44 THE LITTLE GARDEN 



pretty nor practical. I should enjoy discussing the incongruous 

 ugliness of the bungalow in cities and suburbs of the temperate 

 zone; but this would lead me beyond the province of my title. 

 Let it suJBBce to say that, until we realize the fitness of type of 

 houses to locality and chmate, and build beautifully with regard 

 to these things, we shall not even approach what is lovely in the 

 general and special aspects of our groups of dwellings in America. 

 From the standpoint of one whose habit it is to look at house, 

 planting, and general surroundings, wherever found, as a picture, 

 the prevalence of white cement in this country is a disastrous 

 fact. No brief for its practical value can make it anything but a 

 horror in the general look of things; that is, unless it is so dyed 

 or colored as to relate it in some way to the earth on which it 

 Has, so over-solid and so distracting. The general color of the 

 house and of its surroundings is so easily determined for one by 

 always considering first what is there. We need never search for 

 a color key-note; it is always present: a red earth or clay, a 

 brown, or whitish one; a rock-formation — all these things of 

 the original earth give capital suggestion to him who has eyes to 

 see. Perhaps I should not go so far in the matter of garden color 

 as has the English architect, Baillie-Scott, in his "Houses and 

 , Gardens," where is shown in charming hues a garden of flowers, 

 to form a harmonious foreground for nearby hiUs veiled by pur- 

 ple heather! But a moderate, a considered attention to this idea 

 of color-relation in all building and planting is a logical sowing 

 of the seed of beauty, and gives a harvest at once adorable and 

 sure. 



