WALKS AND ROADS. 91 



curlecue of a flower-bed than on those beautiful effects of rich 

 foliage and open glades — of shadow and sunlight — that are often 

 produced with the simplest means by Dame Nature or the true 

 landscape-artist. If, therefore, you have a well-matured plan, and 

 the gardener is competent to study it intelligently, let him make 

 suggestions of changes before the work on the ground commences ; 

 but thereafter oblige him either to work faithfully to your plan, or 

 else furnish you with a better one ; and do not let him bluff you 

 into an entire surrender by his professional sneers at paper plans. 

 Of course these remarks are intended to apply to the common run 

 of illiterate gardeners, who have happened to make a trade of this 

 species of labor, and not to another class who may have chosen 

 the profession from a love for it, and who have intelligence or 

 imagination enough to understand something of the art of arrang- 

 ing their sylvan and floral materials so as to make pictures with 

 them. 



Almost every neighborhood has a few gentlemen of superior 

 taste in such matters, whose dictums will, perforce, help to educate 

 the common run of self-sufficient gardeners ; and it is hoped that 

 so promising a field of labor will soon attract the attention of 

 Americans of the highest culture, to whom we can turn for profes- 

 sional work in ground designs ; who, as Pope describes one — 



" Consults the genius of the place in all 

 That tells the waters or to rise or fall ; 

 Or helps the ambitious hill the heavens to scale, 

 Or scoops in circling theatres the vale : 

 Calls in the country, catches opening glades, 

 Joins willing woods, and varies shades from shades; 

 Now breaks or now directs the intending lines, 

 Paints as you plant, and, as you work, designs I" 



