Formal Gardening 



rowness and injustice should be revealed in 

 the books which treat of gardening than in 

 those which deal with any of the other arts. 

 In elder days very few writers who advo- 

 cated either the formal or the naturalistic 

 style could see any merit in the opposite style, 

 and in recent days the case is the same. 

 Several recent books which otherwise would 

 be very useful to the public are rendered pos- 

 itively dangerous by the bitter way in which 

 the words and works, the ideals and pro- 

 cesses, of the opposite camp are attacked. 



It is worth while, I think, to point this 

 out, for the judgment and taste of a novice 

 may easily be warped forever by the first 

 book on gardening he may chance to take 

 up. It is worth while to say that he must 

 read a good many such books, and check off 

 their contradictory statements one against 

 the other, meanw^hile using his own eyes 

 out-of-doors, to arrive at a true understand- 

 ing of what they teach. This is that each 

 system of design is right in its own place, 

 and that the advocates of each have told a 

 great many cruel untruths about the advo- 

 cates of the other, or at all events about 



159 



