The Home-Grounds 



land, sometimes seems as much in need of 

 guidance as the owner ; and even when his 

 ideas are entirely right, the owmer too often 

 interferes with their execution or adds in- 

 harmonious details of his own as the years 

 go by. 



Our English author is partially correct 

 when he says that most people who care for 

 gardens (still taking the word in the wide 

 sense he gives it) suppose that they are made 

 for plants, and that if a garden has any 

 use it is to treasure for us beautiful flowers, 

 trees, and shrubs." But this idea of a gar- 

 den's function is much too narrow. The 

 home-grounds form, beyond question, a place 

 where beautiful plants should be fostered. 

 But they should also form an entity, a com- 

 position, a picture which will be beautiful 

 as a whole and in harmony with its sur- 

 roundings. And, however well planned, 

 such a composition, such a natural picture, 

 may be shorn of beauty and rendered pain- 

 fully artificial if its elements, big or small, 

 are injudiciously selected. 



Our Englishman's decision is that ^^the 

 true use and first reason" of the home- 



57 



