30 COMMON SENSE GARDENS 



command, the house, the forecourt with its 

 quaint gateway the numerous outbuildings un- 

 usual and picturesque in themselves, the connect- 

 ing peristyles that match perfectly with pathetic 

 simplicity the architecture of the main building, 

 the location on a thickly wooded bank overhang- 

 ing the noble river whose every wavelet lisps of 

 the history of the neighbouring shores, the stately 

 trees that have reached perfection of character 

 and symmetry of form through the rounding out 

 of many years, the shrubs that have become pa- 

 triarchs of their families, and above all the serenity 

 and repose that are natural to the wild-wood and 

 foreign to thickly populated districts. 



This park and the neighbouring park of Arling- 

 ton, which is larger than that of Mt. Vernon and 

 was planted on a much more liberal scale, are 

 examples that every student of gardening should 

 study unceasingly. At Arlington the planting of 

 evergreen trees especially was most successfully 

 accomplished and one may there learn the best 

 uses to which such trees can be put. Nothing 

 could be more beautiful than the grouping and 

 the disposal of the groups. It is as if they had 



