he looks upon 

 the interior as having 

 interest only to himself 

 and his friends. 



" Biltmore " suggests, 

 but does not reproduce, 

 historic models. It em- 

 ploys historic ideas and 

 familiar motifs, but it 

 employs them, as the 

 great architects of the 

 great periods of archi- 

 tecture have done, as the 

 models and tools at 

 hand. Just as each^Gothic 

 church and each Renais- 

 sance palace is a distinct 

 and individual compo- 

 sition, although using ^ . . , . ^ „ „ . ^ „ m r 



^ o o Copyright, 1902, by C. F. Kay, Asheville, N. C. 



motifs famihar to every " BILTMORE"— THE FOUNTAIN IN THE COURT. 



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