Varied Gardens Fair 73 



Sunken gardens should be laid out under the su- 

 pervision of an intelligent landscape architect ; and 

 even then should have a reason for being sunken 

 other than a whim or increase in costliness. I vis- 

 ited last summer a beautiful estate which had a deep 

 sunken Dutch garden with a very low wall. It lay 

 at the right side of the house at a little distance ; 

 and beyond it, in full view of the peristyle, extended 

 the only squalid objects in the horizon. A garden 

 on the level, well planted, with distant edging of 

 shrubbery, would have hidden every ugly blemish 

 and been a thing of beauty. As it is now, there 

 can be seen from the house nothing of the Dutch 

 garden but a foot or two of the tops of several 

 clipped trees, looking like very poor, stunted shrubs. 

 I must add that this garden, with its low wall, has 

 been a perfect man-trap. It has been evident that 

 often, on dark nights, workmen who have sought a 

 " short cut " across the grounds have fallen over 

 the shallow wall, to the gardener's sorrow, and the 

 bulbs' destruction. Once, at dawn, the unhappy 

 gardener found an ancient horse peacefully feed- 

 ing among the Hyacinths and Tulips. He said he 

 didn't like the grass in his new pasture nor the sud- 

 den approach to it; that he was too old for such 

 new-fangled ways. I know another estate near 

 Philadelphia, where the sinking of a garden revealed 

 an exquisite view of distant hills ; such a garden 

 has reason for its form. 



We have had few water-gardens in America till 

 recent years ; and there are some drawbacks to 

 their presence near our homes, as I was vividly 



