434 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



against the visible connection of labor with the imme- 

 diate adornment of their country homes. Labor in its 

 proper place in the forest, or garden, or harvest field 

 is a necessary and appropriate feature ; but they strive 

 to banish it as much as possible from the repose and 

 quiet and simple beauty around the house, by pushing 

 off to more distant, and as they think, more suitable 

 localities, those operations with the soil which require 

 the constant supervision and presence of man. It is 

 principally on this account, besides the other reasons 

 we have given, that the best examples of English places 

 present a simple dignified combination of trees and 

 lawn about the house certainly on two or three sides 

 while the mass of pleasure grounds and flower gardens 

 are usually at some distance. 



If we were more willing in this country to follow such 

 good examples, and aim at simplicity and breadth of ef- 

 fect, instead of carving up our grounds about our houses 

 with " fragmentary pieces of misplaced ornament," our 

 places would not be so lamentably deficient in character 

 and beauty, or so frittered away into an exceedingly dis- 

 tasteful and artificial appearance. 



Another mistake in American places is the want of a 

 proper termination to the ornamental grounds, or, rather, 

 some intelligible division between the ornamental and 

 practical. 



We use the expression "intelligible," because w^e all 

 keep (or pretend to) under the roller and scythe, every 

 two or three weeks, a certain quantity of lawn, say 

 from one hundred feet to an acre or more, and at the 

 end of the last swarth starts up a hay-field, which is 

 mown over perhaps twice in the season ; but, in most 

 cases, there seems no reason why the lawn should 

 end and the hay-field begin just where they do, instead 

 of ten or one hundred feet one way or the other ; in fact 

 there is no good reason ; for the length and breadth of 

 the lawn often depends upon the horticultural zeal or 



