436 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



of the house, and separated from six hundred acres, or 

 more, of grazed park by the invisible wire fence. At 

 Wilton House (Lord Pembroke), Appelder-Court, Good- 

 wood (the Duke of Richmond's), Blenheim, Chatsworth, 

 Stowe, and many more of the best examples of English 

 places that we remember, the amount of mown lawn 

 consists really of little more than the grass borders of 

 walks, or the strips which divided or surrounded planta- 

 tions in the gardens and shrubberies. Three sides of 

 the houses are thrown open, and kept short by deer and 

 sheep. 



Although grazing is not as profitable in this country 

 as in England, where the soft, mossy grass of the parks 

 is usually verdant and green all summer, yet much 

 more can be done than is. We know many a fine 

 place where large expenditures have been made on 

 houses and grounds, where the entire effect has been 

 completely destroyed by the most mistaken economy 

 of allowing the fields which surround the house, to grow 

 up for hay, instead of being kept short by grazing as a 

 park. 



In order to save a few hundred dollars of hay, the 

 whole effect of hundreds of thousands of dollars in 

 houses and grounds is completely lost. 



If people will persist in this mistaken thrift, why do 

 they not at least plant their grazing or hay-fields in 

 clumps and masses of trees, appropriately ajid naturally 

 placed for park-like effects, and which would not materi- 

 ally interfere with the plough or the harrow, when 

 necessary to use them. 



By surrounding these plantations w r ith invisible wire 

 fences, which are quite lost against the foliage, they 

 could at any time, when in grass, be converted into 

 parks simply by the introduction of cattle and sheep. 



