314 PRACTICAL GARDEXING. 



to be appreciated, and the finest garden that was ever laid out 

 geometrically, suffers by comparison if there be any natural 

 landscape in sight. 



FOEMAL GAEDE:N'ma. 



This, in contradistinction to landscape gardening, is every 

 way artificial. Every bed, border, clump, or gravel-walk, is 

 formed according to some order or regularity of figure, and all 

 is uniform. It applies to those parts of a garden which are 

 devoted to flowers, be they where they may, and in most 

 places some portion near the mansion, or the conservatory, or 

 the summer-house ; and is thoroughly distinct from the land- 

 scape, if there be one : or it may be that the whole of a 

 domain is thus artificially planned — straight avenues of trees, 

 straight roads, straight canals, all are in keeping with each 

 other, and order and regularity, and even uniformity, pre- 

 served throughout. The leading features in formal gardening 

 are terraces, statues, fountains, avenues of trees, bold but 

 straight walks and roads, and canals with straight banks ; and 

 circular pieces of water, formal cascades, as if the water were 

 running down a flight of steps, — angles, circles, squares, and 

 straight lines, — proclaim, at every step Ave take, that the hand 

 of man has done the work. All natural scenery is avoided 

 as much as possible; and it has been carried so far as to trim 

 the trees up into unnatural shapes, as if it were determined 

 that every plant should bear the stamp of interference. 



Design. — We have abundant examples of formal gardening 

 in Hampton Court Gardens and Bushy Park. There is, how- 

 ever, quite as much art in designing a garden, and managing 

 the plan of a domain, in the formal style, as there is in the 

 landscape ; but there is less difficulty in carrying it out. The 

 ordinary architect would succeed in laying doAvu a plan quite 

 as well as the gardener ; and there is no doubt but the 

 builder of a mansion would carry out ideas suited to the 

 elevation as well as any professional designer of garden plans. 

 All things appertaining to the plan must be adopted according 

 to the architectural taste displayed on the building. Terrace- 

 walks should be parallel to the front or sides. Here expanse 

 is exhibited by the length of walks, roads, and avenues ; and 

 these must be upon a scale suited to the elevation of the 

 building The ornaments to terrace-walks must be in keeping 



