General Principles 95 



abilities as to what it may become, or what might be done 

 by adjoining owners, will all pass under review. Nor will 

 the nature of the local climate, and the necessities that spring 

 out of that consideration, be forgotten. Particular climates 

 may require more shelter, and a limited selection of plants; 

 certain neighborhoods may demand extra security from 

 theft or other injury; in many localities, such as the nearer 

 suburbs of large towns, plants that endure smoke will be 

 wanted, and the whiter kinds of architectural ornament must 

 be omitted as Hable to get too much stained and blackened; 

 one family may prefer sunshine, openness, and display, 

 another shade, privacy, and quiet enjoyment. 



Great natural features abounding in the neighborhood of 

 a place, especially within view of its windows, ought seldom 

 to be multiplied within it. If the sea or a large river, for 

 instance, be visible from the house, it will seem ridiculous to 

 have an artificial pool of water for ornament in the garden or 

 park. In the same manner, should the district be a rocky 

 one, and good specimens of rocky scenery be within sight of 

 the garden, there will be equal weakness in forming an arti- 

 ficial rockery within the place. The mind will be continually 

 instituting comparisons between the feebleness of art's crea- 

 tions, however well arranged, and the nobler forms of nature, 

 thus brought into immediate conjunction, and the result 

 must inevitably be to the disparagement of the former. 



Thrown in a tract of country where a sylvan character is the 

 reigning one, an exception in the treatment of a garden to the 

 rule just given may very likely be prudent. Here it will be 

 the aim to blend the garden as much as possible with the outer 

 district, so as to make them appear one property, only giving 

 to the garden the warmth of evergreens, and the cultivation 

 which rarer plants will express, as a foreground to the larger 

 scene. It is a very great point to adapt the garden so to the 



