Ornamental Water , Fountains , Etc. 
318 
will prove highly effective, or even if the pond or lake be within the pleasure 
grounds or garden, patches of showy geraniums or dahlias. 
Before leaving the subject of planting, we desire to add a word as to aquatic 
plants. Although these can be grown in any piece of water, yet the more 
artificial in form the sheet of water is the less appropriate they will be, as they 
are more suited to informal and rustic accompaniments. They should be 
planted near the side or margin of the water, and opposite, as a rule, to the 
more prominent points of the shore, being equally good, if planted in this 
way, as specimen trees or shrubs planted in front of clumps or swells in lawn 
plantations. 
We now propose to deal with the subject of undulation and the formation 
of the margin. Firstly, it is most essential that there should be a perfect 
union between grass and water, as it is a manifest beauty. There is, how¬ 
ever, one exception, and that is where in secluded parts of a lake the bank is 
naturally precipitous, then great variety may be obtained by partially broken 
ground with heather and rough grass, jutting rocks, old stumps of trees, and 
if there be a stream or brook running into the lake or pond on that side, 
additional beauty and picturesqueness may be obtained by miniature waterfalls 
and cascades. This treatment, however, to be successful requires consummate 
taste and ingenuity. Secondly, in undulating the ground the hollows and 
swells should gradually and grace¬ 
fully blend with one another, no 
hard ridges or abrupt excres¬ 
cences being observable. Before 
continuing, let us explain what 
a “ hollow ” is with reference to 
undulation. It is the taking out 
of the ground, so that the surface 
assumes a concave shape, the 
lines gracefully, yet almost im¬ 
perceptibly blending with the 
rising surface of the ground, and on the margin of a sheet of water not only 
should the ground be taken out in the bay or creek where the water-line is 
formed, but the rising ground inland should be hollowed out, gradually 
diminishing in extent as it touches the water edge, thus carrying out the idea 
that water, nature's grand agent, by means of which she formed the surface of 
the ground, once flowed along that hollow, finally accumulating in the form 
2 S 
M 
i 
Fig. 4. 
* 
