The book of topiary

As it is an undoubted fact that for about one hundred and fifty years Topiary was both fashionable and popular, it follows that, whatever our taste may be, a consideration of the subject cannot be lacking in interest. Never did a horticultural fashion retain its hold upon a gardening public so long as Topiary, but as fashions rarely come spontaneously but are rather arrived at by a kind of evolutionary process, so the art of Verdant Sculpture must have had its Early History, followed by a development of design limited only by the ingenuity of the gardener.