The Home-Grounds 
land, sometimes seems as much in need of 
guidance as the owner ; and even when his 
ideas are entirely right, the owner too often 
interferes with their execution or adds in- 
harmonious details of his own as the years 
go by. 
Our English author is partially correct 
when he says that most people who care for 
gardens (still taking the word in the wide 
sense he gives it) suppose that they are made 
for plants, and that “ if a garden has any 
use it is to treasure for us beautiful flowers, 
trees, and shrubs. ’ ’ But this idea of a gar- 
den’s function is much too narrow. The 
home-grounds form, beyond question, a place 
where beautiful plants should be fostered. 
But they should also form an entity, a com- 
position, a picture which will be beautiful 
as a whole and in harmony with its sur- 
roundings. And, however well planned, 
such a composition, such a natural picture, 
may be shorn of beauty and rendered pain- 
fully artificial if its elements, big or small, 
are injudiciously selected. 
Our Englishman’s decision is that “the 
true use and first reason ’ ’ of the home- 
57 
