TERRACE AND GARDEN WALLS 45 



Many a good old garden, not of the earlier times 

 but dating from the latter half of the eighteenth 

 century, has a large space of pleasure ground within 

 walls. When these were planted, wire-netting, that 

 temptingly cheap and useful abomination, had not 

 been invented, iron was a costly commodity, and if 

 the pleasant home grounds were to be given a 

 more permanent fence against deer and cattle than a 

 wooden one, it must needs be a wall. Here is such 

 a wall, broken only by the tall piers of masonry 

 and well-wrought iron gates that lead from the 

 seclusion of the shady garden to the outer world. 

 Where there are fairly long stretches of such walls the 

 artist gardener has good scope for arranging large 

 effects ; for doing something thoroughly well and 

 just sufficiently, and then passing on to some other 

 desirable possibility ; for making pictures for all the 

 seasons in just such well-considered progression, and 

 just such degree of change or variety as will be most 

 pleasant and delightful to see. 



Good walls often have their opportunities wasted. 

 There is generally the usual planting of one each of 

 one thing after another, a wearisome monotony of 

 variety — a sort of exhibition of samples. Where there 

 is little wall-space this may be a kind of necessity, but 

 in these old gardens where the bounding walls run on 

 for many hundred yards, there is no need for any 

 such planting. 



Thus one may plant in imagination a long stretch 

 of such wall, beginning at one of the gateways. If 

 the piers are well designed, the first consideration 



