LESSON 56 
THe NativE LANDSCAPE 
HE purpose of this lesson is to introduce the stu- 
dent to the study and appreciation of the natural 
landscape, and to indicate the relation of such 
study to the art of landscape gardening. 
Kol 
Argument 
Los 
It ought to be axiomatic that landscape 
gardening draws its materials and ideals from the landscape. Even 
the most restricted form of architectural design still presents a 
landscape, a landscape doubtless diluted, and more like architecture 
than like the forest. Yet insofar as it is not architecture — which 
is to say in just so far as it is landscape architecture (i.e., landscape 
gardening) —it is landscape. 
It will be readily agreed that the native landscape serves with 
special efficiency in supplying materials and models for that form of 
landscape gardening which we call the natural style. This style is 
highly regarded in America. It is hardly too much to say that it 
enjoys a large preference among professional landscape gardeners in 
America and an overwhelming favor among the laity. Yet the 
materials, the form and the spirit of the open landscape should be 
sympathetically understood by every landscape architect, no matter 
how narrowly his practice may be restricted to the most formal work. 
The great popular appeal of the native landscape and the close 
relation of landscape gardening to it are especially exemplified in 
the rise of the American system of National Parks. These represent 
quite clearly and categorically the American love for wild nature, 
and the development of such a system of parks quite as clearly calls 
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