JAPANESE GARDEN IN AMERICA 



water plants being the prime favorites; but 

 travellers in Japan frequently note the fact that the 

 native gardens are not necessarily flower gardens, 

 neither are they always made for the purpose of 

 cultivating plants. In nine cases out of tep. there is 

 nothing in the smaller plots to resemble a flower bed. 

 Some gardens may contain merely a sprig of green ; 

 some (although these are exceptional) have nothing 

 green at all, and consist entirely of rocks, water 

 and sand. Neither does the Japanese garden require 

 any fixed allowance of space ; it may cover one or 

 many acres ; it may be only ten feet square ; it may, 

 in extreme cases, be much less, and be contained in 

 a curiously shaped, shallow, carved box set on a 

 veranda, in which are created tiny hills, microscopic 

 ponds and rivulets spanned by tiny humped bridges ; 

 while small, strange plants represent trees, and curi- 

 ously formed pebbles stand for rocks. But on what- 

 ever scale, all true Japanese gardening is landscape 

 gardening; that is, it is a living model of an actual 

 Japanese landscape. 



It is an exceptional privilege to study at first hand 

 the significance of all the details that go to make 

 up the true Japanese gardens which have now be- 

 come the fad in this country. I have been informed 

 by an excellent authority on the subject that 

 "through long accumulation of traditional methods, 



171 



