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Landscape-Gardening

an art which deals with the disposition of ground, water, buildings, trees and other plants which go to the composition of verdant landscape. Such in broad sense is the definition of the art; for it a may be employed to create a beautiful and harmonious scene where only nature in barren wilderness reigned before, or to merely improve and adapt existing natural beauties and resources to the requirements of taste and convenience.

Landscape-gardening has been practiced from the earliest dawn of civilization, of the style or features of the gardens of the Jews, the Phoenicians, Assyrians, or even those of the ancient Greeks.

The Romans introduced landscape-gardening into Britain; but the art was lost when the country was abandoned by them to the Saxons. As, however, it had meantime been fostered in France, it was probably reintroduced by the Normans. Henry I., according to Henry of Huntingdon, had a park (habitationem ferarum) at Woodstock. William Kent (1684-1748) and Lancelot Brown (1715- 1783), better known as "Capability Brown," may be considered as the founders of modern English landscapegardening. The American Society of Landscape Architects was founded in 1899, which awarded the first degree in 1901. There are now (1920) a number of institutions in different parts of the United States that award degrees for proficiency in the art. but little of a reliable kind is known