Grabfng anb Sbaping (5roun&s 197 



rising grounds appear one beyond another, a fine swell 

 seen above a slanting swell which runs before it, has 

 a beautiful eflfect which a nearer eflfect would destroy : 

 and (except in particular instances) a close similarity 

 in lines which either cross, or face, or rise behind one 

 another, makes a poor, uniform, disagreeable com- 

 position."^ 



No better illustration of the truth of these remarks of 

 Thomas Whately can be found than the north meadows 

 in Central Park and the meadows of Prospect Park, 

 Brooklyn, N. Y. They are not only rolling but ridged 

 up in long mounds at places as if fences had been 

 removed from pasture fields and the headlands left 

 unlevelled. See illustration of north meadow, Central 

 Park. There is not a level spot on this meadow to all 

 appearance; and when one thinks of it, the meadow 

 or pastureland, the fundamental idea of a park, lawn, 

 or meadow is not level. A cricket, tennis, or bowl- 

 ing court is, but not a pasture field. Farms do not 

 produce level meadows, and sheep and cows do not 

 wander on such places. It is the swell and swing of the 

 surface coming now and then to a small ridge and then 

 dying away into space that is almost level ; it is the rise 

 and fall, the becoming and dying away into the soft 

 effect of the almost level. The same idea or type of 

 treatment is evolved here as in the plantations and lines 

 of walks and roads and rock work and water and islands ; 

 all start from the same idea. Let any one try, on the 



' Thomas Whately, Observations on Modern Gardening. 



