Art Out-of-Doors 
we see formal flower-beds used in this inar- 
tistic fashion. There are few large country 
places in America, or in Europe either, 
where the lawns are not marred by shriek- 
ing spots of color, set down here and there 
with as little thought of the general impres- 
sion that the scene will make upon the eye 
as though a blind man had played gardener. 
Good cultivators love such beds because 
they show how skilfully they can grow and 
trim their plants ; and owners love them 
because — well, I fear simply because they 
are showier than anything else. And they 
disfigure our public parks and cemeteries as 
sadly as our private grounds. 
Central Park has been almost altogether 
preserved from their intrusion, and so has 
Prospect Park in Brooklyn. But in Chicago 
parks there are shocking displays of bad 
taste in this direction ; here ordinary pat- 
tern-beds have not contented gardeners am- 
bitious to show how cleverly they can use 
plants grown in forms of wicker or wire to 
simulate, “ in the round,” great arm-chairs 
and row-boats, garden -gates and rolls of 
carpet, and even human beings. Doubtless 
144 
