FOR SMALL PLACES. 269 



a general and tj^pical estimate. This hardly seems an 

 extravagant sura to devote to the exterior adornment of 

 a home that has probably cost at least |4,000 for the 

 building, and $2,000 more for a simple and tasteful fur- 

 nishing. The general impression is widely spread abroad 

 that the accomplistment of artistic effects in lawn-planting 

 on small places, if possible at all, must be expensive and 

 elaborate. Perhaps the idea comes from the fact that our 

 parks and grand show places afford almost the only in- 

 stances of artistic lawn-planting, and they, of course, are 

 expensive. The lawn-planting efforts, moreover, of the 

 jobbing gardener or owner of the place, are generally crude 

 and based on no settled principles of art. It is this, per- 

 haps, that gains credence for the belief that landscape 

 gardening, as a picturesque art, is not only expensive, but 

 does not suit small places. People may not state such 

 ideas definitely to themselves ; but they clearly demon- 

 strate, by practice, a conscious or unconscious belief in 

 their truth. ^ 



It has been, therefore, our desire to enunciate a few 

 simple and important considerations of an art too much 

 neglected, and to exemplify them practically from a plan 

 intended for execution in a simple and inexpensive manner. 

 There are necessarily many features and details, not here 

 treated, that may be introduced on small places with much 

 effect and without transgressing any fundamental rules of 

 lawn-planting. We desire, however, to utter, before con- 

 cluding, yet another warning against attempting too much 

 when once we assume the artistic standpoint. Care for the 

 proper exhibition and health of the plants themselves must 



