The suggestion in your report of April, T923, at first appealed 

 to us strongly, namely, that this area, if and when freed from the 

 Park Department greenhouses, work yards, etc., be used for 

 a really first-rate Formal Garden in connection with the recon- 

 struction of the Lorillard Mansion, which you proposed should 

 serve as a place for exhibitions, for the meetings of garden clubs 

 and for kindred activities. Unquestionably it is a very desirable 

 thing to provide, in the most perfect possible way, somewhere in 

 the Botanical Garden area, for the grouping of such functions 

 in a beautiful building, domestic in scale but considerable in 

 size, intimately related to a beautiful garden of a suitable kind. 

 The most suitable kind of garden for such a purpose would be, 

 in an agreeable sense of the word, "formal;" that is to say 

 emphatically not "naturalistic." 



This is not the place to attempt a thorough clearing up of the 

 confusions of meaning which have caused for many years so much 

 misunderstanding over this word "formal" as applied to gardens 

 and gardening. Most of the misunderstanding is due to unex- 

 pressed mental reservations as to what is meant by the word, or to 

 differences of emphasis on various phases of formality. To some 

 the word suggests mainly certain kinds of formality which are 

 unattractive or even distressing to them; associated with stiffness, 

 rigidity, bald precision of detail, or such complete dominance 

 of architectural elements as to make the term "garden" almost 

 a misnomer. To others the word suggests merely a pleasantly 

 obvious orderliness in the general disposition of the major parts 

 of a garden, frankly expressing deliberate human design and con- 

 trol; as by symmetry of certain forms about a straight axis, or 

 the disposition of paths and masses of vegetation in such a way 

 as to suggest to the eye easily recognized simple shapes of agree- 

 able proportions, rectangular and otherwise; all of which is con- 

 sistent with great exuberance and freedom and spontaneity of 

 detail, especially in the growth of plants and in the composition 

 of plants within the orderly and formal framework of the general 

 plan. If so conceived, "formal" is applicable alike to a garden 

 made up wholly of flower beds and turf and to one largely char- 

 acterized by paved walks and steps and walls and fountains and 

 sculptural and architectural elements, provided the latter be 

 enriched by sufficient vegetation to entitle it to the name of 

 garden at all. 



Obviously a botanic garden is hardly a legitimate place to 

 devote much space or money to the creation, for its own sake, 

 of any formal design so predominantly architectural or sculptural 

 in its interest that the vegetation plays a wholly secondary role — 



[22] 



