^Iclo^p (gfard^r) arid L^lor). W 



H STRAW may show which way 

 the wind blows, so Httle 

 pointers indicate character. 

 An untidy yard about a home 

 indicates a slovenly habit of the owner, 

 while well kept grass and tastefully 

 grouped trees and shrubs reveal the 

 abode of cultured taste. The archi- 

 tecture of a house is an important 

 feature, but in my opinion, better a plain 

 house, devoid of Corinthian, Doric or 

 Ionic touches and showing neither 

 Elizabethian or Queen Anne style of 

 architecture, than a lawn of no interest- 

 ing features. The setting of the home 

 on a velvety lawn, among grand old 

 trees and shrubs with pleasant views, 

 will far outvalue the architectural fea- 

 tures of a house. 



We in Ontario, especially the middle 

 classes, are away behind in this study, 

 and it is time that an interest was 

 awakened in it. Here is work for our 

 Horticultural societies, and we hope 

 they will in time prove leading spirits 

 in all that is good in horticulture and 

 landscape art. 



First in importance is a first class 

 lawn. This is the back ground of the 

 picture and the very making of the 

 place. It should be of as great breadth 

 as possible, and not cut up with road- 

 ways, flower beds or ribbon beds. Let 

 the paths and drives circle about the 

 lawn, and be half concealed by clumps 



of shrubbery, and not make one's eyes 

 sore with a dreary waste of gravel right 

 in front of the best windows. Nor is a 

 bed of scarlet geraniums in good taste 

 in the middle of a good lawn. They 

 should be rather on the side or the rear, 

 half hidden among green trees. Indeed, 

 a flower bed of any kind is not in place 

 on a front lawn, for during more than 

 half the year it is bare earth, a mere 

 blot on the landscape. 



Prof. Bailey of Cornell University, 

 gives some good hints in Bulletin 121. 

 He says, "The trouble with home 

 grounds is not so much that there is too 

 little planting of trees and shrubs, but 

 that this planting is meaningless. Every 

 yard should be a picture. That is, the 

 area should be set off" from every other 

 area, and it should have such a character 

 that the observer catches its entire effect 

 and purpose without stopping to analyze 

 its parts. For myself, I had rather have 

 a bare and open pasture than the com- 

 mon type of yard with bushes and trees 

 scattered promiscuously over the area. 

 Such a yard has no purpose, no central 

 idea. It shows plainly that the planter 

 had no constructive conception, no 

 grasp of any design, and no appreciation 

 of the fundamental elements of the 

 beauty of landscape. Its only merit is 

 the fact that trees and shrubs have been 

 planted ; and this, to most minds, com- 

 prises the essence and sum of the orna- 



490 



