186 
THE FLOlllST. 
dener ; but he is unqualified to beautify the landscape to an exalted 
degree of perfection, unless he is or has been a practical gardener. 
As illustrative of these views, I would further remark : First— 
Landscape gardening is gardening ; the making beautiful by the scien¬ 
tific and practical application of planting, digging, levelling, mounding, 
dressing, building, or removing unsightly objects. Also manuring, 
draining, and general improvement of the soil, that Grass, trees, and 
flowers, vegetables, and fruit may grow to perfection when planted. 
And it is of the utmost importance that the designer should be able to 
direct the work, or to do it. If he is not, his qualifications to design 
are of the most limited nature. He may see the castle or garden in 
the air, but he cannot command the material to make it permanent. 
He may think he can go to the nursery and get what trees suit him, 
and so on ; but the trees will not remain as he plants them. The big 
tree, costing five dollars, will be outstripped in three or four years by 
the little one at its side that you paid twenty-five cents for ; and that 
handsome little evergreen that he planted on the walk, will probably 
have to be cut down or trimmed out of shape in two years, because its 
branches will extend twenty feet in diameter in a very little while. 
Paint remains where the painter puts it, but your trees run away and 
spoil the picture. 
And so a gardener must know the proportions that his trees will 
attain. He has this foreknowledge to govern his taste in creation of 
landscape scenery. Science is often lost without a knowledge of minute 
practical details. 
A doctor sent an order to an apothecary for two articles, to be applied 
separately to a patient; but as “separately” was not mentioned in 
the order, (the doctor thought it unnecessary, supposing the apothecary 
should know,) the apothecary put up the articles in one bottle. The 
doctor coming in, inquired, “What have you done? Don’t you know 
that these combined make a deadly poison?” The apothecary laugh¬ 
ingly applied the bottle to his mouth, and said, “Haven’t I drank them 
repeatedly ? ” then fell backwards and died. 
So in gardening,—things well enough by themselves work badly 
together. An injudicious application of fertilisers will kill a tree or 
plant, and an injudicious combination of trees, &c., will kill all harmony. 
Landscape-gardening is not wholly inaccessible. If you are a 
good gardener, you only want to add the gift of good taste, and impro'^e 
the combination. Mark what has been done in the art, and excel it if 
you can. 
Many good florists are not skilled nor have the taste to lay out 
grounds; but from the gardeners we would select or make the land- 
scape-garde7iers, as a captain would select a mate from experienced 
navigators. 
All the absurdity concerning architects, surveyors, civil engineers, 
draughtsmen, and painters becoming Ian iscape-gardeners, is that they 
should, all at once, become possessed of those acquirements that take 
professional men a lifetime to learn !—American Gardeners' Monthly. 
