GRANDMOTHERS GARDEN. 205 



definite arrangeineut had been applied to any of these 

 plants, but somehow they were seen to be. greatly to the 

 advantage of the general effect. All stood together, just as 

 they happened to come, behind the borders of box, in the 

 rich, Aveedless brown earth. How fresh that brown earth 

 smelled as it was dug up in early spring ! Of other 

 climbers than the grape-vine there were few. Wistarias, 

 clematises, and tlie long list of similar plants of the present 

 day were little used then. Filling their place in their own 

 atti'active Avay, were delicate morning-glories and graceful 

 cypress vines, trained with some formality and with almost 

 reverential care. 



These I'eminiscences may and should have a distinct 

 purpose and effect on pi'esent landscape gardening undertak- 

 ings. Let our circumstances and intentions be what they 

 may, we can certainly build up for ourselves once more 

 some genuine development of these quaint old garden 

 recollections. We can, I think, do it all the better if we are 

 poor and have only a half acre or a scant 25 x 100-foot lot. 



In that case we should make a pilgrimage to Sunnyside 

 (Irvington, N. Y.), and see how Washington Irving did, by 

 fine instinct alone, for he was hardly a landscape gardener, 

 what few landscape gardeners would have the simple self- 

 control to attempt. A plain rambling house set on the 

 banks of the Hudson with one walk winding from the pic- 

 turesque lane to the porch and door-step, half a dozen oi- 

 more elms and maples, a few simple flowers, blue and white, 

 along the base of the dwelling, and you have literally all 

 there is of the lawn. Not a coleus bed, not a shrub, noth- 

 ing but exquisitely kept turf and a few stately old trees. 



