XVII 



N speaking thus about the cul- 

 tivation of a love for natural 

 beauty, I have by no means 

 forgotten that the subject of 

 my book is gardening art. 



An intelligent love for Nature is, in itself, 

 a valuable possession, but it is an indispen- 

 sable possession if we want to understand 

 the aims and appreciate the results of the 

 artist in gardening. It not only directs 

 the eye insistently to the details of his work, 

 but helps us to judge of it as a whole ; for 

 if we have any artistic instinct at all, we 

 cannot study Nature's particulars without 

 noticing her broad effects. The better we 

 see individual plants, the better we see the 

 groups which they form in the foreground 

 of a natural picture, and the compositions 

 into which they fall when the eye takes 

 a wider range. As each plant becomes 

 specialized to the perceptive sense its con- 



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