What to Avoid 29 



really be attained. One thing after another is at different 

 times observed and liked, in some place visited, and each is 

 successively wished to be transferred to the observer's own 

 garden, without regard to its fitness for the locality or its 

 relation to what has previously been done. A neighbor or 

 a friend has a place in which certain features are exquisitely 

 developed and these are at once sought to be copied. The 

 practice of cutting up a garden into mere fragments, which is 

 unhappily of too frequent occurrence, is the natural result of 

 such a state of things. 



There are several ways in which a place may be frittered 

 away, so as to become wholly deficient in character and 

 beauty. It may be too much broken up in its general 

 arrangement; and this is the worst variety of the fault, be- 

 cause least easily mended and most conspicuous. To aim 

 at comprising the principal features proper to the largest 

 gardens in those of the most limited size is surely not a 

 worthy species of imitation, and one which can only excite 

 ridicule and end in disappointment. There is a wide differ- 

 ence between variety which is desirable and the separation 

 into minute parts, or blending of incongruous materials, 

 the former being quite compatible with both unity and 

 simplicity. 



A place may be likewise too much carved up into detached 

 portions, or overshadowed or reduced in apparent size by 

 planting too largely. Trees and shrubs constitute the great- 

 est ornaments of a garden, but they soon become disagree- 

 able when a place is overrun with them by contracting the 

 space, shutting out light, rendering the grass imperfect and 

 the walks mossy. Nothing could be more damp, gloomy, 

 and confined than a small place too much cumbered with 

 plantations. Nor is the consideration of its influences on 

 the health of the occupants at all unimportant, for where 



