152 HOW TO PLAN THE HOME GROUNDS 



will be the despair of those unfortunate beings who may- 

 be, or may feel themselves to be, responsible for them. 



If you must have water on your place, therefore — and 

 why should you not, when its presence, under successful 

 conditions, gives a delight and solace that would be worth 

 several considerable failures sustained in the effort of 

 obtaining it? — it is always wise to take a middle and con- 

 servative course, using pools and streams only when you 

 can discover satisfactory evidences of the existence of 

 unfailing sources of supply from living springs, or from 

 some other large body of water that is practically inex- 

 haustible. 



The author would not like to attempt to discourage 

 the would-be contriver of water effects from digging 

 pools and streams on his place, and striving to make the 

 most charming picturesque and perhaps natural effects. 

 It is his right, if he is a person possessed of a vivid im- 

 agination and sufficient means, to seek to realize what 

 to him will be one of the attractions of his place ; and 

 there is not the slightest doubt that he may succeed in 

 constructing a bit of water that will look natural and 

 never dry up, and never look foul, and, above all, fit in 

 as a perfectly satisfactory element of the landscape pict- 

 ure. The use of the word "may," however, is done 

 advisedly, and under the deep sense of the mutability of 

 human effort when put forth to accomplish the difficult 

 task of introducing pools and streams of water artifi- 

 cially as a pictorial effect on home grounds. Rather 

 would the author, though perhaps he is too timid, prefer 

 to study the bits of water he already has, and try, if he 

 thinks it feasible, to develop the beauties the possibil- 

 ities of which are plainly evident, than to go farther 

 afield and lose himself in the bewildering mazes that 



