THE JOYOUS ART OF GARDENING 



priate millinery is to a woman's face. Yet when his vision 

 materializes, there stands the cottage planted on a bare site, 

 quite bereft of alleviating shrubbery; its path may curve with 

 a futile coquetry, but it has not even a shrub to crook its 

 elbow about. Sometimes an even worse unkindness befalls, 

 and we see it placed on an unrelieved elevation, where only 

 a building like the Acropolis of Athens could stand the archi- 

 tectural strain of the position. 



Such a house, to feel at all comfortable, ought to be fairly 

 embedded in green. The porches should have vines, the foun- 

 dations should be masked by shrubs, and there should be 

 shrubs or low-growing trees for the paths to curve about. If 

 the arrangement of the street permits, a hedge and a little 

 gate will be the gardener's first move, with a few tall shrubs 

 or low-growing, flowering trees behind it. A very little plant- 

 ing near the street will afford complete seclusion, for a com- 

 paratively low obstacle near the sidewalk is a better defense 

 from the eyes of the passer-by than a much taller one planted 

 near the house. The latter only obstructs the occupant's 

 vision. If the suburbanite may not plant a hedge, then a 

 grouping of shrubs will answer his purpose. 



The chief charm of a cottage, it should be remembered, is 

 its individuality, and if, instead of being properly framed, it 

 stands between cottages of a totally dissimilar type, this is 

 difficult to preserve. Therefore it is well to cut off also the 

 neighbors. I remember a little house on Long Island which 

 was charmingly managed in this respect. It stood on a long, 

 narrow lot far back from the street, with a neighbor on each 

 side not more than fifty yards away, and yet the little place 

 was absolutely apart and a thing by itself. The houses on 

 each side were of different types, but only their roofs were 

 visible. From the house one could not see the street, the 



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