_These books are made up in great part of quotations from old books on gardening--many of them written by men who knew books better than gardens. Where the authors touch the ground of actuality, they soon show little acquaintance with the subject; and, indeed, they see no design at all in landscape gardening and admit their ignorance of it. That men should write on things of which they have thought little is unhappily of frequent occurrence, but to find them openly avowing their ignorance of the art they presume to criticise is new._ _A word or two on the state of architecture itself may not be amiss. From Gower Street to the new Law Courts our architecture does not seem to be in a much better state than landscape gardening is, according to the architects to whom we owe the "Formal Garden" and "Garden Craft"! It is William Morris--whose "design" these authors may respect--who calls London houses "mean and idiotic rabbit warrens:" so that there is plenty to do for ambitious young architects to set their own house in artistic order!_ _As regards "formal gardening," the state of some of the best old houses in England--Longleat, Compton-Wynyates, Brympton, and many others, where trees in formal lines, clipped or otherwise, are not seen in connection with the architecture--is proof against the need of the practice. As regards the best new houses, Clouds, so well built by Mr. Philip Webb, is not any the worse for its picturesque surroundings, which do not meet the architect's senseless craving for "order and balance"; while Batsford, certainly one of the few really good new houses in England, is not disfigured by the fashions in formality the authors wish to see revived, and of which they give an absurd example in a cut of Badminton. There is, in short, ample proof, furnished both by the beautiful old houses of England and by those new ones that have any claim to dignity, that the system they seek to revive could only bring costly ugliness to our beautiful home-landscapes._ W. R. July 1, 1892. CONTENTS PAGE GARDEN DESIGN 1 NATURAL AND FALSE LINES 5 "UNCULTIVATED NATURE" 8 THE TRUE LANDSCAPE 13 BUILDINGS IN RELATION TO THE GARDEN 16 TIME AND GARDENS 20 TRUE USE OF A GARDEN 23 FORMAL GARDENING 25 "NATURE," AND WHAT WE MEAN BY IT 31 "ALL OUR PATHS" ARE CROOKED! 35 "THE ONLY GARDEN POSSIBLE!" 40 "NO DESIGN IN LANDSCAPE" 43