48 
PARK AND CEMETERY 
the kind of training which would enable him to deal 
with broad conceptions, he would be always hesitat- 
ing over details with no connection between them, 
and make of any large undertaking a thing of shreds 
and patches ; and in fact, he would often not exist at 
all, for many large country places would never have 
been made or kept up had there been no landscape 
architects to make them. 
These are the effects, but what are their causes? 
They are probably due in the main to the smallness 
of the numbers of the landscape architects, and, un- 
til recently, the inability of the profession to justify 
itself, the want of a widespread understanding that it 
has art principles and technical knowledge enough 
to justfy itself, and the common usurping of its au- 
thority by men who often have no better claim ta 
their title than their failure as gardeners. 
Of the gardeners, there are many kinds. There 
are many in the aggregate, if proportionately few, 
who have knowledge enough, wide and varied and 
thorough to justfy them in resting on it, and in ad- 
mitting, more in pride than deprecation, that they 
have not time nor energy to spare to master the 
principles and technique of an art as different from 
their own as that of the architect from that of the 
stone carver or decorator. They can, and sometimes 
do afford to trust for distinction to their learning in 
the most experimental and tantalizing of arts, that of 
making plants grow as they are wanted, without 
meddling with the quite alien question of using them 
as the materials of a composition which may need 
for its expression the resources of architecture and 
varied surfaces of ground, natural or artificial. At 
the opposite pole to such men there is another class, 
large both in the aggregate and proportion, who have 
all the power that springs from jealousy, ignorance, 
and stupidity, qualities which confine their percep- 
tions to a single line of ideas on which all their eiv 
ergy and persistence is concentrated. This kind of 
man will value a scheme according to the number 
and variety of its variegated shrubs or priggish little 
conifers, or the complication of its pattern beds ; and 
as soon as the landscape architect’s back is turned, he 
never rests in his efforts to disturb the repose and 
unity of a work in which he lives, but is utterly unable 
to see. So it may well happen, that the more refined 
and calculated and reserved a composition is, the less 
it is likely to be understood and appreciated, and the 
more it is in danger of defacement and obliteration. 
Between these two classes of gardeners there are 
endless others. 
But if they feel inclined to condemn the gardeners 
unreservedly, the landscape architects should first see 
that their own house is in order. The misconception 
of their art is due to the fewness of their numbers, to 
their inability to assert themselves as apart from and 
superior to the vast crowd of unclassified’ florists and 
jobbers who do such indescribable things in the name 
of landscape gardening, so that every other florist 
and gardener understands, and, seeing that he could 
do as well, despises. Thus it is no wonder, if the art 
of landscape architecture, being so much misunder- 
stood, and as yet having so little power to assert and 
prove its proper status, is looked on with doubt and 
hostility. 
Before all this fog of misunderstanding can be 
penetrated, the two allies who 'are separated by it 
vainly imagining themselves enemies, must advance 
through it to meet each other, not to fight l)ut to fra- 
ternize. And the first advance should be made by the 
landscape architects; theirs is the newest, that of the 
gardeners the oldest of the arts ; they are the few, 
the gardeners are the many ; they make the claim 
(which ought to be a just one), of a higher average 
intelligence and education, which ought to make 
them more judicious and dispassionate. The useful- 
ness of the gardener needs no demonstration, for it 
was demonstrated before the dawn of history, while 
that of the landscape architect is hardly suspected by 
the greater part of the population. It remains, there- 
fore, for the landscape architect to demonstrate him- 
self and justify his calling by his works, by his knowl- 
edge of his profession, his sympathy with others, by 
his soundness of judgment, his toleration, and any 
other qualities that may be needed to make clear the 
title of a new art to a high place among the old ones. 
These are the things that must prevail in the end, that 
will conquer a sure position for the cause they sup- 
port, and will antagonize no one, but conciliate all; 
while an attitude of haughty indifference, though it 
may silence argument or opposition for the moment, 
excites in the end nothing but hostility. The garden- 
ers on the other hand, even the most prejudiced 
among them, may look around upon the works of the 
landscape architect, not upon the worst of them, but 
the best, and wonder whether they could have car- 
ried them out themselves, and consider if the mere 
fact of so many men of high ability having given their 
time and thoughts, having staked their all upon land- 
scape architecture and won, does not itself prove the 
existence and value of their art; an art which, they 
should remember, interferes with their own not at 
all, but guides it often and gives it a value which it 
could never otherwise have had, and which some- 
times even calls it into existence. This is the*point of 
view for the more able men among the gardeners to 
adopt, from whom it will gradually percolate down- 
wards until, as it increases, it will submerge the minds 
it cannot penetrate until all come to realize, clearly 
or dully, according to their light, that there is and 
ought to be an art that can order and organize their 
own, and that by aiding it they will increase their own 
value and numbers and influence and strengthen the 
cause of peace on earth and good will towards men, 
H. A. Caparn. 
