116 RECORD OF HORTICTJLTIJRE. 



nature as our model as well as our subject. We clip off a 

 rough corner here and fill up a depression there, to make 

 our gardens look natural. It is not advisable to apply the 

 idea of curved lines to such an extent that will produce 

 deformity, for in that case our gardens would be subjects 

 of criticism, and we might feel the force of Sir Walter 

 Scott's remarks when speaking of the fashionable style 

 of his time : 



" Their plantations, instead of presenting the regular or 

 rectilinear plan, exhibit nothing but a number of broken 

 lines, interrupted circles, and salient angles, which are as 

 much at variance Avith Euclid as with Nature. In cases 

 of enormity they have been made to assume the form of 

 pincushions, of hatchets, of penny tarts, and of breeches 

 displayed at old clot hesra en's doors. In all these they tell 

 you they are imitating nature." 



Man has destroyed the forest which originally stood 

 upon the spot where we build our dwellings ; we set to 

 work to replace it ; and as straight rows and equal distances 

 were not found in the original, consequently we do not 

 employ them in the artificial. If we walk or drive into 

 any natural wood we are compelled to deviate from a 

 direct line to avoid a tree, rock, shrub, rise, or depression, 

 and we construct our artificial roads with the same imag- 

 inary obstruction in the way. In preparing and grading 

 the place for a house, it is often a very easy matter to so 

 arran<>-e the general conformation of the ground that the 

 walks and roads can be laid in graceful curves, and the 

 appearances, when completed, will be such that one can 

 not see that it were possible to have placed them in any 



