THE NATURAL STYLE. 25 



"White Surfaces. — Pure white is not a color com- 

 mon in nature, and the dazzling reflection from extended 

 white surfaces reveals an artificiality wiiich is glaring in 

 a double sense. Those w^lio, amid the shining buildings 

 of the "White City" at Chicago, suffered from head- 

 ache from day to day, had demonstrated to them in a 

 very telling way the unnaturalness of white surfaces. 

 This is not meant to condemn the st3^1e so freely ado2:)ted 

 at the World's Fair. The white buildings certainly 

 gave a striking and in many Avays an enjoyable effect. 

 Yet there w^re some things to be said against them. 

 On a small scale, with buildings of more trivial archi- 

 tecture, white painting is seldom admissible among 

 plantings of a naturalistic accent. Yet note how often 

 we are compelled to look at white houses, especially 

 among farmhouses, where the exclusively and perhaps 

 beautifully rural landscape is least prepared to receive 

 them. It is safe to say that white surfaces and natural 

 effects are always incongruous. 



Badly Treated Plants. — There are many unnat- 

 ural methods of plant training in vogue ; and it goes 

 without sajdng that they are inconsistent with the Eng- 

 lish style. Yet we constantly find them intermingled 

 with purely natural objects, much to the detriment of 

 both. The junipers, boxes, arbor vitaes and similar 

 plants trimmed into smooth cones, vases, globes and 

 more complex combinations, illustrate this inethod. 

 Weeping tops grafted on straight, upright trunks belong 

 to the same class. Others might be mentioned, some 

 good and some bad in themselves, but all agreeing in 

 the certainty with which they spoil the unity of any 

 place in which informal treatment is essayed. 



