Chap. II.] 



THE PARC MONOBAU. 



37 



care of themselves after planting, and improve year by year. To 

 be told in the face of this, in an age when people go to the 

 trouble of scratching over and replanting the same flower-gardens 

 year after year, that any attempt at a purer system of gardening 

 is likely to interfere with the progress of the mower or the straight 

 run of the edging-iron is really too much. Certainly it is a little 

 easier to mow and rake, if raking be permitted, a long, straight, 

 and, it may probably be, bare margin to a belt of plantation or 

 mass of choice shrubs, than it is to give the necessary attention 



%[ d. r ^ 



Nook in Pare Monceau. 



to a border fringed as some of the shrub borders in Battersea 

 Park have been recently. But the difference in aspect is so 

 great that the small additional care required in mowing, etc., 

 should never be named against it, especially at a time when the 

 whole of the resources of most gardens go to produce costly displays 

 which endure but a few short months, leaving the ground ready 

 for fresh labours. 



One kind of arrangement needs to be particularly guarded 

 against — the geometro-picturesque one seen in some places com- 

 bined with much showy gardening. The plants are often of the 

 finest kinds and in the most robust health, all the materials for 



