THE TREATMENT OF HOME GROUNDS. 



A summary of the chief points touched on in a lecture before the Society 

 by Frederick Law Ohnsted, Jr., Februaiy 1, 190S. 



1. The Beauty of Home Grounds should be Functional. 



Whatever aesthetic quaHties they may or may not have home 

 grounds, like the houses they surround, ought first of all to serve 

 as well as possible the practical domestic and social needs of those 

 who live in them. Anything done for beauty or for display that 

 makes it less convenient or satisfactory for the family to do the 

 things they want really most to do is, in so far, bad design. 



If the head of the family is in the habit of hurrying for the train 

 and is delayed and seriously irritated by an indirect path from the 

 front door to the street or by a plantation of shrubs that prevents 

 him from making a convenient short-cut, then those home groimds 

 are for him, in so far, ill designed, no matter how pretty a picture 

 they may present to the eye of an unsympathetic and leisurely artist. 

 The design may be good of its kind and yet be the wrong kind for 

 the owner of the place. If a man has a number eight foot he does 

 not want a number seven shoe, no matter how good it may be of 

 its kind. If there are boys in the family and they want to play 

 tag and dig holes and climb trees and behave in general like real 

 boys, and their mother is not content to drive them out upon the 

 street or to the neighbors whenever they go out of doors to play, then 

 home grounds that are so horticulturally precious that the boys 

 can't be boys without causing serious destruction are, in so far, 

 very poor home grounds for that family. If the mother, without 

 pretending to much skill as a gardener, wants to putter about with 

 plants and try little gardening experiments from year to year it 

 would be a pity to have the only available space occupied by a 

 beautiful shrub-bordered lawn, where the introduction of flower- 



