390 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



With them gardening is so old an art that the cost of maintaining can be 

 as readily estimated beforehand as can the execution. If a man can afford 

 but three servants his house is arranged on the basis of what three 

 servants can do thoroughly well, and he will not have a larger house 

 unless he can afford to have his service adequate. His stable will be 

 regulated with equal care. He will have only such horses and carriages 

 as can be kept in first-rate condition. Applying these principles to the 

 garden, collecting and making use of the cumulative experience of many 

 generations of gardeners, he lays out his ground with clear foresight as to 

 its maintenance. Nothing is to be slovenly, nothing neglected. The results 

 amply justify this course. The thoroughness of the English garden is the 

 very root of its charm." 



In actual practice I strongly advise that before a single sod is turned 

 for the house the client, architect, and landscape gardener should visit the 

 site together. There are so many considerations that have to be taken into 

 account, which the man who has only the house before his mind's eye is 

 not alert to, that it is at the least diplomatic to have all the many-sided 

 considerations thrashed out. Another point which hinges upon the above 

 is that there is often a very great waste of good surface soil when the 

 house excavation is left to the building fraternity. 



All this is preparatory to a wisely directed start, and now for a com- 

 mencement upon the design, we agreeing for our present purpose that 

 these considerations have been weighed and that time has been taken by 

 the forelock. 



After the architect has produced his plan and design for the house, 

 the first thing, after providing our coherent garden scheme or policy, 

 securing directness and comfort with pleasure, is to see to shelter and 

 balance by forest trees. This, the arboricultural factor, counts greatest 

 in maintaining within the garden the sense of continuity and harmony 

 with the broader landscape without. The modern day trend in architecture 

 is opposed to the older method of balancing the elevations by exact 

 symmetry, that is, by each feature being exactly reproduced on the other 

 side of the building ; and so it comes about that balance has to be obtained 

 mostly by groups of forest trees ; shrubs are little or no good here. If 

 there are unsightly surroundings we need tall trees or evergreen firs to 

 aid us ; and if the ugliness to be blocked out takes the shape of insistent 

 tall chimneys the height of these plantations has to be increased by raising 

 mounds of earth to plant them upon. The client who can make up his 

 mind to do the greater part of the plantations before the other work is 

 like a wise general who looks after his scouts and outposts. To gain 

 a year or more in the planting is a wise foresight. 



By this time we are fairly launched upon the flowing tide of execution, 

 earth removal ; the pond or lake is in course Of excavation ; the terraces 

 are being built or formed ; all the valuable surface soil has been stored in 

 a wisely chosen place, where it will not have to be removed until it is 

 placed topmost again, and here your plan stands you in good stead ; and as 

 all gradually begins to assume shape your client's brow unknits and you 

 note his pleasure in viewing each departmental portion of terraces, lawns, 

 the drive, walks, lake, kitchen garden, orchard, fruit or reserve garden, 

 vdth its usual attendant glasshouses and frames, and wild garden, emerge 



