GENEVA, NEW YORK, U. S. A. 
13 
Ornamental Department 
HK AKT and Science of Landscape Gardening, for here we have both art and 
science combined, is of paramount importance to every land owner, whether lim- 
ited to a humble city or town lot. large estate, or the farm. The home surround- 
ings can be V'astly improved and values greatly enhanced by a judicious expenditure 
in landscape work, yielding a hundred fold in actual value besides affording a pleas- 
ure to the possessor and the public generally that cannot be estimated in dollars 
and cents. Every beautilier of his grounds is a public benefactor. The buildings 
may be ever so plain and homely, yet with the grounds surrounding them nicely laid out 
and cared for. they are made charming: on the other hand a building ever so line, if surround- 
ed by illy designed and kept grounds, the effect is most unpleasant. It is manifest, therefore, 
that if we would have a really beautiful home we must pay attention to its environment by a 
correct application of the means and material called for in the art of laying out grounds, and 
while this fact is so obvious yet how often do we see this important work entrusted to those 
without taste and having little, if any, experience in this very important work of landscape 
architecture. 
It is not everyone who is possessed of the necessary qualifications for this branch of work, 
for, to meet success, artistic taste must be combined with practical knowledge and experience. 
The ordinary gardener may plant and prune and cultivate, yet be ignorant of the art of com- 
bining, blending and getting the most out of what nature has provided. 
in landscape work no hard and fast rules can be laid down, as every place presents condi- 
tions peculiar to itself, requiring special and independent treatment. As well attempt to lay 
down a set rule or design for the 
landscape painter, except it may 
be said that landscape designing is 
divided into two general classes — • 
the old style or Formal, also called 
the Geometrical, and the new style 
or Natural. 
Laying out grounds, as it is calied, may be 
considered as a liberal art, in some sort like 
poetry and painting; and its object, like that 
of all the liberal arts, is, or ought to be, to 
move the affections under the control of good 
sense. If this be so when we are merely 
putting together words or colors, how much 
more ought the feeling to prevail when we 
are in the midst of the realities of things; of 
the beauty and harmony of the joy and hap- 
piness of living creatures; of men and chil- 
dren, of birds and beasts, of hills and streams, 
and trees and flowers, with the changes of 
night and day, evening and morning, sum- 
mer and winter, and all their unwearied 
A Beautiful Arrangement of the Garden. actions and energies. — WORDSWORTH. 
