AUTUMNAL COLOR ON THE LAWN. 115 



ceives in the special grouping and arrangement. Even 

 Central Park, New York, the most notable landscape-gar- 

 dening essay in America, has always impressed me as defec- 

 tive in studied color effects of foliage. This is doubtless 

 caused in part by a want of sufficient variety in the large 

 masses of the plants employed. Twenty-five years ago, 

 when the Park was planted, there was likewise a much 

 smaller variety of ornamental trees in the nurseries than 

 there is at present. 



Yet, notwithstanding this apparent neglect of color in 

 lawn-planting of the present day, I am not inclined to 

 believe that our enjoyment of color in foliage falls at all 

 behind that of our enjoyment of tree form. Form doubt- 

 less appeals more to the direct, practical instincts of the 

 gardener or farmer, and in his hands has rested in large part 

 all tree-planting up to the present time. Nay, more, I be- 

 lieve that if women could or would have given as much 

 attention to the lawn as they have to the flower garden, 

 this reproach of baldness of color would not now apply in 

 the same degree to the tree-planting in vogue. 



The truth is that color, for almost every one, is a great 

 and positive delight. This delight may be more sensuous 

 and less purely intellectual than that inspired by agreeable 

 form, but it belongs more truly, nevertheless, to the restful 

 physical pleasure associated with the lawn. Indeed the 

 mere mention of the word color on the lawn calls up to 

 the memory lovely tints of foliage and flower, and few will 

 perhaps acknowledge that they have neglected color for 

 such purposes. In most cases this erroneous impression 

 comes from ignorance of possible color combinations of this 



