The Art of Gardening 



true picture appears ; and when once it has 

 revealed itself, day to day attention will be 

 forever needed to preserve it from the alter- 

 ing effects of time. It is easy to imagine, 

 therefore, how often neglect or interference 

 must work havoc with the best intentions, 

 how often the passage of years must destroy 

 or travesty the best results. 



Still another thing which prevents popu- 

 lar recognition of this art is our lack of 

 clearly understood terms with which to 

 speak about it. Gardens" once meant 

 pleasure-grounds of every kind, and ^-gar- 

 dener ' ' then had an adequately artistic 

 sound. But as the meaning of the first 

 term was gradually specialized, so the other 

 gradually came to denote a mere grower of 

 plants. Landscape-gardener " was a title 

 invented by the artists of the eighteenth 

 century to mark the new tendency which 

 they represented — the search for ' ' natural ' ' 

 as opposed to formal" beauty; and it 

 seemed to them to need an apology as sa- 

 voring, perhaps, of grandiloquence or con- 

 ceit. But as taste declined in England, this 

 title was assumed by men who had not the 



