LANDSCAPE GARDENLNG. 
113 
with success ; but some of them may be 
adopted in very limited space ; thus, the roads 
or paths, the trees, shrubs, and flowers must 
be produced, for this is the lowest grade of 
Landscape Gardening ; and the proper dis- 
tribution of these may be considered the first 
step in the art. If we can make ourselves 
understood in this matter we may consider it 
the first lesson in Landscape Gardening. As 
nature suggests her roads by various means, 
they are rarely if ever straight ; in swampy 
places the higher ground forms the roads ; in 
woods, openings among the trees suggest the 
direction of them; and in mountainous districts 
both assist in suggesting them; for comfort 
would suggest the propriety of climbing as 
little as possible, and would make us choose 
the lowest practicable ground, while water 
would keep us from taking the lowest. These, 
with the obstacles which the wood occasionally 
throws in the way, would force many deviations; 
and if we are compelled to get to the top of a 
hill that is steep, we should naturally walk 
round it, or partly round it, so as to ease the 
ascent. All these things should be kept in 
mind in laying out a garden, and the reason 
for deviating from the nearest cut to any 
object we wish to reach, must be made ob- 
vious, or sufficiently so to reconcile ordinary 
minds to it, or at least, to prevent any glar- 
ing impropriety. For instance, say that from 
the entrance to the mansion is a dead level, 
and nothing impedes the view of it the first 
moment : common sense would teach us to make 
the shortest cut, for a sweep of road would do 
violence to the most common of animal in- 
stincts, that of accomplishing a purpose with 
the least possible labour : — the schoolboy 
would wonder how people could be so stupid 
as to go such a roundabout way when they 
might go as straight as a line. What is the 
first business then of the Landscape Gar- 
dener ? Why, to prevent any such conclusion 
being drawn, he must place obstacles at the 
entrance; he must prevent people from mak- 
ing this short cut. If you wish the road to 
go in one direction, let a plantation of shrubs 
be the obstacle to any other; and although this 
would not do to reach all round the road, yet 
ot^er clumps may be so placed as that no- 
body would be tempted to deviate from the 
road. The occasional view of the mansion, 
as the road sweeps round, should be transient, 
and this is all to be effected by judicious 
planting. The clumps, as we approach the 
house, should be upon a smaller scale than 
those at a distance; the shrubs and trees 
more choice, and the evergreens more 
abundant ; and regard should, also, be had to 
the introduction of flowers. Much has been 
said and written about the impropriety of 
cultivating flowers in shrubberies ; but in 
what this impropriety consists ; what rule or 
law of nature it violates; or what is the objec- 
tion beyond the mere whimsical notions of the 
writers, we are at a luss to conjecture. The 
present object, however, is not to defend 
flowers, nor to go into the details of the art ; 
we are simply making a road which is not 
straight, though there was no justifiable rea- 
son for winding it, and we are creating the ob- 
stacles as we go on that we may please our 
fancy in a sweeping road. Clumps, therefore, 
of varied forms and extents, are rising on the 
inner side of our road to prevent any one 
from being tempted to cut across the grass, 
and specimens are being placed here and there 
to prevent any body from fancying he could 
save ground by cutting across, even from one 
point to another. With regard to the direc- 
tion of the road, the gardener must be guided 
by his own taste; there should not be an 
abrupt turn or elbow the whole distance. An 
easy sweep at every part must be secured, and 
supposing that the ground is a dead level, 
without any feature to cause a particular 
course, the road may be carried tolerably near 
to the outside. The object of this is to show 
as much space as possible, and the more that 
can be kept inside the road the more will it 
appear. Let us take a square piece of ground 
for our purpose, as it is the most formal, and 
let us suppose it to be smaller than we wish. 
The main road should be in some parts within 
twenty or thirty feet of the boundary, but in 
others it may be further off. This road might 
form an irregular circle,' the inner side of it 
planted with occasional clumps, and specimens, 
to place the house in or out of sight, and the 
outer side occasionally planted with a complete 
bank of trees and shrubs for some distance, 
and then an opening which shows a much 
further extent of ground, and this should be 
where the corner of the square ground admits 
of it. Thus, the opening being at the part 
where the utmost extent can be shown, there 
is no idea given that in some parts the road 
is at the extent of the ground ; the impres- 
sion created on the mind is, that there is the 
same extent all round that we see in the cor- 
ners. But in such a spot as we have described 
we have only the commonest stage of Land- 
scape Gardening, simply trees, shrubs, flowers, 
and a road, made as long as it well can be 
made, to favour the idea of extent. The 
accompanying sketch, however rough and un- 
couth, illustrates what we would convey as to 
the principle : much, however, in the same 
way as pothooks and hangers (as the urchins 
at school say) and straight strokes, give the 
rudiments of letters. That is to say, the square 
and the circle, and the supposed plantation 
belt and clumps, serve to show the rudiments 
of Landscape Gardening, — not because a 
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