46 OLD-FASHIONED GARDENING 



tinctly different from any England had known before, 

 and they left their impress upon all that came after. 

 And our earliest American gardens were inspired by a 

 modification of these cosmopolitan Elizabethan 

 gardens; hence from the soil up, we have inherited 

 a blend from all of the old world. 



The Elizabethan gardens were the first to be defi- 

 nitely planned by the architect who designed the 

 house; and they were held "to be no mean adjunct 

 to a house, or a confusion of greenswards, paths and 

 flower beds"; on the contrary, they required skill and 

 a high degree of cultivated taste to compass them; 

 they were parts of an elegant design, and as such were 

 weighed and nicely balanced to the rest, represented 

 by the house. The usual scheme was a terrace im- 

 mediately against the dwelling, which by its elevation 

 above the garden, overlooked it in its entirety. Steps 

 led down, and generous walks — "broad straight walks 

 called 'forthrights' connected the plots of the garden, 

 as well as the garden with the house. Smaller walks 

 ran parallel with the terrace, and the spaces between 

 were filled with grass plots, mazes or knotted beds. 

 The forthrights corresponded to the plan of the build- 

 ing, while the patterns in the beds and mazes har- 

 monized with the details of the architecture." 



These gardens were almost always a perfect square; 

 and Parkinson explains that the reason this form was 



