THE LANDSCAPE BEAUTIFUL 



a marked influence, as we may see, on all 

 his work. 



If we are to form any fair judgment of 

 Downing, however, we must not stop here. 

 We must rather draw our conclusions 

 largely from the disciples who followed 

 him. Every great artist or teacher leaves 

 a group of disciples behind. These men 

 work over, and put into effect, the ideas 

 of the master. Judged by the number and 

 character of his disciples, Andrew Jackson 

 Downing's name is the most illustrious in 

 the entire history of American agriculture, 

 horticulture, or landscape gardening. He 

 has been the model and the beau ideal of 

 every pomologist, fruit grower and nursery- 

 man, as well as the direct inspiration of 

 almost every native landscape gardener 

 which our country has produced. Every 

 nurseryman who has grown trees and 

 shrubs in America during the last fifty 

 years has had some fairly definite notions 

 of improving his own grounds, of helping 

 his neighbors to improve theirs, and of help- 

 ing in the beautification of public places. 

 His ideas of these things have been taken 

 "en bloc" from Downing. From the ranks 

 of these nurserymen have come a majority 



156 



