CHAPTER II 



SITUATION AND DESIGN 



ONE reason why English gardens are so wonderful to us 

 Americans is that successive generations, perhaps for 

 hundreds of years, have been lovingly and intelligently 

 at work upon them, each striving to adorn the main design in some 

 new detail before passing over the inheritance to the next heir. 

 At the sight of the surpassing beauty of Old World country estates, 

 as contrasted with our raw, new, mushroom homes, that are rarely 

 lived in by two generations, one is almost persuaded against his 

 better judgment that inheritance through primogeniture and 

 entail must be the proper method. Perhaps we may be wise enough 

 some day to achieve the same ends by more just means, consistent 

 with republican, not monarchic, conditions. Instead of endowing 

 our oldest sons, the heirs-apparent to our little thrones, we may 

 endow the homestead itself who knows? just as we endow 

 hospitals and colleges to insure their future maintenance. Happy 

 the children who are brought up in a little world of beauty and 

 who may one day hope to inherit it all the well grown trees, the 

 velvety lawn, the established vines and shrubbery all the 

 cumulative results of love's labour. Certainly, unless one may 

 work for permanence in the garden there can be little incentive 

 in this country toward the best art out-of-doors. 



It is, of course, expecting too much that the site of the house 

 should be chosen solely with reference to the best conditions for 

 its garden. We place our homes, as a general rule, not where there 

 is good, rich loam, not where fine trees are already established and 



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