DESIGN 177 



more than one section during the era with which we 

 are dealing. 



The house was of course the most important thing 

 in the system, in one way — the keynote, so to speak — 

 but every building had its use and was a necessary 

 part of the industrial life of which the house was the 

 centre and the object. Unless the requirements of 

 an estate are such, therefore, that a group system is 

 convenient and practical, it is hardly necessary for me 

 to say that any old garden design which has been de- 

 veloped as a result of such a system, is inappropriate. 

 The choice of an old design is not merely a choice of 

 a shape for a flower garden; it is a choice which must 

 consider the entire place and be governed by the con- 

 ditions prevailing, which will continue to prevail. 



All farms may be said to require the group system 

 of buildings. The old Dutch bouweries with their 

 helter-skelter placing of the offices, yet with the 

 garden still rigidly exact in position and design, af- 

 ford one treatment of this requirement; the stately 

 plantations of Virginia, whereon the great house stands 

 in fine dignity flanked by its two groups of dependent 

 serving-houses, deal with it in another way; while the 

 models of the middle ground, with dwelling and offices 

 ranged on either side of a level court, or on either side 

 of a long and usually low connecting wing that makes 

 them into one building, show still another. All three 



