The Art of Gardening 



to mean all those which have not been 

 modified by the conscious action of art. 

 We recognize a park-landscape as non-natu- 

 ral ; but those rural landscapes in cultivated 

 countries from which the designer of a park 

 draws his best lessons, are also non-natural. 



If, in the idea of a natural state/' says 

 an old English writer, we included ground 

 and wood and water, no spot in this isl- 

 and can be said to be in a state of nat- 

 ure. . . . Wherever cultivation has set 

 its foot — wherever the plough and spade 

 have laid fallow the soil — -nature is become 

 extinct.'' 



Extinct is, of course, too strong a word 

 if we take it in its full significance. But 

 it is not too strong if we understand it 

 as meaning those things which are most 

 important to the landscape-gardener ; the 

 compositions, the broad pictures, 't)f Nature 

 have been wiped out in all thickly settled 

 countries. The effects we see may not be 

 artistic effects, may not have resulted from 

 a conscious effort after beauty ; but they are 

 none the less artificial. They do not show 

 us what Nature wants to do or can do, but 



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