GARDEN DECORATIONS. 105 



or geometrically arranged groups of flower-beds may be introduced 

 in the foreground of important window views ; but beware of fre- 

 quently breaking open stretches of lawn for them. Imagine bits of 

 lace or bows of ribbon stuck promiscuously over the body and skirt 

 of a lady's dress. " How vulgar ! " you exclaim. Put them in their 

 appropriate places and what charming points they make ! Let 

 your lawn be your home's velvet robe, and your flowers its not too 

 promiscuous decorations. 



Of constructive garden decorations (in which are included pillars 

 and trellises for vines, screens, arbors, summer-houses, seats, rock- 

 work, terraces, vases, fountains, and statuary), and their compara- 

 tive value, we will merely say that really tasteful and durable 

 ornamentation of that kind is rather expensive, and therefore to 

 be weighed well in the balance with expenditures of the same 

 money for other modes of embellishment before ordering such 

 work. 



The following remarks from Kemp's admirable little work on 

 Landscape Gardening* express our views so fully that we will 

 give them entire : 



" A garden may also be overloaded with a variety of things 

 which, though ornamental in themselves, and not at all out of keep- 

 ing with the house, or the principal elements of the landscape, 

 may yet impart to it an affected or ostentatious character. An 

 undue introduction of sculptured or other figures, vases, seats, and 

 arbors, baskets for plants, and such like objects, will come within 

 the limits of this description. And there is nothing of which peo- 

 ple in general are so intolerant in others, as the attempt, when 

 glaringly and injudiciously made, to crowd within a confined space 

 the appropriate adornments of the most ample garden. It is in- 

 variably taken as evidence of a desire to appear to be and to 

 possess that which the reality of the case will not warrant, and is 

 visited with the reprobation and contempt commonly awarded to 



* This is an English work entitled " How to lay out a Garden," a work so complete and 

 well condensed, that were it not for the difference in the climate, and in the style of living (and 

 consequently of the plans of dwellings, and their outbuildings and garden connections), which 

 English thoroughness and cheaper labor make practicable, there had been no need of this 

 book 



