ILLINOIS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 271 



LIGHT AND SHADOW. 



These are the pigment with which you are to convert your grounds 

 into a living, glowing picture. In the skillful management and disposi- 

 tion of these, lie the first and the last lessons of the landscape garden- 

 er's art. Here you want bold, strong lights, ?nd deep, sharp shadows. 

 Yonder, a soft blending of sunshine and shade, running imperceptibly 

 into each other. 



Your dwelling is in the foreground. You must have jutting angles 

 and over-hanging eaves, to give bold, effective expression to this part 

 of your picture. The trees that are nearest the buildings should be 

 solitary and symmetrical, throwing clearly defined shadows on the 

 smooth-shaven lawn, " like pictures in monochrome " on a " canvass of 

 pure green." Here you want also broad, clear sunshine, giving effect 

 to the few bold shadows, making home bright and cheerful, its atmos- 

 phere clear and bracing. 



Yonder, near the borders of your territory, you will plant trees of 

 smaller growth. They should sometimes be in twos or threes, some- 

 times in clumps, whilst in one or two favored nooks a small thicket has 

 a fine effect. In these latter the largest specimens should be in the 

 centre with the smaller ones sloi)ing off at the outer sides, thus making 

 softened lights with a delicate play of flickering shadows. In this man- 

 ner you may produce fine perspective effects, with very moderate dis- 

 tances. This arrangement, it will be clearly seen, will make the grounds 

 look larger than they really are, at the same time that the most perfect 

 unity of design is secured. Artificial perspective may also be produced 

 by arrangement of tints; having trees and shrubbery of strong hues in 

 the foreground, and those of the softer, greyer tints in the distance. 



Where such a course is practicable (it will mostly be so in country 

 places), setting out a few pine trees in the adjacent pasture fields, in 

 situations calculated to harmonize with the shrubbery inside of the 

 garden, will blend the latter with the surrounding landscape — will, in 

 fact, adopt the whole landscape as an enlargement of your own garden 

 domain. 



It is well known that this effect is greatly heightened by extending 

 rows of trees indefinitely along the sides of highways leading past and 

 through your grounds. Here, if nowhere else, as a matter of taste, 

 would we have trees in straight, even rows. Here the Lombardy Pop- 

 lar {Popi/liis), even one of the least beautiful of all the trees that 

 Nature has made, finds a fitting place. In truth, so long and intimately 

 has it been associated with highways, and with the common people (as 

 its name implies), that we regard any landscape in a cultivated region 

 as incomplete without a row of these trees somewhere in view. We 

 also regard as incomplete any landscape garden which does not adopt 

 the adjacent highway as a part of itself, throwing the beautiful mantle 

 of its own hospitality, in the form of cooling shade and refreshing fruits, 

 over the weary and thirsty traveler. 



