242 FLOWER GARDEN. 



with propriety be added to or used instead of the 

 modern sort, especially in flat situations, such as are 

 enclosed by high walls, in towns, or where the prin- 

 cipal building or object is in a style of architecture 

 which will not render these appendages incongruous. 

 There are other characters of gardens, such as the Chi- 

 nese, which are not widely different from the modern ; 

 the Indian, which consists chiefly of walks under shade, 

 in squares of grass ; the Turkish, which abounds in 

 shady retreats, boudoirs of roses and aromatic herbs; 

 and the Spanish, which is distinguished by trellis-work 

 and fountains; but these gardens are not generally 

 adapted to this climate, though, from contemplating 

 and selecting what is beautiful or suitable in each, a 

 style of decoration for the immediate vicinity of man- 

 sions might be composed preferable to anything now in 

 use." It may, however, be remarked, that the flower 

 garden, properly so called, has generally been too much 

 governed by the laws of landscape-gardening, and these 

 often ill understood and misapplied. In the days of 

 " clipped hedges and pleached alleys,'' the parterres and 

 flower-beds were of a description the most grotesque 

 and intricate imaginable. At a subsequent period, 

 when the natural and the picturesque became the ob- 

 jects of imitation in the park, there appeared the most 

 extravagant attempts at wildness in the garden. The 

 result has been equally unfortunate. It is not meant 

 that where there are merely a few patches of flowers, 

 by way of foreground to the lawn, they should not be 

 subordinated to the principles which regulate the more 

 distant and bolder scenery; but wherever there is a 

 flower garden of considerable magnitude, and in a sepa- 

 rate situation, we think it should be constructed on 



