Introductory 



does his paints, as so much colour with which 

 to fill in his crescents, stars and circles, ignoring 

 their individualities, and beauty of form and 

 habit. Such practice, I fear, has followed 

 from the undue importance attached to the so- 

 called system of "carpet gardening," a mode of 

 horticulture with which the artist and flower- 

 lover is out of sympathy. 



It is not rash to assert that the garden 

 exists for the flower, and not the flower for the 

 garden. The chaste beauty of the lily, the 

 cheery frankness of the pansy, the regal scarlet 

 of the geranium, the stately carriage and lavish 

 bloom of the snapdragon and delphinium, and 

 the modest quiet loveliness of the primrose and 

 mignonette can never be enhanced by arrang- 

 ing them in beds of formal shape. They, one 

 and all, deserve elbow room in which to develop 

 their various characters of form and mass, and 

 they appeal to us for natural treatment. One 

 might as well chain butterflies to a perch as 

 confine these beautiful flowers to the artificial 

 boundaries of geometrical beds. 



Let us then make the form of the bed a 



