138 The Art of Landscape Gardening 



tention to the farmer's interest has almost obliterated 

 all traces of its original form ; since the line of fence, 

 which the farmer deems necessary to divide arable from 

 pasture land, is unfortunately that which, of all others, 

 tends to destroy the union of hill and valley. It is 

 generally placed exactly at the point where the undu- 

 lating surface changes from convex to concave, and of 

 course is the most offensive of all intersecting lines ; 

 for it will be found that a line of fence, following the 

 shape of the ground, or falling in any direction from 

 the hill to the valley, although it may offend the eye as 

 a boundary, yet it does not injure, and, in some in- 

 stances, may even improve the beautiful form of the 

 surface. No great improvement, therefore, can be ex- 

 pected at Antony, until almost all the present fences 

 be removed, although others may be placed in more 

 suitable directions. [Plate xiv.] 



I am aware that, in the prevailing rage for agricul- 

 ture, it is unpopular to assert that a farm and a park 

 may not be united ; but after various efforts to blend 

 the two, without violation of good taste, I am convinced 

 that they are and must be distinct objects, and ought 

 never to be brought together in the same point of view. 



To guard against misrepresentation, let me be allowed 

 to say each may fill its appropriate station in a gentle- 

 man's estate; we do not wish to banish the nectarine 

 from our desserts, although we plant out the wall which 

 protects it; nor would I expunge the common farm 

 from the pleasures of the country, though I cannot en- 

 courage its motley hues and domestic occupations to 

 disturb the repose of park scenery. It is the union not 

 the existence of beauty and profit, of laborious exertion 

 and pleasurable recreation, against which I would 

 interpose the influence of my art; nor let the fastidious 



