CHAPTER IX 



FAULTS TO AVOID-PLAN BEFORE PLANTING. 



KGID self-denial, in dispensing with many things that 

 seem desirable, will be found essential to the best effect 

 and enjoyment of those home-adornments which we can 

 afford. Limited as most men are in income ; circum- 

 scribed as their building lots usually are, and fixed by circum- 

 stances quite different from those which would influence a choice 

 for landscape gardening alone, one of the most difficult lessons to 

 learn is, to proportion planting and expenditures to the lot and 

 the income. And not this alone, but to the demands of a refined 

 taste, which is intolerant of excesses and vulgarity even in garden- 

 ing. To build a larger house than the owner can use or furnish, 

 or to lay out grounds on a more costly scale than his means will 

 enable him to keep in good order, is a waste, and may result in 

 making his place unsightly rather than a beautiful improvement. 

 We doubt the good taste of a man, whose enthusiastic love of 

 company induces him to invite to his house such incongruous 

 numbers that they crowd and jostle each other at table, and must 

 be lodged uncomfortably on floors and in out-buildings. But it is 

 just this kind of over-doing which is the stumbling-block of many 

 who are embellishing their homes. The cost of superfluous walks, 

 if they are well made, is apt to suggest an early inquiry into their 

 needfulness ; but trees and shrubs are so cheap, and so small, at 



