FLOWER GARDENS 57 



grown, and the roses and hollyhocks stand where it is 

 convenient to pick their flowers, and where they do not 

 prevent readily reaching the fruit trees and currant 

 bushes which seem to be necessary to old-fashioned gar- 

 dens ; and yet we would not wish our readers to imitate 

 these gardens as they stood a generation ago, and as a 

 few stand now in their sweet wholesome plenitude of 

 charm, any more than we should copy in America the 

 designs of Italian villa gardens, which are altogether 

 attractive where they are, in their environment of clas- 

 sical nature and ancient ruins. We should make our 

 gardens in the way of our day and country. Our great 

 painters do not imitate Raphael or Rembrandt. They 

 speak for themselves out of the fullness of their experi- 

 ence and feelings, and they speak to us, their contempo- 

 raries, so that we understand and appreciate them. 

 They are of our day, and talk our language. 



Approaching the subject of garden-making in this 

 spirit, we therefore see that the garden cannot be always 

 made in accordance with the dictates of formal theories ; 

 neither must it drop into the other extreme and become 

 some kind of haphazard affair of vegetables invaded by 

 riotous clumps of flowers. The vegetable garden, though 

 ever so small, will have its own separate domain, and the 

 flower garden its alloted place. The size and proportion 

 of the space given the flower garden will be governed 

 not only by the pleasure of the house, but also by the 

 amount of space that, in view of the apparent physical 

 and aesthetic necessities, should evidently attach to the 

 lawn and vegetable garden. For instance, a place of 

 half an acre may readily have one-fifth of its space given 

 up to a flower garden in the rear of the house, while on 

 a place of twenty acres or more, one acre would make a 



