Art Oiit-of-Doors 



which would not be a beautiful garden, or an 

 appropriate environment for the house, or a 

 suitable foreground for the outer landscape 

 of American forest, hill, and stream. 



I do not know that I should say so con- 

 fidently that a planter may be very chary in 

 his use of exotic plants, or even dispense 

 with them altogether, were I writing in 

 England. Our country is incomparably 

 richer in forms of vegetation than is any Eu- 

 ropean land, and especially in those larger 

 forms which are the planter's chief reliance 

 vrhen he works on an extensive scale. To 

 say this we need not match our whole big 

 fatherland against a smaller European one, 

 or even against the whole of Europe. When 

 the first explorers landed, when no seeds had 

 been sown here but those of Nature's sow- 

 ing, these Atlantic and Middle States would 

 have seemed very rich if matched against 

 all of Europe. Were the Englishman of to- 

 day confined to his woods and fields, de- 

 prived of what ours have sent him, he would 

 be poor indeed. But did we appreciate the 

 half of our treasury, we should see how lit- 

 tk we really need Europe or Asia or Africa 



62 



