X CONCLUSION 229 



chequer with gold the green velvet of the grass 

 in a way that no other tree will quite allow. 

 Nothing can be more beautiful than some of 

 the walks under the apple-trees in the gardens 

 at Penshurst. Yet the landscape gardener 

 would shudder at the idea of planting a grove 

 or hedge of apple-trees in his garden. Instead 

 of this he will give you a conifer or a monkey- 

 puzzler, though the guelder-rose grows wild in 

 the meadow and the spindle-tree in the wood, 

 and the rowan, the elder, and the white-thorn ; 

 and the wild cherry in autumn fires the wood- 

 land with its crimson and gold. Every one 

 admires these as a matter of proper sensibility 

 to nature, but it does not seem to occur to 

 people that they would grow with as little 

 difficulty in a garden, and at the very smallest 

 expense. It would undoubtedly injure the 

 business of the nursery gardener to allow that 

 they were possible. Again, the pear-tree and 

 the chequei'-tree, the quince, the medlar, and the 

 mulberry are surely entitled by their beauty 

 to a place in the garden. It is only since 

 nature has been taken in hand by the land- 

 scapist and taught her proper position that 

 these have been excluded. When there was 

 no talk about nature, and man had not learnt 

 to consider himself as something detached from 

 nature and altogether superior, the fruit- 

 tree was counted among the beauties of the 

 garden. It is of fruit-trees that Homer 



