PARK AND CEMETERY . 
180 
tention was given to the development 
of this principle, especially by some 
of the followers of Olmsted. Up to 
this time, along with the preference 
for exotics, had gone the gardener’s 
pride in growing plants out of their 
altitude, latitude, .and longitude. The 
alpine garden was the gardener’s pet, 
and Downing himself nursed his lone- 
ly fig trees through the cold and 
snowy New York winters. 
7. Olmsted’s roads were peculiar 
and characteristic, and peculiarly and 
characteristically successful. A con- 
siderable part of their success is due 
to their adaptation to the contour of 
the land,, and is thus related to prin- 
ciple 3 discussed above. Their strik- 
ing individuality appears to be large- 
ly the result of their nodal treatment, 
but this is a matter of technic rather 
too complicated for a discussion in a 
popular lecture. As a third character- 
istic they were always laid on natural 
lines. This means that there ar.e no 
straight lines and no mathematical 
curves either in horizontal projection 
or in profile. In this matter of road 
design, Olm.sted has been widely fol- 
lowed, usually without marked suc- 
cess. 
8. Olmsted appears to have been 
the first conspicuously to adopt the 
principle of rhythm in natural land- 
scape composition, though any artist 
composing freely and with a proper 
feeling for his work will inevitably 
follow this method more or less. This 
method cannot be formulated in a 
sentence, but every artist at least will 
understand what it signifies. 
The most interesting and instruct- 
ive exercise of all which we might 
undertake v/ould be a study of pres- 
ent-day works and workers. There 
are many reasons besides the lack of 
time why we cannot do this; and so I 
ask you to consider, in place of such 
detailed study, a few of my own in- 
adequate generalizations. 
]. Landscape gardening now en- 
jojas unprecedented opportunities in 
America. These opportunities come 
both through the presence here of 
many exce.ssively wealthy patrons of 
the art, and through the democratic 
patronage of municipalities and pub- 
lic institutions. 
2. There are a large number of 
landscape architects now in the field,, 
and a considerable number of these 
are capable, well-trained men. Of 
course there are still many quacks 
and impostors, but they exert a dimin- 
ishing influence. 
3. The old controversies over 
styles have been hushed and instead 
of them we now enjoy a remarkably 
catholic taste and eclecticism of treat- 
ment. We have all grades of the 
natural style, every shade of adapta- 
tion of the Italian style, example,? of 
the Japanese style, and hundreds of 
excellent works which meet the re- 
quirements put upon them frankly and 
adequately without reference to any 
set “style.” This breaking away from 
set and conventional styles indicates 
that American landscape gardening 
has taken root in its own soil. 
4. The services of the profession 
have passed largely from private into 
public fields. The leading problems 
now are not private estates of “gentlc- 
rr.en,” but municipal parks.,' play- 
grounds, and city planning. 3o 
broad a field of benevolent humani- 
tarianism was never before opened to 
any art. 
And what of the future? We are 
prepared now to look ahead. 
My own judgment is that Ameri- 
can landscape architecture, as it comes 
more and more to its proper estate, 
v/;ll be influenced more and more by 
the native landscape. It will con- 
form itself in a larger and more fun- 
damental way to the topography and 
the scenery of the continent. What 
then are the outstanding characteris- 
tics of the American landscape? 
The American landscape is first of 
all large. This sounds like a vulgar 
claim to make for it; but Aristotle 
said that any object to be beautiful 
must have a certain magnitude. Mi- 
croscopic views, strictly speakin.g 
cannot be beautiful. But height and 
depth and space in a landscape mean 
vastly more than in’ a statue, a paint- 
ing, or a piece of music. A mountain 
cannot be a mountain till it is a 
thousand feet high, and if a river is 
not large enough it may be mistaken 
for a brook. I like Champlain better 
than Lake George chiefly because 
Champlain is larger. The plains of 
Kansas and Texas are magnificent for 
their illimitable unbroken stretch. The 
great passes of the Rockies lift our 
souls out of puny bodies just by vir- 
tue of the sheer, stupendous height 
of the encircling mountains. Yes, 
mere largeness has its aesthetic value. 
Size counts. 
The American landscape is wild. In 
many places it is truly savage. Here 
and there it has all the fierce tem- 
pestuous wildness of the god-like con- 
flict in which the world was made. 
No one can compare England with 
America, for example, without see- 
ing that the English landscape is cul- 
tivated, subdued, humanized,, in a 
sense overcome by the operations of 
man. The German forests are or- 
dered like gardens and look no more 
like the riotous wilds of Canada or 
Minnesota than a chess-board looks 
like a battlefield. To be sure there is 
some subjugation of the landscape in 
America, and apt to be more; but the 
great reaches of American lake and 
mountain must stand eternally above 
the encroachments of man. They 
wfill forever express, more perfectly 
than other landscapes, the gigantic 
forces of creation. 
Again, the American landscape is 
diverse. There are all kinds of scen- 
ery on our continent. There are big, 
threatening mountains, and quiet, 
peaceful, little ones; there are broad 
seas; there are vast fertile plains; 
there are noble rivers and gurgling, 
gossiping brooks; there are pine for- 
ests and palmetto groves. Switzer- 
land has one sort of scenery; Hol- 
land another; England still another; 
America has all kinds. 
But more than diversity the Ameri- 
can landscape has versatility. We 
complain sometimes of our change- 
able weather and our extremes of cli- 
mate, but these extremes are respon- 
sible in part for the kaleidoscopic 
transformations of our fields and hills. 
In a great German text-book of bot- 
any I saw printed with infinite pains 
a sketch of autumn colors on Lake 
Ontario. No other land can furnish 
autumn paintings to compare with 
ours. Then there are our New En- 
gland winters (not unknown to 
poetry), and our Arizona summers, 
and the springtime at Coronado and 
at Palm Beach. 
American landscape architecture 
will some day utilize these boundless 
resources of natural scenery. Niaga- 
ra Ealls must some day be the center 
of a public park. The Yellowstone 
geyser region is already reserved and 
should some day be developed by the 
skilled hand of a competent landscape 
architect. The big trees fall into the 
same order. And some day the Rocky 
Mountains, the great plains,, the Flori- 
da Everglades, the Great Lakes, the 
Mississippi and the Hudson, Lake 
Champlain and the Adirondacks must 
all be opened up to public use as a 
past generation opened up the coal 
mines of Pennsylvania, the forests of 
Wisconsin and the gold veins of Cali- 
fornia. Here is the most magnificent 
opportunity that landscape architect- 
ure ever had, and this is the field in 
which this greatest of all arts will 
become finally, magnificently, and 
characteristically American. 
