HOW TO ARRANGE COUNTRY PLACES. 



395 



accords well with the ornamental portions 

 of a country place, where the latter is large 

 enough to have a lawn, pleasure grounds, 

 or other portions that give it an ornamental 

 character. The fruit trees, (and we include 

 now, for the sake of conciseness, kitchen 

 and fruit garden,) — the vegetables, and all 

 that makes the utility of the kitchen gar- 

 den, never harmonize with the more grace- 

 ful forms of ornamental scenery. Hence, 

 the kitchen garden, in a complete country 

 place, should always form a scene by it- 

 self, and should, also, be shut out from the 

 lawn or ornamental grounds by plantations 

 of trees and shrubs. A good locality, as 

 regards soil, is an important point to be con- 

 sidered in determining its site; and it will 

 usually adjoin the space given to the 

 kitchen offices, or that near the stable or 

 barns, or, perhaps, lie between both, so 

 that it also is kept on the blind side of the 

 house. 



After having disposed of the useful and 

 indispensable portions of the place, by 

 placing them in the spots at once best fitted 

 for them, and least interfering with the 

 convenience and beauty of the remaining 

 portions, let us now turn to what may pro- 

 perly be called the ornamental portion of 

 the place. 



This may be confined to a mere bit of 

 lawn, extending a few feet in front of the 

 parlor windows, or it may cover a number 

 of acres, according to the extent of the 

 place, and the taste and means of the 

 owner. 



Be that as it may, the ground-work of 

 this part should, in our judgment, always 

 be lawn. There is in the country no ob- 

 ject which at all seasons and times gives 

 the constant satisfaction of the green turf 

 of a nicely kept lawn. If your place is 

 large, so much larger and broader is the 

 good effect of the lawn, as it stretches away, 



over gentle undulations, alternately smiling 

 and looking serious, in the play of sunshine 

 and shade that rests upon it. If it is small 

 — a mere bit of green turf before your 

 door — then it forms the best and most be- 

 coming setting to the small beds and masses 

 of everblooming roses, verbenas, and gay 

 annuals, with which you embroider it, like 

 a carpet. 



Lawn, there must be, to give any re- 

 freshment to the spirits of man in our coun- 

 try places ; for nothing is so intolerable to 

 the eye as great flower-gardens of parched 

 earth, lying half baked in the meridian sun 

 of an American summer. And though no 

 nation under the sun may have such lawns 

 as the British, because Britain lies in the 

 lap of the sea, with a climate always more 

 or less humid, yet green and pleasant lawns 

 most persons may have in the northern 

 states, who will make the soil deep and 

 keep the grass well mown. 



To mow a large surface of lawn — that 

 is to say, many acres — is a thing attempted 

 in but few places in America, from the 

 high price of labor. But a happy expedient 

 comes in to our aid, to save labor and 

 trouble, and produce all the good effect of 

 a well mown lawn. We mean sheep, and 

 wire-fences. Our neighbor and correspond- 

 ent, Mr. Sargent, of Wodenethe, on the 

 Hudson, who passed a couple of years 

 abroad, curiously gleaning all clever foreign 

 notions that w r ere really worth naturalizing 

 at home, has already told our readers (see 

 page 211,) how wire- fences may be con- 

 structed round lawns or portions of the 

 pleasure grounds, so that only a strip round 

 the house need be mown, while the extent of 

 the lawn is kept short by sheep. This 

 fence, which costs less than any tolerable 

 looking fence of other materials, is abun- 

 dantly strong to turn both sheep and cattle, 

 and is invisible at the distance of 40 or 50 



