174 ORNAMENTAL GARDENING. 



can keep to nature's ways of using nature's materials, 

 the more pleasing will be the result. What is admired 

 most in nature is the very freedom and informality, which 

 in by-gone times was avoided. In severely formal gar- 

 dens the picture may strike us with delight at first sight, 

 but being unchangeable, we tire of it in time, unless there 

 are counter-balancing features to offset the formality. 



Where a garden is on a hillside, and the natural con- 

 tour is too abrupt for beauty or convenience, the ter- 

 race and slope arrangement, with stairways in the walks, 

 sometimes come in use to advantage. We recall an admi- 

 rable illustration of the use of this style in the terraces and 

 slopes in the Queen's Park at Glasgow. Partly for con- 

 venience, and partly for effect in relieving the sameness 

 that would exist in a not very large park, by the pres- 

 ence of too many natural hills, there was contracted a 

 series of these on a large scale, which for their general 

 fitness, simplicity and beauty, are most charming. There 

 is a well-known and most delightful Italian garden at 

 Wellesley, the estate of H. H. Hunnewell, Esq., near 

 Boston, Mass., constructed at the head of a lake on a 

 steep bluff, which very strikingly shows that in some places 

 a contribution of formal terraces, slopes, clipped trees, 

 balustrades, stairways, and vases may be introduced as a 

 minor feature of an extensive private park, w4th very 

 pleasing effect. Small plats in towns, or even small 

 public squares, hemmed in with buildings, may, with 

 fountains or other artificial objects, walks, etc., be so 

 essentially artificial in appearance, and strongly in- 

 fluenced by architectural lines, as to very properly ad- 

 mit of considerable formality in the arrangement. 



The guiding principle in every instance where the 

 making of terraces and slopes is invited, should be to in- 

 troduce them only as objects of embellishment, and where 

 the surroundings show some other features of great bold- 

 ness and strength. They should seem to be secondary 



