STYLE IN FARMING. 69 



must understand more than this. We must understand something of the 

 laws of harmony and contrast in color, laws of form and of perspective. 

 You tell me that I aim too high, that we cannot concentrate nature in the 

 door-yard. We cannot aim too high if we carry sufficient ballast. I do not 

 expect that anyone here will apply in detail all that I say to you. But if we 

 do not know what perfection is we cannot know what imperfection is. The 

 longer the ladder the higher I can climb. " Hitch your wagon to a star," said 

 Emerson. 



Our next difficulty is to contract nature into the space of the front yard 

 without crushing her bonnet. A young man visited a famous garden; 

 he was disappointed. He saw no great trees overladen with flowers 

 and perfume, no magnificent fountains, no birds of paradise. He sat 

 down quite out of patience. Presently he began to admire the long and 

 enchanting views in this direction, and that he saw sheep and cows within 

 the borders of the garden. He expressed surprise to the gardener that 

 the garden was so very large and that the cattle did not browse the 

 plants. The gardener laughed. Here I will let you into a secret, a 

 secret which is a vital principle in landscape gardening: The landscape 

 gardener always aims to deceive the beholder. A truthful deception is an 

 evidence of skill. Small gardens which look like large ones are always 

 cheapest and best. AVe must let nature build hills and valleys and rivers. 

 Burke wrote: " Designs that are vast only by their dimensions are always 

 the sign of a common and low imagination. No work of art can be great but 

 as it deceives. To be otherwise is the prerogative of nature only." Discard 

 the prevalent notion that to ornament successfully demands profuse expen- 

 diture of money. The farmer's yard demands no fountains, no statues, no 

 expensive plants, no rows of beer bottles about the flower-beds. The 

 farmer of all others can court simple nature to his purpose. It is not 

 strange that keen enjoyment ceased when the old couple moved from the old 

 house into the new. I have seen as many attractive premises about old log 

 houses as I ever nave about our modern buildings. The narrow winding 

 path, the wild gooseberries and hazel in the fence-row or scattered over the 

 yard, the honeysuckle and roses that clambered over the doorway, the great 

 gnarled trees and the picturesque well-sweep, all combined to form a fairer 

 rural picture than scarcely we behold to-day. There mothers and daughters 

 ^rew up with a keen but untaught sympathy with nature. There our 

 thoughts revert whenever again pure nature claims our reflections. About 

 the log house centers the choicest poetry of rural life. You know why it is. 

 "When we build our new houses we somehow conceive the notion that we 

 have outgrown nature. We must take straight walks, we must plant our 

 trees and shrubs in rows or in corresponding clumps, and then we must trim 

 our evergreens — not prune them — we must trim them into absurd shapes 

 and then endeavor to admire the idols we have made! We try to force 

 nature into a band-box and laugh conceitedly if we imagine that we succeed. 



" Insult not nature with absurd expense, 

 Nor spoil her simple charms by vaia pretense; 

 "Weiglit well tlie subject, be with caution bold, 

 Profuse of genius, not profuse of gold." 



I speak of the natural style of landscape gardening. There is another 

 and an older style of ornamentation which is known as the artificial or 

 geometrical. This latter style is adapted to cities where space is limited 



