166 OLD-FASHIONED GARDENING 



and meadows near the house, so as not to obstruct any 

 prospect and yet make the place look warm and shel- 

 tered." Which also sounds doubtful, to my mind, 

 leaving an impression of stuffiness, clutter and con- 

 fusion. 



This was indeed a period of degeneracy in garden 

 art; the pendulum was still swinging, from the impetus 

 given it by Dufresnoy in the first years of the century, 

 towards the extreme of absurdity in the imitation of 

 Nature; for men were yet nai've and lacking in the 

 cunning necessary for such a task, hence the crowning 

 folly of planting dead trees among a living group, 

 which was near at hand ! Great and irreparable havoc 

 had been wrought in many of England's fine old 

 gardens, too, by the innovations of these Nature 

 fanatics; and a queer conglomeration of shifting ideas 

 had been brought to the business of garden develop- 

 ment in America. Which gives a wealth of material 

 from which to reconstruct, now, the work of the 

 second, and part of the third, century behind us. But 

 it is material that must be carefully sifted to eliminate 

 its chaff its follies, extravagances and altogether 

 hideous absurdities. It is not enough that we should 

 know what old-fashioned gardens in general were like; 

 nor that we can restore them, from data in hand, as 

 builders restore a temple of the ancients. Beauty is 

 the first requisite always; only the old gardens that 



