628 Ornamental Gardening. 
portion, and simplicity and naturalness of design. Stones and 
pieces of rock belonging to different formations should not be 
indiscriminately mixed up together. But as there are special 
works on this branch of horticulture, necessary to those who 
undertake the cultivation of any except the hardier kinds of this 
class of plants, we forbear going into details, and for the same 
reason most of the rare species and those difficult to preserve 
have been omitted from the descriptive part of this work. 
The principal feature of an English pleasure-garden is the 
lawn, for which the natural conditions of our climate are so 
favourable that with very little trouble we can have a perfect 
and luxuriant green turf all through the summer. The form 
of the lawn is determined by the outline of the area and by the 
course of the walks, so that no specific rules can be laid down 
as to the character of the plan most desirable for a place of 
given dimensions. Much would depend upon the nature of 
the ground, whether nearly level, or with any considerable fall 
from the house. Where the slope is very abrupt, the ground 
may be brought to two or three different levels, forming ter- 
races ; but a gentle incline is far more pleasing to the eye than 
a dead level of any extent, and unless there be sufficient fall 
for a terrace proportionate in height to the size of the place, it 
is better left alone. A drop of two or three feet in a place 
of large extent would not be sufficient to form an effective 
terrace, though for a more limited area it might be allowed. 
But even then it is folly to attempt to crowd the details 
of a large garden into a confined space. One of the most 
important details connected with the plantations around 
and approaches to the house, is to contrive them in such 
a way as to secure privacy for the flower-gardens, and to 
provide attractive scenes from the windows of the principal 
rooms. According to the extent there will be shrubberies and 
rosaries, mixed beds and borders, and the geometrical garden 
destined for the modern bedding-out system. And this would 
admit of the introduction of water-basins, fountains and vases, 
etc., in harmony, of course, with the residence. We need not 
say that the principal display, both in ornamental shrubs and 
flowering-plants generally, should be in the immediate vicinity 
of the house. For a pleasure-garden of small size, say from 
half an acre to two acres in extent, the old style of mixed beds 
and flowering and evergreen shrubs in clumps and single 
specimens, with a portion only of the beds reserved for massing, 
