Gardens for Small Country Houses. 



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CHAPTER XIII.— YEW AND OTHER HEDGES. 



Yew Hedges in Ancient Gardens — In Modern Use — Other Trees for Hedges — Box — 

 Holly — Privet — Laurel — Beech — Hornbeam — Thorotigh Planting — Topiary Work . 



WHEN the great English houses were biiilt that no longer needed to be fortresses ; 

 when their windows might safely look abroad into the open country instead 

 of giving on to an inner court ; then also the pleasure garden, which had 

 hitherto been necessarily restricted, was greatly enlarged and its many possibilities 

 were developed. Whether it was that the tradition of the old need of walled pro- 

 tection was still in every man's mind, or whether the wonderful sense of fitness that 

 characterised the work of our Tudor and Jacobean ancestors was the impelling agency 

 we know not, but it is clear that they at once adopted the system of surrounding and 

 subdividing their gardens with hedges of living greenery. They rightly chose the 



FIG. 168. — LAWN ENCLOSED BY ANCIENT TRIMMED YEWS. 



