cool alleys, and their foregrounds, strong with the massive shadows of 
the ilex or stone pine? 
Mr. Guy Lowell, in his recent important work "Smaller Italian 
Villas and Farmhouses," primarily an architectural book, writes; 
"It is not easy to re-create the spirit of design that made these 
gardens artistic masterpieces, for the contrast of depth of shadow 
in the foliage, with the brilliant sunlight on stone work, path, and pool, 
which one obtains in a garden requires just as much study and bal- 
ancing of proportion, just as careful a comparison of light and dark, as 
does the shadow projection of a cornice, or the relation between wall 
space and window opening in a building. This the artists of the 
sixteenth century felt, and with it seemed to combine the most difficult 
of all problems in garden designing — they tied their formal gardens 
in one complete pictorial composition to the landscape beyond. The 
laying out of the garden and farm group was expected of the architect 
of the Renaissance, who was also an artist and an engineer. The 
centrifugal force of modern life works against a coherent style in 
modern art." 
It seems as though the term garden, as now understood, should 
be vastly broadened, and garden planning include much that is not 
"dreamed of in our philosophy," and many problems that are as yet 
but dimly perceived. A garden, even though it be of modest size, 
should afford more than one emotion, it should not all reveal itself at 
one time; there should be some mystery, something to lure us on from 
point to point, the shady path, the dusky thicket which the birds 
haunt, the hidden nook suggesting repose, — not alone a riot of beauti- 
ful color that gives all in one unique and violent sensation, producing 
too soon a feeling of satiety. 
Georgiana W. Sargent, 
Garden Club of Lenox. 
The Christmas Rose 
With the people I have known the Christmas Rose (Helleborus 
Niger) has proved rather a difficult flower to raise, and they point 
with great pride to a single plant. Recently in an old box bordered 
garden, in front of a small white house, and directly on the street 
I have seen a mass in bloom over fifty feet long. The roots were 
covered with a few inches of dead leaves but the foliage of the plants 
and the flowers were fully exposed, and after four or five inches of 
snow, and some very cold weather, they were blooming bravely. The 
blossoms are nearly two inches in diameter white, waxy and very 
fragrant and are particularly fascinating at this season of the year 
