PLAN AND PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK 
landscape gardening covers a large and varied field. In a short 
course of one term, or even of one year, it will be impossible to ex- 
haust the ‘subject in all its different phases. If some portions of the 
material can be temporarily detached for study in other courses the 
time thus gained may be advantageously applied to the remainder. 
In any case it will seem desirable to the teacher and the student to 
emphasize certain phases of the subject, giving less attention to 
others. 
Laying out the Course 
The necessity for this selection will be understood further 
through a simple calculation in arithmetic. The present book offers 
62 chapters, the slightest of which will make an adequate lesson for 
any class, while the larger chapters contain materials and problems 
enough to occupy ten or a dozen lessons. We may perhaps estimate 
that the material here offered will be sufficient for 150 substantial 
class exercises. 
Yet this is not all. It is exceedingly important to the plan of 
this book that the work of the student shall take hold upon the 
neighborhood in which he finds himself. Teacher and student 
should therefore strive to develop all the practical problems of the 
neighborhood, whether they are specifically outlined in the text or 
not. If the teacher therefore has reasonable enterprise and im- 
agination he will add a considerable number of exercises to those 
here outlined. 
Now a one-semester college or high-school course having three 
exercises a week cannot possibly handle more than 48 exercises. 
If the course in landscape gardening is continued for an entire year 
it will still be impossible to have more than 96 exercises, and this 
number will probably be considerably diminished through the usual 
exigencies of examination periods, vacations and the like. 
Under these circumstances it will be necessary for each teacher 
at the beginning of the course to outline a program of exercises 
equal to the number of periods at his disposal. This program will 
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