230 OLD-FASHIONED GARDENING 



may best be spared for the only purpose to sport in 

 them at times." They must always have furnished 

 much amusement and diversion, although curiously 

 enough the paths in the old designs do not cross nor 

 end blindly, and so bewilder completely, as one would 

 expect them to. As a matter of fact, it would be im- 

 possible to go astray in one, once started along its nar- 

 row way. But it is a long walk to the centre always. 

 In 1765, Henry Smith of New Amsterdam adver- 

 tised for sale at his place on Church street, a fine col- 

 lection of curious shells for grotto work. But I doubt 

 these little monstrosities being common anywhere out- 

 side the stiff — and often undeniably absurd — Dutch 

 influence. And the fountains and water works which 

 were so popular in the gardens of Europe by the mid- 

 dle of the seventeenth century, offered problems of 

 engineering as well as of finance which kept them out 

 of the early gardens here. A canal such as Captain 

 Goelet describes at the country seat of Edmund 

 Quincy near Boston, which could be fed by a brook, 

 or a pond similarly supplied, was as ambitious a use 

 of water as American gardens enjoyed. And it is 

 worth remarking that even to-day, fountains and cas- 

 cades and water features generally are almost never 

 seen in the greatest gardens here — and where they do 

 exist they are perpetually dry! Whereas, one of the 

 chiefest "antickes" of elaborate gardens in Europe and 

 even in England, was a system of concealed water jets 



