174 Xan&scape Hrcbitecture 



of a wall two years old. This wall extends in front of 

 the estate of W. W. Cook, Esq., bordering King Street 

 about two miles from Port Chester, N. Y. The stone, 

 a heavy granite, is of striking beauty, having a warm 

 pink colour shading into browns and yellows. Much of 

 it is water worn and all of it was taken out of a quarry 

 on the shores of the Sound a few miles from New Haven, 

 The blocks vary in size from three feet to ten feet long 

 and three feet wide and weigh some of them nearly 

 a ton each. The coping has been carefully selected 

 from the quarry and hammered somewhat to give it 

 a comparatively uniform surface, but leaving the nat- 

 urally rounded and curving contours. 



Such a wall should neither look like a ruin, nor on the 

 other hand like a neatly laid up structure made of small 

 flat stones, but every foot of it should be studied with 

 the object of harmonizing and contrasting the colour 

 and form of the stones, grouping them and combining 

 their colour in the most effective way. There are 

 beautiful kinds of granite which are well suited to this 

 purpose. Mica in stones should be avoided and only 

 rock selected that will weather attractively. It is a 

 good idea to consider that the function of rock plants 

 and vines is simply to frame beautiful panels of stone 

 in the wall. In that case it will be difficult to go far 

 wrong. To pile earth on top of the wall and in banks 

 against the sides and almost cover everything with 

 flowering plants is to miss the chief object of rock 

 gardening. 



Mr, William Robinson in the English Flower Garden 



