600 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



We commence our labours on the earth, finding sites to build upon, 

 sites to plant, sites for roads, plants to thin, &c. Upon commencing to 

 build a house, it is necessary to know how to build ; it is of no use to 

 tell a man to put in a certain sort of door, window, or arch if he does not 

 know how to make one or the other. We like our residences to be in 

 parklike surroundings, in town or country. All, knowingly or unknow- 

 ingly, aim to give themselves such environments. These should give the 

 landscape various characters of beauty, in harmony and repose. To gain 

 a right introduction to landscape is the germ of development for the 

 artist, as learning how to design and paint is for the painter. To design 

 is the foundation of his work ; to paint is the planting and developing of 

 the plant life already on the ground. The aim of this work is principally 

 the design, so that he can give proper character and place to his aims. 

 When he has found a true object and learned its true character, he can go 

 to v ork and show forth true creations to residential lands. 



The development of landscapes is the proper placing of everything — 

 the proper selection of sites for everything. Nothing is of greater 

 moment : for on every hand persons are found who, after they have spent 

 their money, realise, only too late, that they have selected wrong sites for 

 their various objects. Yet they will lead their friends to do likewise, and 

 ignore any artistic knowledge within their grasp, as being merely visionary 

 and of no real value ! 



Effects are particular or general according to the point of observation. 

 The following plans not only show the best effects and point of develop- 

 ment in land, but often prove that no other point is as good, and thereby 

 give the suitable sites for the various wants. 



For ages, artists have enriched the souls of men by their efforts on 

 canvas and upon the bare walls of buildings, and by modelling dead 

 matter into lifelike impressions ; yet, in spite of this dead matter, how 

 delightful and beneficial are the impressions given by artists to humanity ! 

 Nevertheless the artist in dead matter cannot attempt to give the smallest 

 indication of any grand scene in landscape, for each scene contains many 

 impressions within itself, according to the spectator's power of observation, 

 far beyond the power of canvas to portray. All views of landscape are 

 seen to their greatest advantage from observations taken somewhat above 

 the foreground ; but no painter can give a view at all looking downwards 

 on the foreground. Yet we never gain an impression in its highest 

 development without water in the foreground, for that brings hundreds of 

 impressions to the observer beneath the horizontal line. 



Now dead matter in general receives the benefits of all men's artistic 

 genius ; but when land receives these same benefits it will produce results 

 above comprehension. 



To be closeted in a room, however far away from any landscape, with 

 the greatest of canvas views for a few days, will assist some to understand 

 better the value of landscape. The landscape view from a window can 

 excel any war picture. Take a sheet of plate glass of first quality, fifteen 

 feet by five (more or less, according to requirements), and place it in a 

 window opposite to a properly developed landscape view of moving and 

 silent life ; place the best wall view in comparison, and nature will excel 

 the canvas, as natural beauty excels the beauty of the interior of dwellings 



