profession. But if the artist will not accept little jobs, where can persons of mod- 

 erate means obtain the best advice? 



In general business there is to be seen a parallel to this situation. There are 

 many kinds of stores, some making sales of large values, and others of smaller 

 values but in greater volume. Business men have found a way of making satis- 

 factory profits not only from large sales but also from a great volume of small 

 sales. Perhaps it is not reasonable to draw a parallel between general business 

 and the practice of an artist's profession. It is to be hoped, however, that in a 

 measure this comparison is possible, and that it will succeed in interesting design- 

 ers in the small-residence problems and in their possibilities. Indeed, those who 

 may undertake to deal with the thousands of small-residence jobs will very likely 

 discover that a business of great volume awaits them. 



But why, in the past, have landscape architects failed to handle small jobs with 

 profit? It would be a difficult and tedious task to make a searching inquiry into 

 the small-job experiences of those men who are today the representative land- 

 scape architects ; nor could a single person speak for them all. Until comparative- 

 ly recent times, no one wanted their services except a few persons owning expen- 

 sive homes and whose opportunities in life had shown them, at home and abroad, 

 the possibilities of beautiful artificial gardens or of parklike scenery. Travel, 

 especially in Europe, has always been limited to those of means, and not all of 

 those who see and know about fine gardens become sufBciently interested in them 

 to want them. Persons who wanted fine gardens and could afford them, until 

 quite recently, were few and far between. To reach these individuals, the land- 

 scape architect was subject to heavy expense in travel and to considerable loss of 

 time. In preparation for his profession, a long period of study and varied experi- 

 ence at home and abroad had been necessary. Furthermore, as a business venture 

 the profession was a precarious one, promising at best no immediate success, and 

 requiring a number of years for the establishment of business on a paying 

 basis. In the past, only a man of means and of great interest in his chosen pro- 

 fession could afford to becoma a landscape architect; and it is evident that he 

 would necessarily have to charge a considerable amount for his time, whatever his 

 services. 



In recent years, the employment of either a landscape architect or a local garden- 

 er to do the grading and planting about new buildings has become the common 

 practice. The work is not all good, but the plants are pretty! The thousands 

 of families that are constantly filling up new subdivisions in all the cities see 

 other ''pretty" front yards or larger estates, and desire to follow suit. Here is the 

 new demand for landscape advice — -from the small-home owners. Is this demand 

 for really good advice, or is the call merely for the untrained opinion of the local 

 gardener or of the nursery-plantsman? Among the owners of small homes, as 

 weU as among the wealthy, there are many persons having comparatively little 

 feeling for art. They have not had time to develop such an appreciation. Most 

 persons like good landscape work when they see it, but they may not so understand 

 and appreciate it as to be able to distinguish the good from the poor. No ap- 

 preciable difference may be noticed by the layman between the work of the 

 skilled designer and that of the man trained only as a gardener, especially if the 

 examples of both types of work are not sufficiently near each other to make the 

 contrast indisputably evident to even the uninitiated. The idea that the 



