434 
LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
against the visible connection of labor with the imme- 
diate adornment of their country homes. Labor in its 
proper place — in the forest, or garden, or harvest' field — - 
is a necessary and appropriate feature ; but they strive 
to banish it as much as possible from the repose and 
quiet and simple beauty around the house, by pushing 
off to more distant, and as they think, more suitable 
localities, those operations with the soil which require 
the constant supervision and presence of man. It is 
principally on this account, besides the other reasons 
we have given, that the best examples of English places 
present a simple dignified combination of trees and 
lawn about the house — certainly on two or three sides — • 
while the mass of pleasure grounds and flower gardens 
are usually at some distance. 
If we were more willing in this country to follow such 
good examples, and aim at simplicity and breadth of ef- 
fect, instead of carving up our grounds about our houses 
with u fragmentary pieces of misplaced ornament,” our 
places would not be so lamentably deficient in character 
and beauty, or so frittered away into an exceedingly dis- 
tasteful and artificial appearance. 
Another mistake in American places is the want of a 
proper termination to the ornamental grounds, or, rather, 
some intelligible division between the ornamental and 
practical. 
We use the expression “intelligible,” because we all 
keep (or pretend to) under the roller and scythe, every 
two or three weeks, a certain quantity of lawn, say 
from one hundred ‘feet to an acre or more, and at the 
end of the last swarth starts up a hay-field, which is 
mown over perhaps twice in the season ; but, in most 
cases, there seems no reason why the lawm should 
end and the hay-field begin just w T here they do, instead 
of ten or one hundred feet one w r ay or the other ; in fact 
there is no good reason ; for the length and breadth of 
the lawn often depends upon the horticultural zeal or 
