Varied Gardens Fair 
73 
Sunken gardens should be laid out under the su- 
pervision of an intelligent landscape architect ; and 
even then should have a reason for being sunken 
other than a whim or increase in costliness. I vis- 
ited last summer a beautiful estate which had a deep 
sunken Dutch garden with a very low wall. It lay 
at the right side of the house at a little distance ; 
and beyond it, in full view of the peristyle, extended 
the only squalid objects in the horizon. A garden 
on the level, well planted, with distant edging of 
shrubbery, would have hidden every ugly blemish 
and been a thing of beauty. As it is now, there 
can be seen from the house nothing of the Dutch 
garden but a foot or two of the tops of several 
clipped trees, looking like very poor, stunted shrubs. 
I must add that this garden, with its low wall, has 
been a perfect man-trap. It has been evident that 
often, on dark nights, workmen who have sought a 
“ short cut ” across the grounds have fallen over 
the shallow wall, to the gardener’s sorrow, and the 
bulbs’ destruction. Once, at dawn, the unhappy 
gardener found an ancient horse peacefully feed- 
ing among the Hyacinths and Tulips. He said he 
didn’t like the grass in his new pasture nor the sud- 
den approach to it ; that he was too old for such 
new-fangled ways. I know another estate near 
Philadelphia, where the sinking of a garden revealed 
an exquisite view of distant hills ; such a garden 
has reason for its form. 
We have had few water-gardens in America till 
recent years ; and there are some drawbacks to 
their presence near our homes, as I was vividly 
