THE NATURAL STYLE. 17 



Open lawns are the natural foundation of a natural 

 landscape. They should be as large and as little inter- 

 rupted as circumstances will allow. Speaking in a very 

 general way, and with room for exceptions, it is good 

 practice to devote all the center and interior of any land- 

 scape piece to open lawn. The plantings of trees and 

 shrubs should, in a general way, be confined to the 

 boundaries. Buildings should be located toward one 

 side. And most certainly should the drives and walks 

 never cut through the middle of the grounds if a natural, 

 rural effect is to be preserved. These lawns may be kept 

 clipped, or the grass may be allowed to grow at its own 

 will; but clipped lawns have a distinct suggestion of 

 artificiality, and the clipping should be confined to the 

 vicinity of buildings or other positions where smooth 

 surfaces and straight lines are already in evidence. The 

 unmowed lawn is suitable for larger pieces and for more 

 emphatically natural surroundings. The lawn should 

 cover a comparatively large area. One would not want 

 the furniture in the parlor to take up three-fourtiis of 

 the room ; much less would one want the green carpet 

 of the lawn nearly covered with such furniture as trees 

 and flower beds. 



Curved lines are usually natural, but not necessarily 

 so. They may be grotesque and artificial to almost any 

 degree, but it requires an effort to make them so. 

 Straight lines are specifically unnatural. Nature works 

 only in curves. The planets move in curves, the small- 

 est leaflet is bounded by curves, and your sweetheart's 

 t'dci has not the faintest suggestion of a straight line. 

 Vou will with great difficulty find a straight line in 

 nature. Inasmuch as the grounds on which the land- 

 scape gardener works often exist chiefly for some utili- 

 tarian purpose, many strictly non-natural features must 

 be introduced, and in many cases the naturalness of the 

 curved line must be abandoned for the usefulness of the 



