92 Landscape Gardening 



unhappy. A garden seems naturally intended to communi- 

 cate cheerfulness and pleasure, and this design should never 

 be frustrated by making it look like a cemetery. A great 

 many large trees would, by their shadow, and the destruction 

 of the grass beneath them, conduce to the same fault, and 

 lumpish masses of trees with few breaks, little variety of 

 outlin'e and a scanty addition of detached specimens, would 

 deepen the impression. Only massive and inelegant orna- 

 ments will then be wanted to complete its wretchedness. 



Poverty of expression is almost worse than heaviness. It 

 conveys the idea of meanness, inattention, indifference, — 

 hardness and narrowness of mind in the possessor, and cold- 

 ness of heart. Some gardens are thus poor in design, others 

 in their details, and many in regard to their furniture. The 

 first may exhibit a deficiency of thought and taste in adapta- 

 tion, everything being dashed off or jumbled together as 

 convenience or ease might dictate. The second class will 

 denote the absence of taste in execution, and of care to put 

 the finishing strokes to everything. The third section indi- 

 cates a meagerness of materials, — the commonest descrip- 

 tion of plants, and a scanty supply of them. The defect of 

 the first will be paucity of invention; of the second, insuffi- 

 cient application; and of the third, dearth of means. Each 

 may exist separately, or all be found together. They are 

 capable of easy remedy; though the last, if it arise from 

 pecuniary causes, must be either endured, or the materials be 

 so selected in respect to their rapidity of growth and showi- 

 ness, and so artfully disposed, as to be made the best of. 

 Where shrubs or plants enough cannot be had to furnish a 

 place fully, it is better to put them sufficiently thick in smaller 

 masses than to scatter them over a larger space in which 

 there will be much bare earth visible. 



Instances in which an aspect of poorness arises from the 



