76 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1893. 



the public street, and to hide it with trees and hedges. As far back 

 as Chaucer's time, before his house 



" The hedge was thick as is a castle wall, 

 So that who list without to stand or go, 

 Though he would all the day pry to and fro 

 He could not see if there were any Wight within or no." 



My advice then is, let us be sensible and independent in this mat- 

 ter, and be governed by our individual tastes and wants, and adapt 

 our fences to the estates we occupy. Let all ugly fences and hedges 

 go. Let all fences and hedges go when they are not needed either 

 for looks or seclusion ; but let us not tear down handsome fences or 

 picturesque stone walls or hedges if, thereby, we shall be inconven- 

 ienced and the appearance of our homes not improved. After the 

 boundary line is passed, and the dominion of the estate is reached, 

 we are face to face with the task of improvement or injury, for it 

 does not follow, as a matter of course, that all the changes we make 

 upon our grounds are betterments, either in appearance or utility. 

 Many a place, charming in its quiet beauty and repose, has been 

 spoiled by some new owner with a long purse and bad taste. In the 

 place of green grass, useful fruit trees, and native shade trees, he 

 arranges a combination of artificial mounds and hillocks, trellises and 

 pagodas, fanciful trees and flowers, curved grasses and ornamental 

 walks, that gives the once beautiful premises a cluttered-up and 

 raade-to-order appearance, that is anything but attractive to the eye 

 of taste. 



On the other hand, many a rough field in the country, or an 

 unsightly city estate, has been made homelike and beautiful by some 

 new owner, who understood that the groundwork of every beautiful 

 lawn is trees and green grass, and that its embellishment is shrubs 

 and flowers. Then let it ever be remembered that the first requisite 

 in the ornamentation of the home grounds is simplicity. Crowded 

 flower beds and over-ornamentation is one evidence of crudity of 

 taste. Simplicity is always an adjunct of real refinement and 

 thorough culture in every phase of life. In trying to ornament our 

 person, our homes, and our grounds, Ave are apt to display some 

 form of self-consciousness or vanity by overdoing it. It is difficult 

 to be natural and simple, but yet the greatest and most beautiful 

 things in the world are always simple. 



Then, in the arrangement of the home grounds, we should cultivate 

 a simplicity that will give no suggestion of limited space or of a 

 superfluity of flowers. 



