LARGE AND SMALL GARDENS iTt 



side-interests are likely to steal in, and altogether ho'W 

 great a burden of anxiety or matter of temptation it 

 must give rise to. A grand truth is in the old farmers 

 saying, " The master's eye makes the pig fat ; " but 

 how can any one master's eye fat that vast pig of 

 twenty acres, with all its minute and costly cultivation, 

 its two or three crops a year off all ground given to 

 soft vegetables, its stoves, greenhouses, orchid and 

 orchard houses, its vineries, pineries, figgeries, and all 

 manner of glass structures ? 



But happily these monstrous gardens are but few 

 — I only know of or have seen two, and I hope never 

 to see another. 



Nothing is more satisfactory than to see the well- 

 designed and well-organised garden of the large country 

 house, whose master loves his garden, and has good 

 taste and a reasonable amount of leisure. 



I think that the first thing in such a place is to 

 have large unbroken lawn spaces — all the better if they 

 are continuous, passing round the south and west sides 

 of the house. I am supposing a house of the best class, 

 but not necessarily of the largest size. Immediately 

 adjoining the house, except for the few feBt needed for 

 a border for climbing plants, is a broad walk, dry and 

 smooth, and perfectly level from end to end. This, in 

 the case of many houses, and nearly always with good 

 effect, is raised two or three feet above the garden 

 ground, and if the architecture of the house demands 

 it, has a retaining wall surmounted by a balustrade of 



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