The Art of Gardening 



do not know that a large portion of Central 

 Park was created by Mr. Olmsted and his 

 associates, in almost as literal a sense as any 

 painter ever created a pictured landscape ; 

 who do not remember the dismal, barren, 

 treeless, half-rocky, and half-swampy waste 

 which, less than forty years ago, occupied all 

 the tracts below the reservoir ; who fancy 

 that Nature made them beautiful with mead- 

 ows, ponds, trees, and shrubs, with wood- 

 land passages, and verdurous cliffs and hol- 

 lows ; who think that all man has done has 

 been to lay out the roads and paths, and 

 build the terraces, bridges, and shelters. If 

 they will read any contemporary description 

 of the quondam aspect of these tracts, now 

 so natural-looking in their beauty, and will 

 then study the Park to-day and consider 

 what difficulties must have attended the 

 process which made it lovely to the eyes and 

 •convenient for the feet and wheels of crowd- 

 ing thousands, they may gain some idea of 

 what landscape-gardening means ; they may 

 understand why we who have studied it even 

 from the outside rank it quite as high as any 

 other art. 



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