The Home-Grounds 



lish, and we should be doubly anxious to 

 avoid them, for, it seems, our architects are 

 succeeding better than the English in creat- 

 ing that house beautiful" which must be 

 the centre of the complex ultimate picture. 

 If the taste of the writer whom I quote can 

 be trusted, ^* most of the houses built in our 

 time ' ' in England ^ ^ are so bad that even 

 the best garden could not save them from 

 contempt ; ' ' while, although we often build 

 bad houses too, many of our country -homes 

 are so very good that we think with a pang 

 how much better yet they would be were 

 their home-grounds properly planned and 

 planted. 



How to plan and plant such grounds is a 

 most interesting question, although, of course, 

 varying with each individual case, it cannot 

 be approached theoretically except in a very 

 general way. Let us, however, suppose that 

 a house has been advantageously placed and 

 attractively designed, that it looks out upon 

 a beautiful landscape, and that the interven- 

 ing space is of such extent and character that 

 it can be made an harmonious link between 

 house and landscape, giving the house a 



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