TOWN GABDENS. 



7 



open country. The smallest bit of real rural horizon is 

 an invaluable element in horticultural picture-making. 

 But in large cities, a geometric or symmetrical plan is 

 mostly the only available arrangement. Advantage may 

 be taken of a passage, an archway, or a line of building, 

 to help to form a vista or avenue, and to give the idea of 

 greater extent than really exists. If people were not 

 afraid of being reproached with a Cockney taste, — which 

 taste is often no more than the wise and laudable desire 

 of deriving the utmost amount of enjoyment from the 

 most limited capabilities and materials, — the Chinese 

 style of gardening might be very .advantageously employed 

 in very many town gardens. It allows the display of 

 many ornaments, it courts the introduction of incongruous 

 flowers, it affords a place for the whims of wealthy fanciers, 

 which otherwise must be excluded. The Chinese are 

 admitted to be excellent gardeners, even by those who do 

 not admire their taste. A Chinese town garden, employ- 

 ing pot-plants, dwarf trees, movable trellis-work, and 

 temporary summer-houses and flights of steps, in the 

 same way that scenic artists use what are called " pro- 

 perties " on the stage, might be made an ever-varying 

 fund of amusement. The intelligent reader will have 

 little difficulty in developing the hint thus started, 

 especially after perusing the instructive and amusing 

 works of Robert Fortune. 



Shirley Hibberd, in " The Town Garden," makes the 

 following sensible remarks : — " In an ordinary town 

 garden, measuring, say some thirty feet by sixty, any- 

 thing beyond a plain arrangement of oval and circular 

 parterres, separated from the wall borders by a plain 

 continuous path, is out of the question. Some people 

 sketch out a narrow path of the most serpentine outline, 

 which from a distance looks like a sandy snake ; and this 

 (after leading a visitor from the back door by a number of 

 convolutions over every square yard of the entire garden, 

 until he is dizzy with curves returning again and again 

 upon themselves) ends abruptly in a high grimy wall, 

 against which a few stones are piled to represent £ rock- 



