COLONIAL GARDEN 243 



and saw-buck sheep hurdles purchased by the rod and fitted with 

 turnstiles at convenient points prevented damage to shrubbery and 

 kept all rovers within bounds. 



At one time extra heavy wool fleeces encouraged us to increase 

 our flocks and develop a business side to amateur farming, which 

 included squabs, chickens, milk, fruit, asparagus, roses, violet?, and 

 grapes grown under glass. 



The vista of our broadest lawn we lengthened by adding to it 

 a half mile of pasture land, using the old English device of a verdure- 

 screened fence barely eighteen inches high set at an acute angle at 

 the top of a low terrace. It gave life to the view pastoral to see in 

 the distance roving cattle and flocks of sheep, none daring to leap 

 the frail barrier showing simply as an irregular curving line of low- 

 growing shrubbery at the edge of the actual lawn. 



Bird and Squirrel Rendezvous. 



In a sheltered and sunny nook was a bird and squirrel rendez- 

 vous. Suet was nailed against the trees, while the ground was occa- 

 sionally strewn with nuts and grain, bringing within eyesight, and 

 often within touch a wild aviary wherein no wing was shorn, no 

 tiny form ensnared, but where all were as free to come and go as 

 the air that lifts them skyward. True, the birds of the Orient were 

 missing from our unbarred aviary, but unfettered native bird life 

 joyously warbled songs of freedom. 



Colonial Garden. 



"Not wholly in the busy world nor quite beyond it blooms the 

 garden that I love." 



We duplicated the old-fashioned alleys of box and the geometric- 

 ally designed flower garden of our grandmothers, in some cases 

 bordered with English ivy and one blaze of color from June to 

 November, aiming to make it what such a garden should ever be, a 

 house extension with verdure-canopied seats and rose-screened arbors, 

 shaded walks, and shrub-arched gateways, a restful contrast to the 

 statued and fountained Italian sunken gardens. Two monastic grass 

 paths, closely cut, led from service gate to side door and to the well 

 with its old-fashioned sweep, and a flat stone walk such as in Ischia, 

 Capri, and Japan satisfy one's craving for the unconventional and 

 romantic, connected a pergolad arbor with the house and lych gate, 

 over which, framed by virgin's bower, was the gladsome greeting: 

 "Through this wide open gate none come too early, none too late." 

 Yet, while irregular, flat stones set in green sod are attractive, they 

 are a bit unsafe, and even gravel is disagreeable under foot. If 

 appearance must be sacrificed to utility, town asphalt, though heresy 

 to breathe it, has more comfort to the square inch. Is it artistic 

 solecism that leads one to turn from the safe artificial to struggle, slip 

 and fall over the dangerous picturesque? 



