50 JOUENAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



all, but a planted shrubbery of more ordinary type." And that " the 

 fewer and shnpler the kinds of plants chosen, the better will be the result." 

 That " in the wild garden, more than anywhere else, is wanted the simple 

 picture of some one display at a time of some beautiful plant " ; and that 

 "no branch of gardening needs more knowledge of plants, or a more 

 careful exercise of restraint and caution in the matter of choice." 



I have quoted this writer almost verbatim, partly because festhetically 

 I agree with all this, and partly for another reason. It is indeed but 

 truth to say that it is only in wild gardens of very large area that the 

 fullest extreme of justice can be done to large subjects, and that plant 

 pictures on the largest scale — those which need a monstrous canvas — can 

 be produced at all. 



But I have quoted him also for a second reason, viz., to remind you 

 that it is only the very few by-comparison who can have a wild garden on 

 such a scale, or who can^have a wild garden at all, if woods made up of 

 but a few species only should form part of it ; that the term " wild 

 garden " quite as appropriately belongs to beautiful mixed natural plant- 

 ings on a small scale ; and that, while with some few the sole purpose of 

 wild gardening is to create a large picture, or many such, of tree and plant 

 beauty (a purpose than which there is doubtless none better), there are, on 

 the other hand, others for whom that purpose is on one ground or another 

 impossible of fulfilment. 



The chief advantages of such a wild garden as I figure to myself and 

 have more particularly in my mind in this paper are the following : — 



(1) Economy in first cost, by comparison with the amount of the 

 effect got, with the pleasure given, and with the extent of space furnished. 

 But it must be allowed that the work cannot be done well without a solid 

 first cost, for such a garden should not be on a very small scale. 



(2) Still more emphatically, economy (always comparative, of course) 

 in annual labour and tqikeej). Well done originally, it may need little but 

 weeding and thinning. 



(3) A natural association of hardy plants with one another — a setting 

 of each in congruous surroundings. 



(4) The natural protection from glare and heat secured for the many 

 plants which need it by planting them among other sheltering and sur- 

 facing plants. 



(5) The high merits of permanence as well as variety, combined 

 with a long succession, through most of the year, of plant beauty and 

 interest. 



(6) Last in order, but rather first in importance, is this : that wild 

 gardens lend themselves to the creation of living plant pictures, changing 

 of themselves with the successive seasons. Such gardening may surely 

 come to be recognised later as a branch of fine art, the painting with 

 living material of living and moving pictures. 



Site. 



Almost first in importance in this matter of a wild garden is the 

 choice of its site. , For even more important to it, perhaps, than to any 

 other kind of garden is it that an established framework, or at least back- 



