MANAGEMENT OF SMAIX GAUDEN9. 



walk straiMit. It would be much better if bouses of this kind were so constructed 

 as to have the main entrance at one side, so that the ground in front of the principal 

 rooms might be kept in a lawn, embellished with a few aj)propriate trees. This would 

 be a more agreeable sight from the windows than a gravel walk, and persons 

 approaching the house would not bo directly in front of the windows. "When the 

 house stands back a sufficient distance, even if the front door be in the center facing the 

 street, the walk should approach it by as easy curves as possible from one side, leaving 

 the ground in front unbroken. A curved walk, bowerer, is not only inconvenient, 

 but obviously inconsistent, in a very limited space. 



Box, and all other kinds of edgings, to walks that run through grass plots, are not 

 only out of place, but add greatly to the expense of planting and keeping. Such 

 thino-s are only appropiiate in flower gardens, to mark the outlines of walks and beds. 

 Iledfi-es of Privet, lied Cedar, or Arbor Yitic, are occasionally planted along the edges 

 of walks, but are entirely surperfluous, and have a bad efl'ect, unless to screen a 

 wagon road to out-buildings, or to separate a front garden or lawn from the kitchen 

 garden, or such objects as it may be desirable to conceal. Such hedges have also a 

 very good effect when placed immediately behind a low open front fence, forming, in 

 that case, a background to the lawn, when viewed from the dwelling. 



Planting, in most of our small gardens, is carried to such an excess as to convert 

 them into miniature forests. There must be the universal row of llorse Chestnuts, or 

 something else, within the fence; and then the interior is dotted over closely with all 

 luanner of shrubs and plants. A corner is probably cut up into something like a chilld's 

 flower garden ; small beds, filled with tall, straggling plants, lying over the Box edgings, 

 covering the walks, and giving to the whole a neglected and confused appearance. 

 Such management displays no taste, and gives no satisfaction. 



We would discard these straight rows of trees, and convert the whole surface into 

 as perfect a piece of lawn as could be made. This we would embellish with a few — very 

 few — appropriate trees, mostly evergreens, having as great a variety among them as 

 possible, both in regard to habit of growth and tint of foliage. The smallest plot, 

 managed on this principle, may be made beautiful. A single tree, such as a Norway 

 Spruce, a Deodar Cedar, a Hemlock Spruce, or any other fine evergreen — or even a 

 deciduous tree, such as a Magnolia, a Tulip tree, a Linden, Horse Chestnut, or Moun- 

 tain Ash — standing on a lawn, having ample space on all sides to develop its fair, 

 natural habits and proportions, is always a beautiful object, and cannot fail, though a 

 common tree, to attract attention and admiration ; but plant three or four, or half a 

 dozen, such trees where one should be, or crowd up the one with undcrshrubs and 

 other objects, and you at once destroy the character and expression of the tree, and 

 produce a confused mass, that can not fail to be disagreeable to every one whose taste 

 has been even slightly cultivated. 



Few people seem to appreciate fully the beauty of a piece of lawn — a beauty which 

 is at once cheap and permanent. Most of us desire to be economical ; but what 

 economy is there in cutting up small gardens into walks, flower borders, and 

 and in planting them all over with trees and plants ? These walks and borders 



