Formal Gardening 
rowness and injustice should be revealed in 
the books which treat of gardening than in 
those which deal with any of the other arts. 
In elder days very few writers who advo- 
cated either the formal or the naturalistic 
style could see any merit in the opposite style, 
and in recent days the case is the same. 
Several recent books which otherwise would 
be very useful to the public are rendered pos- 
itively dangerous by the bitter way in which 
the words and works, the ideals and pro- 
cesses, of the opposite camp are attacked. 
It is worth while, I think, to point this 
out, for the judgment and taste of a novice 
may easily be warped forever by the first 
book on gardening he may chance to take 
up. It is worth while to say that he must 
read a good many such books, and check off 
their contradictory statements one against 
the other, meanwhile using his own eyes 
out-of-doors, to arrive at a true understand- 
ing of what they teach. This is that each 
system of design is right in its own place, 
and that the advocates of each have told a 
great many cruel untruths about the advo- 
cates of the other, or at all events about 
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