Art Out-of-Doors 
naturalistic landscape-pictures. If they were 
better in color than they are — if the diverse 
tints which compose them were more taste- 
fully selected and contrasted — they would 
still be ugly, for they would still be out of 
place. 
We are always told that the public ad- 
mires them ; but popular taste is not a cri- 
terion which those who serve our public 
can yet respect. Our public has seen too 
few good examples to know, theoretically, 
what it likes in the way of gardening art. 
Naturally it likes flowers and bright - hued 
plants of all kinds. When it sees them as 
they are shown in the Public Garden, it de- 
lights in them for their own sakes while it 
rarely thinks of the general effect of the place. 
But if it could once see this place as it ought 
to look, softly green and quiet, enlivened 
but not confused by a few touches of bril- 
liant color, I am sure it would recognize 
the improvement, and not mourn the scores 
of vanished beds. Even to-day, I think, 
the people of Boston take more pleasure in 
the masses of freely flowering plants which 
adorn the new park -ways on the western 
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