64 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



incongruous effect or sncli gaudy color, as to jar on 

 nerves of any appreciative sensitiveness. Much has 

 recentl}^ been said and written on the subject of ceme- 

 tery ornamentation, and we may assume that we are on 

 the way to inculcate a better taste in this respect. 

 Although every tenent of gardening art is habitually vio- 

 lated in our cemeteries, the most common and disagree- 

 able violations are doubtless instances of disregard for 

 propriety. The matters introduced are not appropriate 

 to the place. 



But this is only a single class of improprieties, and 

 is mentioned chiefly for illustration. Propriety is a 

 universal test. Every object and group of objects must 

 submit to it. Thus we would often consider an aviary, 

 or a zoological collection, or a suite of dog kennels inad- 

 missible in a garden because they were inappropriate to 

 the surroundings, even though they might be in them- 

 selves beautiful and interesting. 



I wish to speak here again of a particular class of 

 improprieties to which I have already alluded, namely, 

 the prominent display of monstrous or deformed horti- 

 cultural specimens. Deformity and monstrosity have a 

 strange fascination to uncultured minds ; and there is 

 no more unequivocal testimony to a general poverty of 

 cultivated taste in gardening than the constantly recur- 

 ring sight of such disfigurements in the gardens of peo- 

 ple whose houses are furnished inside with scrupulous 

 taste and propriety. It is surpassingly strange that the 

 city resident, who has room between his house and the 

 street for only a single specimen, will choose for that 

 position the one plant which offers the most blemishes, 

 as though ^sop were better to look upon than Apollo. 

 The commonest vagary of this sort is the little weeping 

 tree, in which the writhing agonies of one monstrous 

 variety are grafted on the top of some straight, cour- 

 ageous stock for better exhibition. As one passes along 



