88 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE 



scape gardening should be designed or planned in a way analogous 

 to that in which buildings are planned to combine utility with beauty; 

 in civil engineering, because to plan the improvement of ground involves 

 surveys, topographical maps, draughting of plans, profiles, cross sec- 

 tions, drainage and masonry plans, specifications and other technical 

 training such as civil engineers get; in horticulture (including arbori- 

 culture), because almost every landscape gardening design calls for 

 either trees, grass, shrubs, vines, hardy and tender plants or some or 

 all of these. 



To many it may seem unreasonable to place, in the education of 

 landscape gardeners, a training in architectural design ahead of a 

 knowledge of civil engineering and of horticulture. It is true that 

 most of the time of architectural students and practitioners is taken 

 up with matters that would be of comparatively little or no use to 

 the landscape gardener, but in the absence of adequate means for 

 thoroughly educating landscape gardeners in the esthetic side of their 

 profession, a training in architectural design is at present the best 

 available for the purpose. It must not be inferred that architects can 

 easily practice landscape gardening. The fact that they appreciate 

 certain fundamental esthetic principles, no more fits them to prac- 

 tice landscape gardening than landscape painting or any other art to 

 which those principles apply. It is certainly better that most architects 

 should confine themselves to architecture. 



Civil engineers should not be too much elated by the statement 

 that a good knowledge of and experience in certain branches of civil 

 engineering is more important in the education of landscape gardeners 

 in the ability to design well than horticultural knowledge. Indeed 

 such a claim may seem paradoxical when we call to mind how many 

 obstrusively ugly works of civil engineering there are in all parts of 

 this country, and on the other hand how much horticulturists are con- 

 cerned with beautiful flowers and garden plants. 



The reason why a certain kind of engineering knowledge is more 

 important to the landscape gardener than horticulture, as a means of 

 developing his general designing ability, is that it has to do with larger 

 and more complex problems of fitting land for human use. 



The ability required to successfully design important municipal, 

 railroad, river, canal and harbor works and other extensive plants, 

 involves a capacity for investigating physical and human and finan- 

 cial conditions, requirements and limitations and for evolving a logical 

 solution of each problem which is similar in a' general way to the 

 capacity possessed by successful architects. Engineering schools do 

 more to educate that capacity than the ordinary methods of educat- 

 ing horticulturists do. 



The most essential esthetic requirement of conspicuous works of 

 civil engineering is that they should accomplish their purposes in an 

 appropriate, pleasing and satisfactory way, not that they should be 

 made pretty by means of ornament applied as an after-thought. 



The main object of this paper is to call the attention of horticul- 

 turists to that particular idea the importance of the esthetic princi- 



