^be Xaping ®ut of a pacft or Estate 59 



be great enough. Windsor park is the only one 

 which has fully satisfied me as a whole and the reason 

 for that is its enormous size. It realizes all I would 

 have : — a pleasant tract of country within the bounds 

 of which you can live and do what you like without 

 privation or constraint; hunt, fish, ride, drive with- 

 out ever feeling cramped; in which you never see a 

 point except just at the entrance gates, at which 

 you remark. Here is the boundary; and to which 

 all the beauties of the stirrounding country to the 

 remotest distance have been rendered tributary by 

 a cultivated taste. In other respects you are right ; 

 one must not throw away good and bad together; 

 and it is better to conceal many defects and limita- 

 tions of the ground by skilfully planned paths and 

 plantations, than to make disproportionate sacrifices 

 to them." 



Almost next in importance to Windsor Castle, al- 

 though not to be mentioned in connexion with it for 

 size and magnificence, is Mt. Vernon, the home of 

 George Washington. Its fame is world-wide, but its 

 value as an example of how to lay out an estate has 

 received little attention. It is really an excellent model 

 for landscape gardeners. Here will be found qualities 

 such as simplicity, breadth, good proportion in the 

 various features, and the dignity which all such places 

 should possess. On one side of the house, a broad 

 lawn slopes down to the banks of the Potomac with 

 not a tree or shrub to disturb the surface. On the 



