54 GARDEN-CRAFT. 



ning and conjured proportions. The room is small, 

 therefore its every inch shall seem an ell. The garden 

 is a mere patch, therefore the patch shall be elabor- 

 ately darned and pattern-stitched all over. The eye 

 may not travel far, or can get no joy in a distant view, 

 therefore it shall rest in pure content, focussed upon 

 a scene where rich and orderly garniture can no 



farther go. 



Thus have the ill-conditions of the land proved 

 blessings in disguise. Necessity, the mother of in- 

 vention, has produced the Dutch garden out of the 

 most untoward geography, and if we find in its quali- 

 ties and features traces of the conditions which sur- 

 rounded its birth and development it is no wonder. 

 Who shall blame the prim shapes and economical 

 culture where even gross deception shall pass for 

 a virtue if it be successful ! Or the regular strips of 

 ground, the long straight canals, the adroit vistas of 

 grassy terraces long-drawn out, the trees ranged in 

 pots, or planted in the ground at set intervals and 

 carefully shorn to preserve the limit of their shade ! 

 Nay, one can be merciful to the garden's usual 

 crowning touch, which you get at its far end a 

 painted landscape of hills and dales and clumps of 

 trees to beguile the enamoured visitor into the fond 

 belief that Holland is not Holland : and, in the fore- 

 ground the usual smiling wooden boy, shooting 

 arrows at nothing, happy in the deed, and tin hares 

 squatting in likely nooks, whose shy hare eyes have 

 worn the same startled gaze these sixty years or 

 more, renewed with fresh paint from time to time as 



