PARK AND CEMETERY. 
105 
anxiously, not what he can remove, but what he 
can preserve. Such things as grades and roads and 
masonry he will regard more lightly, for these can 
be made and remade as long as money holds out; 
but an ancestral tree, or a huge boulder can only 
be renewed by centuries of years, or another glac- 
ial epoch. Thus the true outdoor artist is a con- 
structor, not a destroyer. 
But many of the operations done under the name 
of landscape gardening have more destruction than 
construction in them. Suppose a piece of ground 
is devastation the only thing worth paying for. In 
the operations of dynamite and steam shovels, an- 
tique oaks have perished, topsoil has been buried, 
and the ten-thousand-year work of nature has been 
obliterated, and covered up and smoothed down in 
ten months. Maybe the primeval forest is replaced 
by a smooth and smug lawn besprinkled with golden 
retinosporas and purple plums. Maybe the case is 
not so bad as this, and the grades and planting are 
arranged with a sense of the value of lines and the 
massing of foliage, and a due use of green and 
.\BTKS CAXADKXSIS SARf'.ENTlI PENDTEA. (SARGEXT’S WEEPING HP^MEGCK.) 
is to be treated. A scheme is evolved on paper 
that has the merit of a sweeping simplicity thus re- 
quiring little thought after the original conception, 
and little care in construction. The designer can 
visit it once a week or once a month, feeling fairly 
sure that nothing will go very wrong in his absence. 
Meantime, the work of alteration goes on. The 
blasting, filling, cutting and hauling proceed stead- 
ily and relentlessly. Old trees are destroyed, land- 
marks effaced, rocks shattered, and presently the 
owner coming and seeing his piece of the face of 
the earth so changed, is almost consoled for the 
length of the bill to be paid. He can at any rate 
gee that he has got something for his money. 
But it is not change alone that is valuable, nor 
healthy vegetation. Perhaps some fine specimen 
trees have been spared. But with all this, has not 
the work of reconstruction been too sweeping? Has 
any serious attempt been made to adapt the new 
grades and lines and planting to the old features, 
to get something of the spirit of the surrounding 
scenery into the work, by harmony if possible, by 
contrast if needful? If these things have not been 
done, the changes may be sudden and striking, the 
resulting effect may be good, and the owner satis- 
fied; but the outdoor artist has not been justified of 
his art; for the silent demand of nature to have the 
scheme that she laid down for his guidance a mil- 
lion years ago understood, and respected, and de- 
developed, has no response. H. A. Coparn. 
