W HEN the Taft 
a d m inistra- 
tion succeed- 
ed the Roose- 
velt regime in 1908 there were necessarily 
some changes at the White House. 
(This is not a political essay, and no one 
need drop it on that account.) One of 
the principal domestic innovations by the 
incoming tenants, and the one to receive, and 
deserve, the most notice from the newspaper 
men, was the Jersey cow. The Tafts bought 
a beautiful pure-bred mild-eyed Jersey which, 
through all the summer months grazed orna- 
mentally on the White House lawn. It 
caught the popular fancy. It was delicious 
to imagine the amiable president and his wife 
being called to the work of each returning day 
by the moo of the affectionate bossy. All the 
newspaper men and the chance visitors photo- 
The peacock has been known and prized as a garden at- 
traction for ages 
graphed the pretty creature, and her picture 
appeared widely on souvenir post cards. A 
few society families immediately bought 
Jersey cows for their lawns, and for a time 
there loomed the possibility of a social fad. 
However, this kind of snobbery is not very 
strong in .America, and the imitators of the 
presidential family were never too numerous 
to mention. 
But the idea was a good one, and the gentle 
Jersey in the garden was a welcome exchange 
for the bull dog which had characterized the 
preceding administration. (No political re- 
flections intended, remember.) Such a pic- 
turesque figure added life 
and vivacity, a most in- 
dubitable interest to the 
White House grounds. 
W hat possible provision of 
pergola or gazing globe or 
grotto could have done as 
much ? It was the touch of 
life. It made the whole 
world kin to the garden, and 
the reporters were quick to 
see it. 
I his historic episode has 
its place in the world story 
of gardening.. I he histori- 
ans of the gentle art have 
usually credited that anci- 
ent gardener Bridgmanwith 
a revolutionary invention 
when he first introduced 
his famous ha-ha into Ping- 
land. Like many other 
Putting Life Into the Garden 
FRANK A. WAUGH, 
great inventions the ha-ha has now been 
pretty thoroughly forgotten, but the facts are 
worth recounting. Up to the time of Bridg- 
man, that is, let us say, about the year 1720 
all gardens had been enclosed. They were 
shut off from the world about, even when the 
adjoining land was made up of rolling mea- 
dows, picturesque pastures, sightly cultivated 
fields, even when it abounded in wide and 
pleasant views. Those walls had to be there 
to keep the roaming cattle and other intruders 
out of the gardens. But Bridgman, as we 
have intimated, had an idea. His scheme 
was to build a fence, but to have it sunk quite 
out of sight in a ditch. This protected the 
house grounds from pasturing cattle, but it 
left all the views open. It is surmised that 
the name ha-ha was suggested by the fox 
hunters who came suddenly upon one of them 
while in full chase. 
When Bridgman pulled down the garden 
walls and let the landscape in he opened the 
way to landscape gardening. At least it is 
the theorj" of historj^ that this idea did truly 
make possible that style of gardening for 
which England has since grown famous, the 
style which accepts and uses the whole na- 
tural landscape, and which was indeed never 
called landscape gardening until a quarter 
of a century afterward. It seems to us now 
like a genuinely great discovery; and as our 
minds go back to the time when gentlemen 
and ladies first looked out from their homes 
and saw the landscape, we have a lively 
image of the scene before them. There was 
the wide stretch of mild, peaceful, gracious 
cultivated English fields, — fields of waving 
grain animated by the busy laborers and 
rolling pastures animated by the grazing 
sheep and the sleek English cattle. It was 
a landscape full of life and of humanity. 
It is easy enough for the social student to 
see in this significant incident a direct con- 
nection with the rise of English democracy. 
Prom the days when the ha-ha replaced the 
stone wall the British aristocrat looked out 
upon the fields full of working men and wo- 
men, and the workers looked in on him, and 
behold they stood all on the same level! 
Interesting as is this unity of gardening 
with social history we must not dwell upon it 
here. We can remember, though, that in 
, those princely meadows surrounding some of 
these great mansions were herds of deer, 
more lively and picturesque if possible than 
the cows or the sheep. I hose fine scenes 
have indeed not been forgotten in the present. 
Not long ago I visited my- 
self a country house in 
England where three 
hundred semi - domesti- 
cated deer grazed before the dining room 
windows. It was a sight to remember, 
and I think formed as fine a garden feature as 
I ever saw. And in another place, within 
trolley-ride of London, as we would say, I 
photographed dozens of deer at my leisure 
as they ran free in a big public park. I might 
add further that while walking in the parks and 
forests of Germany I have often enjoyed the 
sight of half-wild, half-tame deer grazing 
quietly within reach or bounding gracefully 
out of the way at my approach. It is not 
at all clear to me why this kind of ornamental 
gardening is unknown in modern America. 
Deer to be useful in landscape gardening 
must of course, be measurably domesticated. 
The stately swan is an added element of interest to our water gardens, where already we like to grow the 
Water-lilies 
Introduce sheep into the park area fronting the country 
house and the picture is complete 
They are then kept like other household 
stock, fed, petted, and admired, and in due 
season the venison roast helps to break the 
monotony of beef, pork, and mutton. 1 his 
is a thousand times better than the method 
followed in many of the states where wild 
deer are protected by stringent legislation 
and where though very rarely seen by any one 
they make themselves a constant nuisance 
to the farmers. 
Speaking of those English gardens with their 
living embellishments one thinks easily of 
other fancies. Eor example: of the gorgeous 
peacock strutting on the lawn. A painting 
of an English garden would hardly be com- 
plete without this fine 
chromatic feature. The 
peacock to be sure has been 
known and prized as a gar- 
den attraction throughout 
Europe and even in China; 
and we have been given to 
understand that the only 
reason why the species is 
rare in America is that it 
does not take kindlly to our 
climate and our republican 
ways. Nevertheless it may 
be seen genteelly promenad- 
ing about certain of our 
public parks. 
American park superin- 
tendents in fact early took 
to the notion of supplying 
their sunny lawns and bosky 
woods and stretches of 
water with some life and an- 
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