Art Out-of-Doors 



we see formal flower-beds used in this inar- 

 tistic fashion. There are few large country 

 places in America, or in Europe either, 

 where the lawns are not marred by shriek- 

 ing spots of color, set down here and there 

 with as little thought of the general impres- 

 sion that the scene will make upon the eye 

 as though a blind man had played gardener. 

 Good cultivators love such beds because 

 they show how skilfully they can grow and 

 trim their plants ; and owners love them 

 because — well, I fear simply because they 

 are showier than anything else. And they 

 disfigure our public parks and cemeteries as 

 sadly as our private grounds. 



Central Park has been almost altogether 

 preserved from their intrusion, and so has 

 Prospect Park in Brooklyn. But in Chicago 

 parks there are shocking displays of bad 

 taste in this direction ; here ordinary pat- 

 tern-beds have not contented gardeners am- 

 bitious to show how cleverly they can use 

 plants grown in forms of wicker or wire to 

 simulate, in the round," great arm-chairs 

 and row - boats, garden - gates and rolls of 

 carpet, and even human beings. Doubtless 



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