Gardens and Their Accessories 



297 



Moorish influence the Spanish garden often contains a long, narrow pool running 

 from side to side, and flanked at frequent intervals by nearly upright single jets 

 of water playing into it. The effect of this is very interesting. 



The Japanese garden is more or less naturalistic, and, as it is modelled on 

 the Japanese landscape, it is of course irregular. It is in every sense ideal, each 

 detail of embellishment being drawn from the best examples of its kind. Not 

 being a flower garden, it seldom contains a flower bed. Some gardens have 

 scarcely a suggestion of the green sprig, and at rare intervals consist of nothing 

 but rocks, pebbles and sand. 



It is their mission to suggest certain phases of natural conditions, such as 

 wildness, peacefulness and the like, and to this end is their character restricted. 

 If we compare Japanese landscape art with the original, we will readily see 

 through what eyes the Japanese gardener sees his work. He is limited by certain 

 religious conventionalities and recognised ideals in pine tree, mountain, lake, 

 stone and other shapes. Some tree and stone combinations are considered as 

 fortunate, and are naturally striven for, while the unfortunate form is as naturally 

 avoided. Everything in a Japanese garden means something to its designer 

 and the native. It is an art of symbols and religious suggestions, from its 

 lanterns, bridges, hills, streams, lakes, trees and stones to the specified relation they 

 all bear to one another. 



The size of the Japanese garden is one of wide range; it may be of considerable 

 acreage or very small in size. In the latter case the scale of its details is reduced 

 according to its diminutiveness. There are sev- 

 eral styles of this branch of art, a description of 

 which is rather too lengthy to be considered here. 



From the foregoing brief descriptions it is 

 readily seen that in all cases of foreign gardens, 

 with perhaps the exception of the English type, 

 they are of little value if taken literally. We 

 have in the first place to consider our modes 

 of living in various parts of the country and 

 contrast them with foreign conditions. We must 

 also remember that every garden, be it ever so 

 formal, is more or less an index of the character 

 of the local landscape, and that to attempt an 

 Italian garden in Maine would be exceedingly 

 risky. The Italian garden requires the cypress, 

 the English garden the elm, the Spanish garden 

 tropical suggestions of foliage, and the Japanese 

 garden the pine. In the Italian type our cedar 

 may well replace the cypress, but it should be Bit of " den at Newburgh, N. Y., showing 



J . , r . J l . , Japanese influence 



remembered that it is not only necessary that 



these botanical characteristics should be embodied in the garden itself but that 

 they should be characteristic of the local landscape as well. Few of the American 

 gardens have observed this fact; they are usually in direct antagonism to natural 

 conditions, and suffer accordingly. 



