What to Avoid 



33 



2. Rustic Work. — Among the more specific features to be 

 repudiated in a small garden the employment of rockeries 

 or other rustic objects in connection with the house, or in its 

 immediate neighborhood, may be next mentioned. Every 

 house must be regarded as a work of art whatever may be 

 its class or merit, and there would consequently be a want 

 of harmony in associating it with anything composed of, 

 or resembling, the uncultivated parts of nature. However 

 ingeniously it may be contrived, a rockery near a house 

 must be considered radically wrong, and though great skill 

 be used in adaptation or a variety of fortunate accidents 

 eventually awaken interest, these can never wholly atone 

 for the fundamental error. Nor will the way in which 

 such things are generally managed admit of even this extenu- 

 ation and excuse. And as a retired corner could almost 

 always be found for cultivating rock-plants if desired, those 

 who would steer clear of the vulgarities and irregularities of 

 mere cockneyism will do well not to permit anything of the 

 kind I have been describing around their houses. When 

 composed of. such materials as shells, pieces of old porcelain, 

 scorife, and other small, artificial or manufactured articles 

 and interspersed with grotesque looking busts, heads, etc., as 

 is frequently the case, their use in connection with houses is 

 all the more to be deprecated. 



As similarly interfering with the harmony of a place, the 

 employment of conspicuous grottoes, towers, summer houses, 

 or other buildings within a short distance or in open view 

 from the house, cannot be defended on any known principle 

 in landscape arrangement.; If very sparingly introduced, and 

 of a quiet appearance and partially concealed, architectural 

 objects though not in the same style as the house may be 

 occasionally admissible. It is against the staring and grossly 

 peculiar forms sometimes met with in suburban gardens that 



