4 o LONDON PARKS © GARDENS 
ounce and a half of common garden earth added to it, a 
third was given an equal quantity of garden mould, and 
a fourth was kept on “ Hyde Park water distilled.” The 
results in growth, and the quantity of water absorbed, 
were carefully noted at the end of the time. 
When Queen Caroline conceived the idea of throw¬ 
ing the ponds in Hyde Park into one, and making a 
sheet of water, the school of “ natural ” or “ landscape ” 
gardening was becoming the rage. Bridgeman, a well- 
known garden designer, who had charge of the royal 
gardens, has the credit of having invented the “ ha-ha ” 
or sunk fence, and thus led the way for merging gardens 
into parks. Kent, who followed him, went still further. 
He, Horace Walpole said, “ leaped the fence, and saw 
that all Nature was a garden.” The fashions in garden 
design soon change, and the work of a former generation 
is quickly obliterated. William III. brought with him 
the fashion of Dutch gardening, and laid out Kensington 
Gardens in that style. Switzer, writing twenty-five years 
later, says the fault of the Dutch gardeners was “ the 
Pleasure Gardens being stuffed too thick with Box ” ; 
they “used it to a fault, especially in England, where 
we abound in so much good Grass and Gravel.” London 
and Wise, very famous nursery gardeners, who made 
considerable changes at Hampton Court, and laid out 
the grounds of half the country seats in England, had 
charge of Kensington Palace Gardens, and housed the 
“ tender greens ” during the winter in their nurseries 
hard by. These celebrated Brompton nurseries were so 
vast that the Kensington plants took up “ but little 
room in comparison with” those belonging to the firm. 
Queen Mary took great interest in the new gardens. 
“ This active Princess lost no time, but was either 
