PLAN BEFORE PLANTING. 
77 
to be planted. If, however, there are fine trees already growing 
on any lot, all the arrangements of walks and plantings should be 
made to avail of their beauty, and to heighten it. 
Kemp’s observations on this subject are so pertinent that we 
shall quote them, premising that garden as here used by him, 
means the pleasure-ground of a place. 
“ Possibly the greatest and most prevalent error of those who 
lay out gardens for themselves is, attempting too much. A mind 
unaccustomed to generalize, or to take in a number of leading 
objects at a glance, finds out the different points embraced in 
landscape gardening one by one, and, unable to decide which of 
them can most suitably be applied, determines on trying to com¬ 
pass more than can readily be attained. One thing after another 
is, at different times, observed and liked, in some similar place 
that is visited, and each is successively wished to be transferred 
to the observer’s own garden, without regard to its fitness for the 
locality, or its relation to what has previously been done. A 
neighbor or a friend has a place in which certain features are ex¬ 
quisitely developed, and these are at once sought to be copied. 
The practice of cutting up a ground into mere fragments is the 
natural result of such a state of things. 
“There are several ways in which a place may be frittered 
away, so as to be wholly deficient in character and beauty. It 
may be too much broken up in its general arrangement; and this 
is the worst variety of the fault, because least easily mended and 
most conspicuous. To aim at comprising the principal features 
proper to the largest gardens, in those of the most limited size, is 
surely not a worthy species of imitation, and one which can only 
excite ridicule and end in disappointment. * 
“ A place may likewise, and easily, be too much carved up into 
detached portions, or overshadowed, or reduced in apparent size, 
by planting too largely. Trees and shrubs constitute the greatest 
ornaments of a garden; but they soon become disagreeable when 
a place is overrun with them, by contracting the space, and shut¬ 
ting out light, and rendering the grass imperfect and the walks 
mossy. Nothing could be more damp, and gloomy, and confined, 
than a small place too much cumbered with plantations. Nor is 
