HARMONY OF THE WILD AND THE FORMAL 



103 



There is no psychological incongruity, 



no shock to one's nerves. 



It is not uncommon to see in the 

 midst of a well kept lawn a heap of 

 stones crowned by a flower bed. One 

 man in Sound Beach has been wise 

 enough to take a natural ledge of rock 

 and to surround the summit with a 

 fringe of stone, and has there placed 

 a diadem of flowers. The arrangement 

 appeals to the spectator as a novelty 

 but, beautiful as it is. praiseworthy as 

 is the intention, the result is not wholly 

 satisfactory. One may study a pile of 

 stone in the center of a well kept lawn 

 and, as he ponders, the more he will be 

 disposed to inquire, "Why not cart 

 away these stones and make the place 

 all lawn?" When he sees a garden on 

 the top of a ledge, he feels that 

 it is about as much out of place as a 

 dead bird sewed on a woman's hat. 

 Gardens do not grow on ledges, and 

 birds do not naturally roost on milli- 

 nery. The greater the departure from 

 the natural and from the eternal fit- 

 ness of things, the greater is the men- 

 tal shock. 



With these thoughts in mind, the 



editor roamed about the delightful 

 premises of Luke Vincent Lockwood 

 at Riverside, Connecticut. Here are 

 bits of the formal interspersed amid the 

 primitive wildness of ledges, pools, 

 brooks, lakes, with even that wildest 

 of all wild plants, our Connecticut state 

 flower, the mountain laurel, the Kalmia 

 latifolia. The place looks right. It is 

 pleasing. It gives one a feeling of hap- 

 piness, even the naturalist accustomed 

 to the exploration of the wild and to 

 the finding of Kalmia in the sanctum 

 sanctorum of nature. Here its delight- 

 ful little white umbrellas, cups, sau- 

 cers, as the children call them, add a 

 pleasing touch of perfection and of con- 

 trast to this rock garden. 



Here is no graded walk nor walk of 

 cinders nor of comminuted bluestone 

 flagging. The path is suggestive of 

 that that every country boy knows 

 when he goes barefoot on a frosty 

 morning into the pasture and steps 

 along from stone to stone. It is evi- 

 dent that the owner, as well as the 

 landscape architect who helped him, 

 appreciates the beauty of a stone pas- 

 ture. Its beauty can be developed 









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LOVELY LINES OF LAUREL LIXOER BY THE LANE. 



