HOUSES AND GARDENS 



feature may perhaps be a dipping well for watering the garden. The garden 

 seats, which should be of good design and solid structure, should be placed 

 at those points in the garden which command the principal vistas to which 

 they may form the terminal features, and in similar positions should be 

 placed the arbours or summer-houses. 



Amongst other features of the garden not to be overlooked are trellises 

 to form screens or enclosures, and wreathed with rose or vine, tubs and 

 pots for plants to be set at intervals on a terrace or stand, sentinel-like, 

 to mark an entrance. Dovecots set on a pole will give a homely note to 

 the garden, and fountains and statuary will be essential features in a stately 

 scheme. 



Terracing will form a necessary part of the garden on sloping ground, 

 and where, as in the old Italian gardens, the slope is considerable, fine effects 

 can be obtained with steps and terraces one above the other. They should 

 be retained by walls rather than by banks, and these walls may be formed of 

 rough stone and planted as previously described. 



It would be impossible, with the space at my disposal, to deal adequately 

 with all the features of the garden. I can do no more than indicate a 

 few general principles. Neither have I any wish to pose as a partisan in the 

 quarrel between the naturalists and formalists in its design. In the large 

 garden each should have free scope, and natural garden and formal garden 

 will enter into no rivalry there, but each will only enhance the peculiar charm 

 of the other, and afford a solace for varying moods. 



CHAPTER THIRTY THREE 



WAYS AND MEANS 



T is a common belief that to build an artistic house a large 

 sum of money is required. Art and ornament are often held 

 to be synonymous terms, and the house which possesses the 

 largest amount of ornament is often held to be the most 



artistic. It will be necessary, first of all, therefore, to state 



that the reverse of this is very often the case, and that a house is artistic 

 in proportion to the amount and quality of the skill and thought dis- 

 played in its design, and not in proportion to the amount of decoration it 

 possesses. 



Again, the intrinsic value, or rather the market price of the materials of 

 which a house is built, is often taken as the measure of its artistic merit, 

 without regard to beauty of workmanship or design. Such a method of 

 judging is almost as unreasonable as if one estimated the value of a picture 

 by the price per pound of paint or per yard of canvas. 



So far from being a luxury, the house which is rationally designed on 

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