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GARDEN CRAFT IN EUROPE 



not carried to its former excesses. Low hedges of box and rosemary were 

 often cut into fanciful lines to border the parterres, the angles being accent- 

 uated in the forms of obelisks. The example illustrated (p. 183) is from 

 Bosch-en-Hoven, near Haarlem, where the whole parterre was surrounded 

 by a topiary border. 



Aiost of the country seats were in the neighbourhood of Amsterdam, 

 the largest commercial city, The Hague, the seat of Government, Haarlem, 



SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY DESIGNS FOR TREILLAGE FENCES. 



Leyden and Utrecht. Travelling by road was neither safe nor easy, and 

 as both the Amstel and Vecht offered fine opportunities for transport to and 

 fro by yacht, the whole district between Utrecht and Amsterdam became 

 one vast garden. Mr. Wortley Montagu writes in 1763 : " At every moment 

 we passed a succession of these gardens with their labyrinth, parterres and 

 hedges cut out in all manner of fantastic designs. Sometimes the gardens 

 are divided from each other by a tiny canal, sometimes by a little field. 

 They extended without interruption as far as Brenkelm during more than 



