94 landscape Hrcbitecture 



A small place especially if- enclosed as it should be 

 ought to have nothing spectacular about it, no showy 

 plants, trees or shrubs or flowers, set out solely for 

 display. If there is a proper place for them in the 

 landscape scheme, use them, but not otherwise. No 

 grottoes, no rock work unless rocks crop out of the soil, 

 no pergolas unless an arbour is wanted for a grape 

 vine, and then it only finds a proper place in the general 

 scheme provided it is perfectly simple. All more or 

 less theatrical arrangements only make the enclosure 

 seem more confined and unnatural. 



In the case of the large place there may be a series 

 of lawns unenclosed, groups of buildings, mansion re- 

 gion, farm region, woodland of vast extent; then the 

 boundary lines disappear except where openings are 

 made to disclose far-distant scenery and then the en- 

 closures count little in the scheme. Perhaps it may be 

 a territory like Central Park where the city needs to 

 be shut out altogether because there is nothing beyond 

 to tempt the eye. On the other hand, on a place like 

 Muskau, Germany, Prince Piickler would naturally 

 seek to retain many of his distant views because they 

 were as important to him as those near his house. In 

 so large a place (thousands of acres) the enclosures 

 would hardly mean much except when one went near 

 them. 



"I have often heard the opinion expressed that 

 nothing is more contrary to the way of nature — • 

 which is, after all, what landscape gardening seeks 



