x 54 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
,N 
/ 
siderable completeness. Plate 2 represents much 
of what the interior of the sections should be, and 
plate 4 their margins. Margins bordering the road- 
ways and the boundaries. 
Such a disposition would bring the valuable 
features to the front where they ought to be, hide 
out the more objectionable features with more or 
less thoroughness, and afford unlimited scope to 
the art and knowledge of the Landscape Gardener. 
It would afford all lot owners almost unlimited 
liberty. There might or might not be some con- 
trol as to the artistic merit of the monuments to be 
admitted to the more valuable marginal lots, which 
plate 4 in some measure represents; but it seems to 
me the great mass of people who would lay their 
loved ones within the sections indicated by plate 2, 
should be left largely untrammelled. 
The planting features as I have said would de- 
pend upon the superintending gardener, who should 
not only be competent, but retained as long as pos- 
sible. To be sure small communities cannot afford 
the best ability permanently, but they can secure 
it for the initial planting, and for annual or semi- 
annual consultation or visits. Nothing can take the 
place of personal oversight, for no plans however 
elaborate and expensive can convey the arts and 
kindly cares which embellish the work of the skilled 
gardener. No one need seek far to find the lofty 
promises of a $3,000 plan sunken in the lower- 
most depths of disorder, and the landscape gar- 
dener of veracious insight will look in vain for their 
consistent fulfillment. Nine times in ten they 
promise golden results, while nothing remains of 
artistic conception but the advertising paper. 
It is not uncommon for landscape conceptions 
to be buried under a perfect avalanche of rhetorical 
flourish, and provided the sense of the patrons is 
gratified by that which they can admire, they have 
neither time nor heart to give attention to the infin- 
itely more important art outdoors — and they are 
fain to leave it to the base competition of a horde of 
contractors, who in their turn have no possible in- 
terest beyond selling a bill of trees. 
Be very sure these ways must be abandoned. 
Landscape art of the purest and best is simple. 
It neither depends on flourishes of rehetoric, or 
flourishes on paper. 
It does depend on profound knowledge, re- 
duced to the uttermost simplicity. 
Nature works with an infinite multitude of 
forms, but they are reducible to a tew well defined 
groups, and the elements of a given landscape are 
but few. 
The wants of mankind must be consulted to-day 
however; the individual is becoming more and 
more unrestful, and the better his mind and body 
can be disciplined and broadened, the better he will 
be satisfied with his particular environment. 
There is nothing known that can so truly en- 
chain a population, as salubrity, fertility and beauty 
of their motherland, and those who are bereft of it, 
are wretched indeed. 
Fertility is not expressed in the forest waste, 
the cane-brake, on the Mangrove swamp. They 
are the very embodiment of gloom and desolation, 
and the garden group which emulates their features 
however little is ultimately a failure. 
A pleasing landscape is varied, and vivacious, 
and may be so whether animated or not. The 
most beautiful plateau I have ever seen lacked 
population in part, because its western climate for 
eight months was perpetual drizzle. When that 
passed, the site may have inspired Martin. 
There is nothing then in the lonesomeness of the 
cemetery to detract from its beauty. 
The disposition of its belts and groups and 
specimen plants, the convenience of access, and the 
planting out of its stoneyard will improve it. 
Trenton, N, J. James MacPherson. 
A BEAUTIFUL GARDEN. 
A writer in an exchange speaks glowingly of the 
garden of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, the English Col- 
onial secretary, at his seat near Birmingham, England: 
A considerable portion of his garden of Highbury is 
wild and uncultivated and consists of copse, dell and 
stream, and the mixture of this wild loveliness with the 
cultivated garden forms one of the chief charms of the 
place. Mr. Chamberlain is justly proud of his orchid 
collection, which is marvelous in its range from oriental 
brilliancy to the most fairy-like delicacy of hue. His 
orchid houses number fourteen and all open off one 
side of a corridor and their beauty is not to be told in 
words, the wealth and wonder of gorgeous coloring be- 
ing unsurpassed. 
Thirty men, under charge of a head gardener, keep 
in order Mr. Chamberlain’s garden. Little dells car- 
peted with bluebells and primroses and tiny pools bor- 
dered with reeds and rushes and shining with water- 
lilies are found next closely trimmed lawns, and at one 
spot known as the Oak pool is Mr. Chamberlain’s fav- 
orite seat. The lake there is overhung with willows and 
laburnums and gemmed with irises; swans and storks 
are to be seen; there are foamy water-falls and little 
bridges and woodlands thick with blossoms — violets, 
anemones and primroses. 
There is a rosery laid out in prim beds edged with 
box, the square precision of the plat being broken by 
four arbors, of mauve clematis, foam-white roses, honey- 
suckle and pink roses. There are all varieties of roses 
here. The kitchen garden and fruit walks have vines, 
apricots and peaches, and altogether the grounds around 
Highbury are lovely enough to convert a saint into a 
sinner through envy. 
