BOOK REVIEWS. 



141 



intention conceived in the construction of a park or garden is often 

 more clearly defined fifty years after it was laid out than at the time 

 of planting. 



The hand of the master or educated foreseeing head gardener is 

 required. In some cases it is wanted to stimulate slow growth, and 

 in others to restrain over-luxuriance, so that it shall not be said that 

 " one cannot see the woods for the trees." This watchfulness, this 

 shaping of the ground, so well described in an admirable chapter 

 which contains the author's own words and but few quotations, should 

 become increasingly the aim of future gardeners. Only artistic, 

 refined, well-educated men and women can supervise the manual 

 work which is necessary to the degree that is now required, and 

 guide so that mistakes of taste are few. 



Thus will Garden Craft, that most ancient industry of the world, 

 be restored to the high position which it once held, when men kept 

 in view how indispensable it is and always has been to the moral and 

 physical health of a nation. 



In giving this book to a student we are compelled to feel regret 

 that the illustrations are not more helpful. The plates being 

 unnumbered, and the details in each not being alphabetically 

 marked, the explanations in the text are not easily understood. Had 

 all been as clearly suggestive as " The Gates of the Highlands " on 

 page 70, the lessons that Mr. Parsons gives to the public would have 

 had a more far-reaching influence. 



" Our Sentimental Garden." By Agnes and Egerton Castle. 

 8vo. 305 pp. (Heinemann, London, 1914.) 6s. net. 



It is not a little difficult to assign a place for such a book as this. 

 It is about a garden, yet not alone of the garden but of men and things 

 in it and about, of the design of it and how the design grew, and of 

 pleasures and disappointments until it attained its present beauty — 

 a book of " content and all harmless ways of life," which " may 

 perchance help to beguile thoughts surfeited with tales and pictures of 

 mortal strife." 



Their task, begun with no thought of providing relaxation in such 

 times as these, and finished after the war cloud burst and swamped 

 Europe with horrors, has come at an opportune time, for its 

 authors may rest assured it will help many to turn their thoughts 

 to peaceful times and give that relief from strain which a garden can 

 always give when it is a personal garden. Not only will this garden 

 give pleasure to its makers, happiness to the wounded, shelter to the 

 refugees, but the reading of its story will take many in spirit to quiet 

 and beautiful nooks away from thoughts of spoliation to the contem- 

 plation of the garden, perhaps the spolia opinio, of man's combat and 

 co-operation with Nature. 



No review of its contents can give a sufficient idea of the book, 

 and we can only say how much it pleased us, both as regards its text 

 and its illustrations. 



