LAWNS AND PARKS. 169 



a habit firmly fixed at first by a stern necessity may persist after the 

 necessity has ceased. We are in danger of neglecting the beautiful 

 after we have become well able to cultivate it. More tasteful homes 

 are, however, beginning to appear on Nebraska soil, and I think the 

 time has come to institute a reform in the matter of more tasteful 

 surroundings, in the shape of pretty yards, green lawns, and fine parks 

 to correspond to the improved style of houses. We are not yet so 

 much crowded with a dense population but that every man may have 

 some bit of land at his door which he may convert to the service of the 

 beautiful ; or leave in that state of slovenly neglect which proclaims his 

 lack of taste and refinement ; nor yet so crowded as to prevent each city 

 or town from having public parks and gardens. The wealth to create 

 these is not the only thing needed. In fact there is in many places 

 ample wealth to produce fine effects in landscape art, but these do not 

 appear because people do not appreciate or understand them. 



The greatest obstacle to the progress of landscape art in the west is 

 the lack of desire and appreciation of these things — not the lack of 

 wealth to produce them. We must have not only money to produce 

 beautiful examples of landscape art, but an educated public sentiment 

 such that money expended on these things will not be regarded as 

 money wasted. It is the natural and legitimate province of this 

 Society to aid in forming such a public sentiment, and stimulating the 

 general appreciation of the beautiful. The cultivation of ornamental 

 shrubbery — the most essential feature of park adornment — is one of 

 the legitimate objects of this Society, and by no means the least im- 

 portant, or least worthy of its attention. The production of beautiful 

 landscape effects is one of the branches of fine arts. Like many other 

 of the higher and more refined products of the human mind, it has 

 much to struggle against before it gains recognition and only attains 

 its highest development in the midst of an advanced civilization. It 

 is true that some attention was given to it among the ancients whose 

 civilization was not of the highest type, but these early efforts were 

 chiefly in the mathematical style. For in landscape art there are two 

 •distinct schools which are essentially different in general aim and 

 detailed treatment, besides those smaller individual differences which 

 result from the genius or lack of genius in the engineer in charge of 

 the work. These schools may be broadly designated as the mathe- 

 matical and the natural. 



