INTRODUCTORY 



inventor's time because of the ascendency of Brown and his 

 followers. The idea was to combine a pleasantly formal 

 garden near the house with a wild or natural manner of cul- 

 tivation on the outskirts of the enclosure. And this is, in 

 fact, the foundation on which the whole art and practice of 

 the present day is built. 



But if design stood nearly still, horticulture as a science 

 made immense progress. The whole world has been ran- 

 sacked for new genera and species. Thousands of pounds 

 have been spent on expeditions to the tropics for orchids, 

 and to high mountainous regions for Alpine plants. Hybrids 

 and fresh varieties have appeared with such astonishing 

 rapidity that it is almost impossible to keep pace with them. 

 Specialists have devoted themselves with such skill and con- 

 centration to their favourite plants as to have improved them 

 well-nigh beyond recognition. New types are constantly 

 created, so to speak, and for a short time are worth far more 

 than their weight in gold. Ousted by a still more novel 

 variety they become easily procurable. And so, at last, every 

 one benefits by the astounding progress. 



One comparatively recent development, among so many, 

 must be recorded. Nearly all gardens nowadays have separate 

 departments for growing special types and groups of plants. 

 Rock, wild, water, bog and moraine gardens are all encouraged 

 and have become extremely fashionable. They again have led 

 to more research abroad, and to a vast increase in the number 

 and quality of plants cultivated. 



Judged by the standard of its gardens at the present time, 

 England must be placed first in the race of nations. Both in 

 design and in horticulture proper, at no time and in no country 

 have such thoroughly healthy conditions prevailed. It is a 

 matter for congratulation that destructions like those which 

 took place a hundred years ago are now impossible, and that 

 the best ideas of the past are to-day treated with the utmost 

 reverence, and are adapted by dictates of common sense and 

 good taste to the requirements of modern life. The whole 



