amount of ignorance of the Garden and its objects, and a 

 feeling that it does not offer sufficient attraction to war- 

 rant their becoming interested in it. Yet it is this in- 

 telligent, influential mass of the people from whom the 

 Garden ought to expect its main cooperation and support. 

 How can their interest be secured? 



First of all, the Garden needs to be improved esthetic- 

 ally; from all sides I hear this urgently emphasized. In 



natural features, in the variety 

 Esthetic improvement . . , . . . ., 



ot its topography and ot its sou, 



in its combination of woods and open spaces, in its winding 

 river and its ponds, it is unrivalled. Happily these natural 

 features have been largely maintained in the transforma- 

 tion of the four hundred acres, at first into a park and 

 later into a botanical garden. But we have never made any 

 large effort to add to the natural features the best that 

 modern landscape architecture has to give; our activities 

 toward esthetic development have been restricted, 

 sporadic, unrelated to one another, and without adequate 

 advice from those best fitted to know. Our entrances, 

 our driveways, our walks, our plantations, our combina- 

 tions of flowers, shrubs and trees, our opportunities for 

 long vistas and broad reaches, do not offer to those who 

 are familiar with such landscape features the superior 

 attractions which compel admiration. 



One of the most striking evidences of a growth of the 

 love of the beautiful in this country during the past 



quarter of a century is the in- 

 Formal gardens . . 



creasing interest in private gar- 

 dens. All over the country, innumerable more or less 

 formal gardens have been made, large and small, and 

 garden clubs have been formed, the members of which 

 meet together for inspecting gardens and discussing 

 garden problems. The Garden Club of America has 

 brought together most of these local clubs and has thus 



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