Art Out-of -Doors 



We are not likely to have in America 

 many country houses so large and stately 

 that they would justify a return to the 

 grand ideals of Le Notre — that they would 

 look beautiful and appropriate surrounded 

 by vast formal parks. Nor are such parks 

 suited to American rural surroundings, to 

 the ideals of a democratic nation, or to the 

 manners of living of even our idlest and 

 wealthiest people. But the great excuse for 

 a formal manipulation of Nature's materials 

 is, we know, the dominance of other formal 

 elements in the given locality ; and this fact 

 proves that formal gardening may rightly be 

 applied to our smallest types of pleasure- 

 ground, although it would be unsuited to our 

 largest types. In many American towns, 

 and many American summer colonies of cot- 

 tages or villas, formal gardens might pro- 

 duce a very beautiful effect, and a very much 

 more appropriate effect than is now achieved 

 by our attempts at landscape-gardening on a 

 miniature scale. 



In a really rustic colony where the houses 

 are very simple and the character of the en- 

 circling landscapes has not been much al- 



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