70 'HIE PARKS AND GARDENS OF TARIS. [Chap. IV. 



quantity of natural blocks of stone, visible through a rising mass 

 of rock-shrubs, Avould have been far better. By this means one 

 could get the necessary elevation, concealing the basis of the 

 stones with evergreens and trailing plants, and not sealing up 

 with cement in any part. A mistake has been made in placing a 

 cafe on the edge of the rock, occupying one of the finest central 

 sites in the park. There are plenty of less prominent positions 

 in which such houses might be placed, if they were thought 

 necessary, but in so small a park as this, surrounded as it is by 

 houses or sites accessible in a few moments, such buildings ought 

 not to be tolerated. Besides, they add very seriously to the cost 

 of public gardens. The restaurants here, and a few other build- 

 ings wholly needless in the garden, have cost not less than 

 £20,000, a sum that wisely laid out would suffice to form a large 

 public garden. 



A marked defect in many French gardens is having too 

 many walks. The way these are wound about in symmetrical 

 twirlings is quite ridiculous. In these cases the garden is made 

 for the walks, not the walks for the garden. In gardens other- 

 wise charming, with plenty of turf and groups of handsome plants 

 in great variety, and a command of good views, one sometimes 

 sees five times as many walks as are necessary. In the plans of 

 the modern French landscape-gardeners, all of whom delight in 

 forming " English gardens," a series of walks like so many 

 sections of eggs are crowded over the surface without reference 

 to the wants of the place or the formation of the ground, and 

 evidently without thought of the hideous efi'ects they produce 

 in the garden landscape. It is hardly necessary to state that to 

 secure a good and quiet effect in gardens not one inch of walk 

 should be made or exposed more than is needed for convenience. 

 One walk, concealed or half hidden in parts where the formation of 

 the ground or the planting permitted, might often well rei)lace a 

 round dozen of the senseless intercrossing windings complained of. 



One can scarcely carefully examine this park without being 

 struck by the power of garden-design to beautify unpromising 

 sites in town or country. A more unlikely position for a garden 

 could hardly be found, and yet there are now parts of it almost 

 as lovely as the little open lawns that here and there spread out 

 among the rocks and trees of the fairest mountain region. 





