Formal Gardening 
tered from its virginal estate, a formal gar- 
den, no matter how small and modest, would 
be too palpably artificial. We should not 
want to see even the old New England door- 
yard, with its box-bordered beds, reproduced 
on a Catskill mountain-side, under the shade 
of ancient hemlocks, with a panorama of 
wild woodland scenery showing beyond it ; 
nor, again, in front of a rough seaside cot- 
tage, on the edge of a beach with its fringe 
of wild-growing shrubs and creepers and 
flowers. But would formal gardens of this, 
or even of a much more boldly architectural 
kind, be unfitting in the main streets of our 
little towns, in the outlying villa - streets 
of our towns of the second and the third 
class, along the fine boulevards of big de- 
tached houses which are characteristic of 
many of our great Western cities, or in lux- 
urious summer-resorts like Newport ? 
At Newport especially I have often wished 
that someone — architect, owner, or gar- 
dener — had had the wit to see how charm- 
ing and how individual he might make his 
domain by some formal method of treat- 
ment. Of course I do not speak of the 
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