82 
House & Garden 
ALL MUSIC FINDS FULL AND TRUE EXPRESSION IN ITS MELLOW TONES 
^9 fie HUMAN VOICE and %hc Gfieney 
The beauty of the human voice as bestowed 
by nature, can hardly be surpassed. And its 
principles, adapted to The Cheney, give rare 
beauty to the playing of this instrument. 
Just as sounds are gathered and controlled in 
the living human throat, so are sound vibrations 
gathered and controlled in the acoustic throat 
of The Cheney. 
The Cheney Acoustic Throat 
Off one side of the main path is this little bird lawn and 
pool, set around with perennial plantings and fenced in with 
white pickets 
Engaging a Landscape Architect 
(Continued from page 78) 
the same way as you must have con¬ 
fidence in your physician. On the other 
hand, the landscape architect will be 
interested in your ideas and in all your 
likes about flowers, for the landscape 
architect is most successful if he is able 
to interpret your individuality in your 
garden and make you love it as much 
as if you had planned it all yourself. 
Flower gardens are perhaps most per¬ 
sonal, and they will reveal your feeling 
for flowers and their color as much as 
they will reveal the art of the landscape 
architect himself. Some landscape archi¬ 
tects have a strong feeling for design 
-—and often think little of the planting 
—some have a strong feeling for form, 
so that their borders become veritable 
sculptural friezes, while others, again, 
are particularly sensitive to color—be 
it subtle appreciation or a broader feel¬ 
ing—and they make gardens as won¬ 
derful as paintings. 
After this first visit the landscape 
architect prepares sketches and plans. 
The method for paying for plans and 
for the supervision of the work under 
execution varies according to the type 
of the work and according to the wishes 
of the client. These charges may be 
divided, roughly, under three heads: 
First, the charge may be a fixed sum 
for stated professional services. By this 
method a separate charge may be made 
for each visit and plan, or for the total 
services, including plans. The second 
is a percentage charge on the total cost 
of the work executed. This percentage 
basis of charge is a common one—espe¬ 
cially for large work and is similar to 
an architect’s charge. I believe that 
the third—a per-diem charge for the 
time of the landscape architect and of 
his assistants for visits and consultations 
or for supervision of the work being 
executed—is the more usual method 
among landscape architects. Plans and 
office work are then charged for at a 
similar rate, according to the time spent 
upon the work. It is well to note that 
you pay a landscape architect for his 
services and for his artistic ability and 
that he takes no commissions on mate¬ 
rials nor makes any commercial profit 
on material or labor. 
The reading of plans is generally a 
difficult thing for laymen. I do hope 
that aeroplane riding will become more 
general, for I am sure that then plans 
will have a new fascination and a real 
meaning for everyone, for plans are 
drawn as if seen from above. Many 
people do not realize just what a plan 
is—that it is, first of all, a record of 
an idea, often an assemblage of many 
complex ideas into an organized whole. 
Sometimes plans are the result of much 
study and time, and, again, they will 
be drawn overnight, as it were, in a 
flash of genius resulting, of course, from 
a fund of knowledge and experience ac¬ 
quired through years. A plan, then, is 
the work of the mind, and that is why 
this mere thing on paper is so valuable. 
After a general plan has'been prepared 
then come the working plans for con¬ 
tractors and gardeners—drainage plans, 
(Continued on page 84) 
Although the Alexandre house is quite close to the road, 
there was space enough for planting in front, a natural 
planting that gives the house a comfortable setting 
