BOX TREE COTTAGE RUSTINGTON
This little book, then, is not placed before the public with any fervent hope that it will incite garden lovers to at once sally forth with shears and scissors to attack the nearest yew tree; nor is it issued with a desire that garden makers may be induced to plant clipped trees extensively. Further, the “Book of Topiary” can hardly be said to “supply a long felt want” in the general sense in which that very hackneyed phrase is used. Why comes it, then? What are its claims to popular consideration? It comes to provide an hour’s reading upon one of the most distinct and interesting branches of horticulture that the art has ever produced. Its claims to consideration are, chiefly, that in it are gathered together the main incidents that go to make up the history of Topiary, and it presents to readers the cultural experience of one whose opportunities for gaining such experience are unequalled.
Topiarian history is somewhat difficult to piece together, and, so far as the writer is aware, no attempt has hitherto been made to place such a history before the gardening public. It is, therefore, modestly suggested that this work is somewhat unique among books dealing with horticultural subjects, and it is hoped it may be found to deserve a position in every garden library.
C. H. CURTIS.
TOPIARY
“If I do not defend the taste through thick and thin, I am prepared to admit that much may be said in its favour, and it is far from my intention to denounce it as either extravagant or foolish. It may be true, as I believe it is, that the natural form of a tree is the most beautiful possible for that particular tree, but it may happen that we do not always want the most beautiful form, but one of our own designing, and expressive of our ingenuity.”—Shirley Hibberd.
Modern horticultural works, and especially those that are of the Dictionary type, do not as a rule take any notice whatever of Topiary, and those in which it is noticed deal with the subject with a brevity that is provoking, inasmuch as the student is little or none the wiser for the information given. “Johnson’s Gardeners’ Dictionary” is silent on the subject, and “Cassell’s Popular Gardening” may be searched in vain for any reference to it.
Mr G. Nicholson, F.L.S., V.M.H., in his celebrated “Dictionary of Gardening,” writes, under Topiary, “Although the absurd fashion of cutting and torturing trees into all sorts of fantastic shapes has, happily, almost passed away, yet, as the art of the Topiarist was for a considerable period regarded as the perfection of gardening, some mention of it is desirable here. When the fashion first became general in Britain, it is probably impossible to ascertain; but it reached its highest point in the sixteenth century, and held its ground until driven out of the field in the last (eighteenth) century by the natural or picturesque style. From an archæological point of view, it is not to be regretted that examples of Topiary work on a large scale still exist in several British gardens.” Turning to the very recent “Cassell’s Dictionary of Gardening” an all too concise account is found, but Mr W. P. Wright admits therein that Topiary “finds favour in many quarters to-day, although it only differs in degree and not in principle from the best examples of the Topiary art of the sixteenth century.”
A PIG CUT IN BOX AT COMPTON WYNYATES