Formal Gardening 



sliaped bed of coleus — would look extremely 

 well if consistently planted with flowers. 

 And when the old reservoir on Fifth Avenue 

 is removed J we should have in its place, not 

 a mere extension of Bryant Park, but a 

 beautiful big garden, with formal avenues 

 of trees to give shade, a balustraded walk 

 around its confines, a large ornamental 

 fountain, and a rich array of fiower-beds, 

 charmingly changing their aspect as the 

 montlis advance, and telling to those who 

 never leave the streets how, in the country, 

 Flora is marshalling ^^the procession of the 

 flowers." 



There can be no American city where 

 spots similar to these do not actually cry 

 aloud for formal treatment of some sort. 

 And there are one or two American cities 

 where the charm of formal or semi -formal 

 arrangements has already been shown. In 

 Baltimore, for instance, when one stands in 

 IMount Vernon Place, or on the adjacent 

 wide sloping street where central plantations 

 are enlivened by the perpetual sound of fall- 

 ing water, one can hardly believe he is in 

 our crude young America, so finished and 

 1S3 



