HORTICULTURE AND DESIGN IN HOUSE SURROUNDINGS. 119 



the natural scene must undergo other and more considerable 

 changes. Trees must be felled to make a way for the approach 

 road or to admit sunlight to the house ; slopes must be cut into to 

 allow the road to pass along them and hollows filled so as to remove 

 standing waters ; ground must be made smooth for the growing of 

 fruits and vegetables, and so forth. 



If, now, a man desires that his surroundings, after suffering these 

 necessary changes from their natural state, should be, like his 

 bouse, convenient and at the same time beautiful as possible, he 

 has upon his hands, whether he knows it or not, a problem of very 

 considerable diflSiculty. When his house is finished, his house-scene 

 is by no means complete ; and unless his house has been designed 

 as a part of the house-scene, — that is with careful reference to the 

 parts surrounding it, — the final effect is almost sure to be disap- 

 pointingly' fragmentary and ineffective. Few architects and fewer 

 house owners yet realize this. Indeed the ordinary practice is to 

 design and build suburban and country houses without much 

 thought of the surrounding scene, — often without consideration 

 of so practical a matter as the grade of the way of approach. 

 Commoul}' such necessaiy appendages as the laundry-yard and 

 the carriage-turn are not thought of until the house is up, when it 

 is likely that they cannot be so conveniently arranged as they 

 might have been, had they been thought of earlier. As for the 

 beauty of the house-scene, although it is so generally desired it is 

 very seldom planned or arranged for. It seems commonly to be 

 regarded as something to be added to the scene, after the house 

 and roads or paths are built, — probably by making a lawn and 

 inserting flower beds and specimen plants, no matter what may be 

 the nature of the ground. 



The growing appreciation of design in architecture must work a 

 reform here in time ; meanwhile it will be well to insist upon two 

 fundamental facts, — first, that real beauty of scene is never derived 

 from added decorations but must spring directly from the shape 

 and character of the scene itself ; and second, that this true beauty 

 can be attained only when the house and its appendages and its 

 surroundings are studied and thought out together as one design 

 — one composition. 



Both the countr}' seat and the suburban lot may illustrate the 

 truth of these propositions. A suburb is a district in which roads 

 and houses dominate the landscape. In the typical case the 



