HISTORICAL EPILOGUE 



'"PHE foregoing collection of extracts contains, perhaps, in 

 * essence a sufficient History of Gardens ; but there may 

 be readers who prefer a less broken thread of narrative, and 

 to them is offered the following clue to the labyrinth of garden 

 literature. 



Ever since the gardening art has been anything more conscious 

 and definite than the haphazard planting of fruit-trees, herbs and 

 vegetables in orchards and kitchen-gardens for practical use, 

 garden design may be said broadly to have adopted one of two 

 forms or styles, each capable of infinite variation and modification 

 in treatment, and each liable at times to trespass upon the territory 

 and overlap the limits, of the other. 



One of these styles has been distinguished by such various 

 names as Architectural, Classical, Formal, Regular, Rectangular, 

 Symmetrical and Geometrical ; or has been called Italian, French, 

 or Dutch, according to the country of its origin. As the terms 

 denote, the exponents of this style chose for model and in- 

 spiration the art of the architect, who designed, or 'built' the 

 garden in harmony with the plan of the house, of which it was a 

 sort of open-air extension ; for detail and decoration it laid under 

 contribution the art of sculpture, in the form of clipped hedges and 

 trees (known as ' topiarian work '), statuary, vases and fountains. 



The second school endeavoured to follow Nature more closely, 

 believing that, with this aim in view, the sister art of painting was 

 a surer guide, and has been variously called the Natural, Irregular, 

 Landscape, Romantic, English or Chinese School; these two nations 

 having had most influence in its creation or development. 



This later school in its designs ' lays out ' or ' composes ' its 

 gardens as a painter his landscapes, and employs so far as possible 



