/ 



d 



y 



great American exponent, Mr. Frederick Law Olmstead, achieved 

 a half century ago, and the members of the profession, talented, 

 brilliant and able as many oi them are, do not find the general 

 recognition of the necessity of their services which has only lately 

 been accorded to the architectural profession. Some idea of the 

 very great importance of a capable landscape architect can be ob- 

 tained from the illustrations in this volume, and they prove that 

 the landscape man (or ^yoman) is as much a necessity in the small 

 garden as in the large park, just as an architect is as indispensable 

 to the design of a cottage as he is to that of a theater. Neverthe- 

 less people continue to exercise their own judgment in garden- 

 ing, as they do in architecture and in decoration, ^vith results 

 which in this art do not as a whole approach any mi.ire nearly a 

 high level than in the others. People with some knowledge of 

 flowers and with native good taste can plant a garden of a country 

 place which will look well for a while or at certain seasons, but a 

 very expert and technical knowledge of flowers and shrubs is 

 needed if the place is to continue to improve with age. Much of 

 the planting has of late been done by men from the nurseries, who 

 look at the planting much as a carpenter does when he builds a 

 house of good material without regard for the artistic result; 

 they plant sound, healthy, and shapely trees without thinking of 

 their future development. The layman, when he does his work 

 himself, frequently forgets that the trees which he plants as a 

 border mav eventually entirely cut out (jr smother shrubs behind 

 them, though the latter at the time of planting are the larger. 

 In addition many of us know little of the seasons of flowering or 



Iviii] 



