LAWNS AND SHRUBBERY 127 



infinite shading everywhere of tree-color and plant- 

 color and the impossibility of finding even two apple 

 trees that do not shade apart. 



If possible, have a brook somewhere about your 

 property, and your shrubbery may be associated with 

 that, while your tree lawn finds its closer association 

 with the street. Nothing can fill the place of the 

 talkative, happy, moody brook the only thing in 

 the world that never goes to sleep. It has an Espe- 

 ranto of its own and it talks understandingly in this 

 fundamental language to all attentive ears. 



I love a brook and I wish that I still might paddle 

 shoeless in its shallows. Utilization of brooks does 

 not consist entirely in the use you can make of the 

 water, but in part of the use you can make of its 

 music and its boyish beauty. By all means have a 

 brook associated with your shrubbery if you can 

 running down a water-carved glen possibly. I do not 

 quite say that we do not want a brook through the 

 lawn or lawns that is, if it has some dignity and 

 depth. But I want you to feel the distinction be- 

 tween a shrubbery and a lawn that the one shall 

 be retired, and the other belong to the people. 



The lawn should have its relation first to the street ; 

 the shrubbery should have its relation first to the 

 house and very little at all to the street. Indeed, 

 the street should itself be a lawn, or part of a lawn, 

 and fully as well kept as that inside the hedges or 

 fences. I would, in fact, take away the fences and 

 hedges entirely and wish there were not one left in 



