DESIGN 
177 
more than one section during the era with which we 
are dealing. 
The house was of course the most important thing 
in the system, in one way—the keynote, so to speak— 
but every building had its use and was a necessary 
part of the industrial life of which the house was the 
centre and the object. Unless the requirements of 
an estate are such, therefore, that a group system is 
convenient and practical, it is hardly necessary for me 
to say that any old garden design which has been de¬ 
veloped as a result of such a system, is inappropriate. 
The choice of an old design is not merely a choice of 
a shape for a flower garden; it is a choice which must 
consider the entire place and be governed by the con¬ 
ditions prevailing, which will continue to prevail. 
All farms may be said to require the group system 
of buildings. The old Dutch bouweries with their 
helter-skelter placing of the offices, yet with the 
garden still rigidly exact in position and design, af¬ 
ford one treatment of this requirement; the stately 
plantations of Virginia, whereon the great house stands 
in fine dignity flanked by its two groups of dependent 
serving-houses, deal with it in another way; while the 
models of the middle ground, with dwelling and offices 
ranged on either side of a level court, or on either side 
of a long and usually low connecting wing that makes 
them into one building, show still another. All three 
