MIDWINTER GARDENS 



ginning at the front door-steps, turns squarely 

 along the house's front, then at its corner 

 turns again as squarely to the rear as a drill- 

 sergeant and follows the dwelling's ground con- 

 tour with business precision — being a business 

 path. In fact it is only the same path we see 

 in uncrowded town life everywhere in our 

 land. 



But down there it shows this peculiarity, 

 that it is altogether likely to be well bordered 

 with blooming shrubs and plants along all that 

 side of it next the lawn. Of course it is a fault 

 that this shrubbery border — and all the more 

 so because it is very apt to be, as in three of our 

 illustrations [pages 174, 178, 180], a rose border 

 — should, so often as it is, be pinched in be- 

 tween parallel edges. *' No pinching " is as good 

 a rule for the garden as for the kindergarten. 

 Manifestly, on the side next the house the edge 

 between the walk and the planted border should 

 run parallel with the base line of the house, for 

 these are business lines and therefore ever so 

 properly lines of promptitude — of the shortest 

 practicable distance between two points — lines 



177 



