THE LANDSCAPE BEAUTIFUL 



Items 4, 5 eind 6, though quite inde- 

 pendent, are all closely related. They deal 

 with the use of native plants in a natural 

 way. It is rather odd that these radical 

 changes in landscape-gardening methods 

 should have come from a man who always 

 mourned his ignorance of plants. Another 

 fact is still more curious, viz., that Olmsted 

 should be generally criticised for his weak- 

 ness as a plantsman. And the present 

 writer wishes just here to record his most 

 emphatic dissent from this current criti- 

 cism. It is one thing to know the names 

 of plants, and quite a different thing to 

 know the plants themselves. It is a still 

 greater accomplishment to know how to 

 use plants to make pictures. Every 

 botanizing old maid, male or female, knows 

 plant names. Every good nurser5mian 

 knows the plants. Only the artist and the 

 genius know how to blend these materials 

 into pictures of abiding beauty; and here 

 is where Frederick Law Olmsted qualified. 



7. Olmsted's roads were peculiar and 

 characteristic — and peculiarly and charac- 

 teristically successful. A considerable part 

 of their success is due to their adaptation 

 to the contour of the land, and is thus 



166 



