THE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF NEW YORK 



THE WAY TO THE GOOD SMALL GARDEN 



By Fletcher Steele 



member, american society of landscape architects 



Lecture held at American Museum of Natural Histon,-, 

 Thursday, November 8th, 1922. 



{Mrs. Harold I. Pratt, presiding.) 



THE way to the good small garden is through good design. 

 Good design means first listing the several features of a place 

 as one lists the rooms before planning a house. Then locating each 

 feature or sub-division according to the rule of common sense 

 without regard to the fashions or usage of the day, which are 

 often wrong. By sub-division is meant house and garage as well 

 as entrance yard, garage drive, laundry yard, lawn, tennis court 

 and flower garden. Everything will go where most practical and 

 convenient. 



Among other things reason will dictate are economical use of the 

 land and a regard for privacy. There is no sense in troubling to 

 make and maintain a garden that is not used. Nobody would use a 

 garden that was public or exposed. Every sub-division must be 

 separated and screened not only from the street, but from other 

 parts of the place, just as each room of the house is separated 

 from the street and other rooms by walls, doors and curtains. 



In every move of location, separation and, finally, decoration, 

 careful thought must be given to sightliness and comfort, with 

 due regard for economical use of the land and orderly location of 

 each sub-division for practical convenience and sightHness, the 

 result will always be agreeable, and usually charming. 



A picket fence was used for privacy by all Colonial builders to 

 shut off the street from the grounds. Fences went out of fashion 

 when the mansard-roof period came in at the lowest ebb of sense 

 and taste in American building. The argument, which was prob- 

 ably suggested by a real estate dealer, was and is that streets look 

 better where lots are un fenced. This excuse has no weight with 

 anyone who compares the old fenced-in village streets of New 



470 



