JAPANESE GARDEN IN AMERICA 



Homer estate at Lansdowne, Pa. In other instances 

 the owners of still more extensive acres have not 

 only employed famous Japanese artists to lay out 

 ideal gardens, but they have themselves become inter- 

 ested in importing the dwarfed and curiously stunted 

 and gnarled old trees direct from the mother country, 

 to decorate their unique gardens. Mr. Charles 

 Pilling was one of the first to follow this fad, and 

 the century-old pines, and many novel plants and 

 trees measuring only a foot or two in height, and 

 numbering their years by centuries, now decorate his 

 Japanese garden nook, imported by himself. Again, 

 the owners of extensive country seats have given all 

 the details of importing the paraphernalia and the 

 construction of their oriental gardens to the care of 

 the Japanese craftsmen who excel in this work, while 

 taking an intense personal interest in the develop- 

 ment of their new possessions, growing from year 

 to year like the garden of Mr. Louis Burk, in which 

 he has watched the tedious process of construction 

 for three or four years with ever-increasing delight 

 (though not taking any direct part in its construc- 

 tion) and who is now planning greatly to increase 

 its area. There is a fourth class who own wonderful 

 Japanese gardens, who look upon them simply as an 

 additional attraction for decorating a portion of 

 their extensive acres, and after being assured that 



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