FENCES, BRIDGES, AND SUMMER-HOUSES 185 



boundary lines are established. There is no doubt, on 

 the other hand, that our landscape would be almost in- 

 variably improved if we could eliminate the wall or fence 

 altogether, for, as with roads and paths, the landscape 

 would be better without than with them. There is nothing 

 in the presence of generally straight walls cutting across 

 the line of vision that can make them altogether accept- 

 able, but the length to which they are extended may be, 

 by exercise of ingenuity, limited to the shortest possible 

 distance, and the design of the wall constructed may be 

 greatly developed and improved in the direction of agree- 

 able lines and masses of color ; and, further, its objection- 

 able character may be greatly suppressed by sinking or 

 screening it, allowing the eye to pass over it, as in the 

 case of the so-called ha-ha fence (see page 186), with its 

 ditch six to ten feet wide, and a dry wall two and a 

 half feet to three feet high on the side of the excavation 

 nearest the pleasure ground which is to be protected 

 from the farm. 



Indeed, a stone or brick wall may have a rounded, 

 and even graceful, cap or top line, and a surface with 

 an attractive amount of light and shade, produced by 

 suitably designed recesses or roughness in the material 

 used, and, above all, it may be made charming by 

 English ivy, planted on the north side, or, better still, 

 by Japanese ivy, which should not be mingled with Vir- 

 ginia creepers and the roses setigera and wichuriana, 

 for it is well to keep, in the main, the different kinds 

 apart, and to limit the climbers on such walls to the 

 more strictly decorative sorts just mentioned. The 

 wilder, more unrestrained, and less dignified kinds find 

 fitting positions on low stone walls, lattice-work, and the 

 lawn bank that slopes to the top of a wall and then drops 



