English Gardens 
hedges and individual trees, or what is known as topiary-work, 
was an importation from Holland, and at one time was very 
popular. There are many examples of this work in the older 
gardens, but to-day clipped work is rather more sober, and, on 
the whole, more in keeping with the common-sense beauty of 
the English garden. 
Shrubs are rarely seen as individual show-plants, but are 
generally massed and placed with some special end in view 
AN OUTLOOK FROM THE HOUSE 
beyond and apart from their mere beauty. 1 hey will serve to 
screen the offices or the kitchen-yard, or to make a windbreak 
for more delicate things growing on the borders of the lawn. 
Trees also are used very cautiously as individual specimens. 
Occasionally a great plane tree or an ilex stands in lonely gran¬ 
deur at the edge of the lawn ; but, as a rule, the trees are 
planted in groups to serve definite purposes,—sometimes to 
shut out an undesirable view, sometimes to form a vista 
towards a pleasant scene. Again, a group of elms at the end 
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