16 COMMON SENSE GARDENS 



peal to nurserymen to accomplish in a few weeks 

 effects that Nature would consume a dozen years 

 in producing gradually. It is painful to have to 

 acknowledge nowadays that the old sentiments of 

 garden-making are utterly disregarded and looked 

 down upon with curiosity and contempt by the 

 ruling disciples of Pluto, whose delight it is to 

 complete things in a single night by the waving 

 of a golden wand ; miserable moderns who live and 

 die in a hurry. 



In the South in the early part of the nineteenth 

 century garden-making became a fad, a great 

 craze in which every man vied with his neighbour 

 to produce the largest and handsomest effects. 

 Architects were brought over from France to 

 make plans and superintend the construction. 

 Some of the schemes were so ambitious that they 

 toppled over before they left the drawing-board. 

 At Charleston, South Carolina, one can still trace 

 the paths and avenues, the general outline and 

 scheme of planting of a garden that was planned 

 to rival the garden at Versailles, that magnificent 

 folly of Louis XIV. Many gardens were laid out 

 or partly planted, but as the fad faded or the 



