JULY 141 



overflow from the fountain can be guided by small 

 watercourses on to different beds. I have pockets of 

 cement made at irregular intervals at the edges of the 

 fountain to hold water-plants and such things, which then 

 appear reflected on the surface of the water, not as they 

 grow against a dark shrub or a group of Italian Canes of 

 Bamboos, but against the blue sky above them — an end- 

 less pleasure to those who notice such things. A piece 

 of water, however small, and the sound of water falling 

 from a small fountain, or even from a raised tap if the 

 tank is near a wall, is such an added enjoyment to life on 

 a hot summer's day, not to mention the infinite superiority 

 for watering of having water that has been exposed to the 

 sun and air. If not artificially fed, gold-fish live and 

 breed healthily in these tanks. 



Water-plants, such as the Sweet-smelling Eush, the 

 flowering Eush Butotwus umhellatus, the Water-lily, the 

 Gape pond-weed Aponogeton, can aU be grown in tanks 

 if the plants are planted in baskets or hampers, not pots, 

 and let down to the bottom. They give food for the fish, 

 and keep them healthy ; a tank also serves as a dip for 

 swallows on the wing, and as a breeding-place for the 

 beautiful blue dragon-fly. 



To go back to the Dutch garden. I think at the 

 corners of, or on each side of, the entrances there may be 

 pots with plants in them, or balls of stone, or anything 

 else in character with the rest of the stone or brick work, 

 which should be formal and slightly constrained in design, 

 as I consider aU brickwork in a garden close to a house 

 ought to be. If planted as I described, no two such 

 gardens would ever be the least ahke ; no law could bind 

 them, and no wind destroy them. 



One of the most perfect ways of laying out a long flat 

 piece of ground I have ever seen was in a garden in 

 Sahsbury. One long, very long, broad grass path, right 



