628 Ornamental Gardening. 



portion, and simplicity and naturalness of design. Stones and 

 pieces of rock belonging to different formations should not be 

 indiscriminately mixed up together. But as there are special 

 works on this branch of horticulture, necessary to those who 

 undertake the cultivation of any except the hardier kinds of this 

 class of plants, we forbear going into details, and for the same 

 reason most of the rare species and those difficult to preserve 

 have been omitted from the descriptive part of this work. 



The principal feature of an English pleasure-garden is the 

 lawn, for which the natural conditions of our climate are so 

 favourable that with very little trouble we can have a perfect 

 and luxuriant green turf all through the summer. The form 

 of the lawn is determined by the outline of the area and by the 

 course of the walks, so that no specific rules can be laid down 

 as to the character of the plan most desirable for a place of 

 given dimensions. Much would depend upon the nature of 

 the ground, whether nearly level, or with any considerable fall 

 from the house. Where the slope is very abrupt, the ground 

 may be brought to two or three different levels, forming ter- 

 races ; but a gentle incline is far more pleasing to the eye than 

 a dead level of any extent, and unless there be sufficient fall 

 for a terrace proportionate in height to the size of the place, it 

 is better left alone. A drop of two or three feet in a place 

 of large extent would not be sufficient to form an effective 

 terrace, though for a more limited area it might be allowed. 

 But even then it is folly to attempt to crowd the details 

 of a large garden into a confined space. One of the most 

 important details connected with the plantations around 

 and approaches to the house, is to contrive them in such 

 a way as to secure privacy for the flower-gardens, and to 

 provide attractive scenes from the windows of the principal 

 rooms. According to the extent there will be shrubberies and 

 rosaries, mixed beds and borders, and the geometrical garden 

 destined for the modern bedding-out system. And this would 

 admit of the introduction of water-basins, fountains and vases, 

 etc., in harmony, of course, with the residence. We need not 

 say that the principal display, both in ornamental shrubs and 

 flowering-plants generally, should be in the immediate vicinity 

 of the house. For a pleasure-garden of small size, say from 

 half an acre to two acres in extent, the old style of mixed beds 

 and flowering and evergreen shrubs in clumps and single 

 specimens, with a portion only of the beds reserved for massing, 



