Gardening as an Art of Design and Taste. IBI 



plants, and how valuable it is when mixed with different sorts of 

 earth for the growth of plants. 

 Munich^ Feb. 1840. 



[The theory of M. Lucas's experiments, by Dr. Buchner, 

 will be given in our next Number.] 



Art. VI. On Gardening as an Art of Design and Taste. By the 

 late Thomas Hope, Esq. 



[The following essay was published upwards of twenty years 

 ago, first in a work entitled the Review of Art , now very scarce, 

 and subsequently in Hoffland's T)escrij)tion of White Knights, 

 now also very scarce, and not to be had under two guineas a 

 copy. The essay has been much admired, but, from the nature 

 of the works in which it was published, never much read by 

 those to whom it is calculated to be of most use, viz. country 

 gentlemen and their gardeners. We intended some years ago 

 to republish the essay in the Gardener's Magazine ; and the late 

 Mr. Hope, to whom we applied for permission to do so, very 

 kindly promised to revise the proofs : but, unfortunately, we 

 neglected to take advantage of his kind offer at the time, and 

 before we could do so Mr. Hope died.] 



It has been much the fashion of late years, in this country, to 

 commend no feature in that production of human industry, a 

 garden, which should not appear as if still remaining the mere 

 spontaneous work of unassisted nature. It is become a very 

 general custom indiscriminately to condemn, in the laying out of 

 grounds, every marked trace of the hands of man ; and, above 

 all, every modification of intentional and professed symmetry. 



Perhaps a more methodical enquiry than has hitherto been 

 made into the purposes for which a gai'den has been destined, 

 and into the character which, in conformity with these purposes, 

 it ought to display, might have prevented its form and embel- 

 lishments from being subjected to rules so confined and so 

 narrow. 



What was, in the earliest times, the origin of the garden ? 

 The wish that certain esculent plants and fruits which, in the 

 waste field and the wide forest, are scattered at great distances 

 in small quantities, intermixed with useless vegetables and fruits, 

 precarious in their appearance and stinted in their growth, 

 difficult to collect, and scarce worth the gathering, might, in a 

 nearer, a smaller, and a more accessible spot, be better secured, 

 more abundantly produced, and kept clearer of the noxious 

 herbs and weeds which destroy their nutriment and impede 

 their growth. This was, in its origin, the sole object of the 

 entire garden ; this, to the present hour, continues to be the 



