12 COME INTO THE GARDEN 



same wasteful way; and each average door- 

 yard has the same features — or lack of them. 



Of course there are restrictions imposed 

 upon the purchaser of so-called improved 

 property, for his protection as well as his 

 guidance, and it is right that there should be. 

 But all of this, be it noted, is quite apart from 

 these restrictions and regulations. Beyond the 

 building line and the character and minimum 

 cost of the buildings to be erected, there is 

 usually little that is arbitrarily fixed in either 

 the opulent or humble colony. And this little 

 offers no insurmountable obstacle to doing what 

 is really best in disposing both house and 

 grounds — although the building line comes very 

 near doing so, without doubt. The elimination 

 of this fixed line, however, is not of course 

 possible or even desirable perhaps under our 

 present system of regulated building; but the 

 system itself is wasteful, vulgarly frank and os- 

 tentatious, and utterly destructive of garden 

 opportunities as well as of the fine instinct of 

 home reserve and privacy that is such a price- 

 less human asset. 



We have not grown old enough as a nation, 

 however, to shrink from personal publicity; we 

 still cherish the infantile instinct to cry "hello!" 

 to the passer-by, to lift up our possessions to his 



