How I Built a Country Home 325 



none; but my knowledge of them, being confined to hearsay, caused me to 

 imagine every long-shanked oak that grew from a decapitated stump capable 

 of bemg converted into one. I considered that a plethora of ancestral oaks 

 would be the crowning glory of a lawn, so I left any towering tree that 

 possessed a head. 



My next mistake was in road-making. In laying out my entrance 

 roadway I substituted an uncouth curve for a graceful one to save a worth- 

 less oak that happily died about the time I discovered my error. 



In the third place, I wanted a rockery, and wanted it where all could 

 see it; so I placed it near the center of the lawn. Men, teams and a 

 derrick were engaged, and soon boulders, gathered nearby, were piled up, 

 one upon another, and a circular rim eight feet in diameter and six feet 

 high was erected and filled with soil. It was fearfully and wonderfully 

 made, and looked it — not then, however, for I thought it a thing of beauty 

 that would last forever. I grew flowers on top, but neglected to furnish a 

 step-ladder that they might be seen. 



I soon grew tired of the stork-like trees, that seemed to make no head- 

 way, and they were grubbed out. I bought exotics from nurserymen and 

 planted them here and there until my lawn was littered up worse than 

 ever. ]\Iy man got dizzy dodging them with the lawnmower. I was not 

 satisfied. Something seemed wrong. The place had an unfinished look. 

 I was regaining my health, had open-air exercise, but there was a screw 

 loose somewhere. 



What little reading I had done in the horticultural line had educated 

 me faster than I had improved the place. Fortunately I came across a copy 

 of the America}! Garden, edited in those days by a certain professor now 

 at Cornell University. In a leading article on landscape gardening, this 

 man advocated an open center and massing at the boundaries. Here was 

 an inkling of the cause of my dissatisfaction. I had not opened or massed 

 anywhere. I had cluttered. 



When spring came there was an upheaval. The lawn was opened up 

 and plantings made in groups at the sides. My lawn seemed to have doubled 

 in size. Heretofore the mind was confused when looking down the grounds. 

 Now there was a peaceful quietness as the eye glanced along the unbroken 

 greensward to the bordering mass of leafy trees. 



The rockery had become a scarecrow. Even the wild geese in their 

 migratory flights steered to the right or left of it. I took a lot of pleasure 



