30 Landscape Gardening 



sun and wind cannot get free play a moist and stagnant air, 

 very injurious to all animal life, is necessarily occasioned. 



But if this be true with regard to any superfluous vege- 

 tation in general, it is much more so in respect to large 

 timber trees. To introduce or retain many of these in a small 

 garden is quite contrary to all the principles of good taste, 

 and conducive only to trouble and discomfort. All the evils 

 which attend a redundancy of the lower forms of plants are 

 greatly aggravated, and carried to their highest point by a 

 similar overgrowth of trees. 



In the immediate neighborhood of the house, moreover, 

 it is particularly desirable that trees and shrubs should not 

 abound. Independently of darkening the windows, they 

 communicate great dampness to the walls, and prevent that 

 action of the wind upon the building which alone can keep 

 it dry, comfortable, and consequently healthy. It is almost 

 impossible for any house to be otherwise than damp which 

 is too much and too closely surrounded by plantations. Any 

 portion of these, therefore, which may be necessary to shut 

 out the offices or outbuildings should be placed as far from 

 the walls as practicable, and by no means allowed to be in 

 contact with them. 



Another mode in which the effect of a garden may be marred 

 is in the formation of numerous flower beds, or groups of 

 mixed shrubs and flowers on the lawn. This is a very com- 

 mon failing and one which greatly disfigures a place, espe- 

 cially as, where intended only for flowers, such beds usually 

 remain vacant and naked for several months in the year. 

 Flower beds, too, when introduced in any quantity on a 

 small lawn, have an exceedingly artificial appearance, remind- 

 ing one of the character common to children's gardens. They 

 interfere sadly with all ideas of breadth, harmony, and 

 repose. 



