CHAPTER III. 



GENERAL PLAN OF MY GARDEN. 



Hoc erat in votis ; modus agri non ita magnus, 



Hortus ubi, e tecto vicinus jugis aquae fons, 



Et paulum silvae super his foret." HORACE, Satira vi. 



IT is a common notion that gardens should be laid out for one 

 general effect ; but the result of such a plan is to produce a single 

 view, and the whole can be seen at a glance. This is, however, mono- 

 tonous, and my liking is to have many pictures ; so that my visitors 

 have to walk a long way before they can see the many beautiful 

 views which my garden affords ; and little spots of cultivated wildness, 

 or of special cultivation, are found when they are least expected. 



In all my designs, I have tried to suggest to the mind that it 

 must be so ; and even when my arrangements are most artificial, 

 as when a walk doubles upon itself, it looks that the arrangement 

 has been made because no other plan was really practicable ; and 

 when this idea is carried out, the garden looks natural. 



Throughout my garden my vegetables, flowers, and fruit-trees are 

 blended together in one harmonious whole : a plot of carrots and a 

 row of flowering peas are beautiful objects in themselves, and hence 

 plots of vegetables and fruit-trees alternate with rosaries, ferneries, 

 alpineries, and flower-beds. 



Flower-beds in front of buildings are arranged as parallelograms ; 

 and then the whole looks harmonious. My Croquet-ground is a 

 parallelogram, because, as the hoops of the game are placed geo- 



