PREFACE 



of English writers and landscape gardeners 

 refused to accept as right or reasonable the 

 architects garden, a thing set out as bricks 

 and stones are, and the very trees of which 

 were mutilated to meet his views as to 

 "design,'' or rather to prove his not being 

 able to see the sim-plest elements of design 

 in landscape beauty or natural form. And 

 some way or other they destroyed nearly 

 all signs of it throughout our land. 

 f^Jn every country where gardens are made 

 we see the idea of the English garden grate- 

 fully accepted; and though there are as yet 

 no effective means of teaching the true art 

 of landscape gardening, we see many good 

 results in Europe and America. No good 

 means have ever been devised for the teach- 

 ing of this delightful English art. Here 

 and there a m.an of keen sympathy with 

 Nature does good work, but often it is 

 carried out by men trained for a very 

 different life, as engineers in the great 



