302 
Rustic Adornments. 
of a suburban cottage, or the embellished lawn of an extensive villa. It can 
be rendered appropriate to any style of gardening, and is equally adaptable to 
the classic refinement of Italian terraces and gay parterres, as to the shrubby 
umbrage of a rustic wilderness. 
We will venture to say that water is rarely used to such an extent as it 
might be, and should be, in English gardens. Frequently the abundant 
supplies of water on an estate are looked upon as a calamity; the owner frets 
himself to find outlets ; the legislature comes to the rescue with a drainage 
act; and oftentimes when the drainage has been effectually diverted away 
from the place, it is discovered that it might have been put to better use than 
to swell the woodland rivulets and add to the volume of a stream which con¬ 
tributes to the wealth of lands miles away by means of many such contribu¬ 
tions. We call to mind a property we were engaged to lay out not many 
years since, and where we were permitted to indulge our taste freely in 
forming a beautiful scene. While scheming to carry water away from the 
land, and carrying out great drainage works for that purpose, the engineers 
were at work on the highest part of the ground boring an artesian well. 
Every one to his trade: the landscapist must drain, drain, the engineer must 
bore, bore; one is getting rid of the very element the other seeks, and the 
proprietor who pays for the work simply occupies the position of a means of 
separation between agents who ought to work together, and according to one 
plan, from the first. It is true that land needing drainage must be drained; 
it is true that water stagnating in the soil is like so much poison; but having 
once persuaded that water to move in channels provided for it, having guided 
it into small pipes, and thence into large mains, and thence into lakes, ponds, 
and outlets, ought we to dismiss it at the boundary, lose it for ever, while the 
domestics are perhaps crying out against the scanty water supply, and the 
proprietor contemplates sinking another well in hopes of the second being 
less intermittent than the first ? Generally speaking, the economy of country 
houses in respect of water may be likened to the act of a farmer who should 
pay fifty shillings a quarter for imported wheat, and at the same time give 
the produce of his own farm to the fowls of the air; and yet should persevere 
in growing wheat, that he might continue to waste it in the same manner. 
It is said that all possible ranks of industry are filled up, which is equivalent 
to saying that human invention is exhausted. Having made this quite 
superficial remark on the paradoxical management of water on landed 
properties, it must be further remarked that there is ample room and verge 
