30 PRACTICAL FLORICULTURE. 



in about half the quantity advised for new lawns. After 

 sowing, the surface should be harrowed or raked over, 

 and firmly rolled or beaten down ; but if spurious grass 

 or other weeds have got possession of the lawn, then this 

 way of renovation would not be satisfactory, and it had 

 better be plowed under and sown afresh, in the manner 

 already given for the formation of the lawn. 



CHAPTER VI. 

 LAYING OUT THE FLOWER GARDEN. 



In the vicinity of New York, the taste displayed in 

 this matter is certainly not very flattering to us ; com- 

 pared with that shown in the suburbs of London or Paris, 

 we are wofully behind. Our city merchants annually 

 build hundreds of houses, the cost of many of which 

 range from $10,000 to $50,000 each, but the flower 

 garden surrounding the house is in nineteen cases out of 

 twenty left to the tender mercies of some ignoramus who 

 styles himself a " Landscaper," and who generally man- 

 ages before he is through to make the proprietor appear 

 to be utterly devoid of taste, if not utterly ridiculous. 

 A worthy of this stamp held kingly sway as a "Land- 

 scaper " in the vicinity of New York a few years ago, 

 and has left behind him some wonderful specimens of 

 his art ; he was great on " Sarpentine " walks, as he 

 called them, and had a true artist's horror of straight 

 lines. It would have been useless for Euclid to have at- 

 tempted to demonstrate that the nearest distance between 

 two points was a straight line. Terry knew better than 

 that, and curved accordingly. One of the most marked 

 of his efforts was made in behalf of a "shoddy" king, 

 who had built a splendid mansion in about the middle of 



