THE CHARM OF GARDENS 



Eight prizes of the total amount of One Pound, Tec 

 Shillings. Remarks : Clean, fresh-looking, more creepers 

 than last year ; example set is improving character of 

 roads, as others, not competitors, have started gardens." 



Any one who knows the dreary and desolate appear- 

 ance of town streets, especially in those parts where life 

 is lived at the hardest, and surroundings are of the most 

 sordid, will encourage a work which induced in one year 

 over five hundred people in London slums to take an 

 interest in growing flowers. 



TheSpectafor, of September 6, 1712, contains a charming 

 essay upon the English Garden, and the writer draws 

 attention to Kensington Gardens in the following words : 



" I shall take notice of that part in the upper gar- 

 dens at Kensington, which was at first nothing but a 

 Gravel Pit. It must have been a fine Genius for gar- 

 dening, that could have thought of forming such an 

 unsightly Hollow into so beautiful an Area, and to 

 have hit the eye with so uncommon and agreeable a 

 Scene as that which it is now wrought into. To give 

 this peculiar spot of ground the greater effect, they 

 have made a very pleasing contrast ; for as on one side 

 of the Walk you see this hollow Bason, with its several 

 little Plantations lying so conveniently under the Eye 

 of the Beholder ; on the other side of it there appears a 

 seeming Mound, made up of trees rising one higher 

 than another in proportion as they approach the 

 Centre. A Spectator who has not heard this account of 

 it, would think this Circular Mount was not only a real 

 one, but that it had been actually scooped out of that 

 hollow space which I have before mentioned. I never 

 yet met with anyone who has walked in this Garden, 

 who was not struck with that Part of it which I have 

 mentioned." 



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