House and Garden 
the center of the great dome terminating on 
the proposed parkway at Sixty-sixth Street; 
from a proposed semi-circular plaza in front 
of the Metropolitan Museum of Art at Fifth 
Avenue and Eighty-second Street along a 
line drawn through the dome to join a sug¬ 
gested north and south parkway at the foot 
of Seventy-fifth Street; and from the upper 
end of Central Park at One Hundred and 
Tenth Street along a line through the dome ; 
and with additional parkways running per¬ 
pendicularly to the axis of Blackwell’s Island, 
one occupying the space between Fortieth 
and Forty-second Streets, extending from the 
public librarv in Bryant Park to the East 
River; another starting from Fifth Avenue, 
from the Saint Gaudens statue of Sherman, 
occupying the space between Fifty-ninth and 
Sixtieth Streets and forming an approach to 
the bridge now building across Blackwell’s 
Island to Long Island City from the foot of 
Sixtieth Street; a third, two blocks wide, 
starting from Central Park on the line of 
Seventy-second Street, which would cross to 
Long Island City on a bridge passing under 
the dome ; and a fourth, a block wide, run¬ 
ning along Eighty-second Street from the 
front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 
to a third bridge crossing the upper end of 
Blackwell’s Island to Long Island City—by 
such a comprehensive arrangement vistas of 
the massive dome of the proposed municipal 
building would be secured from the Grand 
Central Station, the Park Plaza, Central Park 
at Seventy-second Street, the Metropolitan 
Museum and the north end of Central Park. 
The scheme would also give two vistas of 
the new facade of the Metropolitan Museum, 
which cannot now be seen to advantage from 
any quarter. Mr. George also proposes that 
the lines passing through these streets and 
the dome of the municipal building on Black¬ 
well’s Island should be made the axes of 
a similar street plan on the Long Island side. 
It is an ambitious and daring project, per¬ 
haps beyond possibility of execution because 
of its very boldness and cost, but none the less 
it is based on the logic of physical conditions 
and soundness of esthetic principles. 
L. R. E. P. 
HINTS ON LANDSCAPE GARDENING 
From the Pen of Humphry Repton, Esq. (1752—1818) 
The best advice one can give to a young gardener is — know your Repton . —John D. Sedding. 
[Humphry Repton, the first person to assume 
professionally the title of “Landscape Gardener,” was 
born at Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, May 2, 1752. 
From the grammar school of that town he was removed 
to that at Norwich where shortly, “My father,” as he 
related, “thought proper to put the stopper in my vial of 
classic literature ; having determined to make me a rich, 
rather than a learned man, perhaps wisely considering, 
that if Solomon himself had not been the richest, the 
world would scarcely give him credit for having been the 
wisest man.” He was then sent to a school in Holland 
in order to acquire a knowledge of the Dutch language, 
deemed necessary in the mercantile career which was 
planned for him. But in this career he was doomed to 
failure, though not to utter discouragement, for the collapse 
of his business marked but the termination of activities to 
which he was by nature entirely unsuited. Retiring to 
Sustead, a sequestered spot in Norfolk, he spent five years 
of uninterrupted domestic happiness during which the 
improvement of his garden was his favorite occupation. 
“ The beauties of Nature were his delight and the inves¬ 
tigations of her wonders his amusement.” A pursuit 
which also afforded him great pleasure was that of making 
drawings of the seats of every nobleman and gentleman 
within his neighborhood. These he presented to the 
various owners of the estates or contributed to the “His¬ 
tory of Norfolk,” a large work then in preparation. The 
qualifications of polished youth, personal beauty, genial 
manners, a cheerful and humorous disposition and a nature 
alive to every form of external beauty admitted him to the 
society of cultivated and influential personages, some of 
whom were of great practical assistance ; as for example, 
William Wyndham, who on receiving his appointment 
( 1783) as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland made young Repton 
his confidential secretary. The stay in Ireland was, 
however, terminated in a few weeks by Wyndham’s dis¬ 
satisfaction with his own office, and Repton returned to 
England where he settled in the little house at Harestreet, 
Essex, which he occupied the remainder of his life. 
After much of his small remaining capital had been lost 
in a venture with Mr. Palmer in his mail-coach enter¬ 
prise, Repton sought to turn to account his natural taste 
for improving the beauties of scenery ; and impelled by 
financial necessity, he announced to friends his deliberate 
resolve to become a “Landscape Gardener.” 
With the death of “Capability” Brown in 1784. the 
rage for “improving” estates in England by the ruthless 
destruction of avenues and terraces not only subsided but 
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