INTRODUCTION 
) | ‘HE plans presented in the following pages are offered merely as sug- 
gestions showing how some of the principles of modern gardening 
may be applied to everyday problems. A rough plan, even if 
very incomplete, will often be far more helpful in explaining arrangement 
and grouping than will pages of verbal instruction. It must not be 
supposed that any of these plans can be actually carried out on some 
piece of ground that you have in mind, for every garden site has its 
peculiarities that demand local treatment. But so as to help make 
these plans more definite than could be the case if they were purely 
ideal, an actual piece of property was in mind in each case, in the north- 
eastern portion of the United States or southern Canada. Some of the 
conditions are given, and one solution of the problem is offered. All 
garden operations are in the nature of problems to be solved. Should 
you wish to use the suggestions of any of these plans you will find them 
so arranged that by cutting out quantities or some of the species used, 
as well as shortening distances, the same general arrangement can be 
adapted to-a smaller area. 
These plans are arranged in a certain order, from the study of the 
general placing of large trees to the definite location on small areas of 
herbs to get certain effects in detail. They show a possible treatment of. 
the different types of topography upon which gardening operations will 
be carried out. 
Only the planning of the plant arrangement is the main object at pres- 
ent; design, arrangement of walks and roads, grading, construction— 
these and similar problems are treated only insofar as they affect the 
plant grouping. These as well as the planting should always be studied 
each by itself and at the same time in relation to all the other considera- 
tions, and detailed plans for planting can be made only after the larger 
auestions of general arrangement have been definitely settled. 
Supposing, then, that the main features on his imaginary piece of 
ground have been decided upon, the garden maker can refer to the 
blueprints and see how, by the arrangement of our garden material, he 
can best add to the natural beauties of the ground and give them the 
touch of human hands. 
The botanical names used in the planting lists will undoubtedly pre- 
sent several unfamiliar words as generic names; they show changes that 
xi 
