20 The American Flower Garden 



reflected in a garden may be its chief attraction. Better a craving 

 for the ideal carried to a "fine lunacy" than the coldly correct, 

 impersonal art of an unimpassioned hireling. It were happiness 

 indeed if, when the time for garden making comes, Art 



"shall say to thee: 

 ' I find you worthy, do this thing for me.' " 



(Before daring to proceed with a single detail on the place, 

 study your piece of land as a whole from every point of view. Map 

 it out on a large sheet of tough paper. Draw it to scale, if possible. 

 Show its elevations and depressions and respect these as far as 

 may be when you come to grade rather than attempt the expense 

 and achieve the ugliness of reducing the land to a monotonous 

 level like a billiard table. Every plot of ground, like every human 

 face, has an individuality to be emphasised rather than obliterated. 

 If your place is not a small one, divide the map into several 

 enlarged sections for special study and treatment. This book can 

 help you with only one section, the area to be pictorially treated. 

 It concerns itself with the flower garden only, not with forestry, 

 road-making, the vegetable garden, orchard, vineyard, poultry 

 yard, or any other utilitarian subject, however important, that may 

 engage the home-maker's attention. But the flower garden, of 

 many types, is broadly interpreted to include the lawn and the trees 

 and shrubs suitable for it, because these contribute so immeasur- 

 ably to the garden picture that no really good one can be made 

 without them. In the succeeding chapters the artistic principles 

 that should govern each style of garden and the directions for its 

 making will be given for the benefit of the novice with aspirations. 

 On the chart of the garden area put arrows to indicate the 

 direction of objects of beauty or interest, such as a fine view, a 

 vista through the trees, a gigantic pine, or a mirror-like lake toward 



