70 COME INTO THE GARDEN 



New England village; but when anything apart 

 from the simplest design is approached, beware ! 

 Not that real variation in design may not be 

 considered, but that the unusual is, as I have 

 already warned, not to be selected if, by such 

 selection, attention will be drawn to the fence 

 before anything else is noted. 



As a general rule there is a fence suited to 

 practically every house that is really architec- 

 turally good, even in the humblest way; but 

 further to generalize, I may say that the picket 

 fence, or palings, seems naturally to take its 

 place before the modest house of discreet and 

 unpretentious Colonial type, while the post-and- 

 rail fence demands a rather more spacious, wide- 

 spreading dwelling of somewhat the same char- 

 acter. One is, in other words, essentially the 

 town or village type, the other more especially 

 the farmstead type; and it is well to try and use 

 them accordingly. But this is not to say that 

 there may not be places in the close confines of 

 a town where the latter will produce a better 

 effect than the former — as for example before a 

 house standing high up on an eminence rising 

 directly from the street. In such a case, how- 

 ever, the eminence itself becomes in part the 

 barrier shutting off the highway; and the 

 fence topping it does not need to be of the 



