892 
EMBELLISHMENT OF SMALL AREAS. 
picture by judicious arrangement, but for the house-builder’s usual 
obstruction to taste, by constructing an entrance, the centre of the 
boundary fence. Placed but a few feet from the angle, it admits con¬ 
cealment by shrubs, and allows an unbroken grassy slope to be formed, 
surmounted by evergreens, against the road, and extending about two- 
thirds of the side opposite the walk, such walk not exceeding in width 
three feet and a half, and drawn with a very slight degree of incurva¬ 
tion, just deviating from a straight line, acuter at the commencement, 
and obtuser on approaching the termination. From want of space for 
shrubs, the side-fence adjacent to the walk should be clothed with 
Irish ivy, that opposite admitting a screen of perennial shrubs of the 
class already recommended, viz, laurestinus , pliillyrea , pyracanthus, 
arbutus , &c. Three handsome evergreen shrubs are frequently a suf¬ 
ficient number for detached position, the pliillyrea being placed near 
the entrance, the laurestinus near the obtuse incurvation of the walk, 
and the arbutus on the opposite side of the area, at nearly two-thirds 
distance from the house. In front of the shrubs, that delicate contrast 
to their deep hue, annual stock, should abound, preceded by the vernal 
dowers. Passing from the front along the side, the slope should be 
incurvated, and gradually continue diminishing in height, without an 
abrupt termination. The grass should extend from the upper part of 
the slope nearly to the house, leaving only a few inches of parterre for 
roses, mignonette, and other sweet-scented annuals. An area, thus 
disposed, could not fail to please, by its simple and natural character. 
“ The dnest illustration of the possibility of producing beautiful effect 
on a small scale, is a plantation of evergreens on the city side of the 
Colosseum, in the Regent’s Park; it forms the richest, grandest, most 
sumptuous, and judicious arrangement of trees and shrubs ever pro¬ 
duced within such trivial space. Constituting a most beautiful screen 
to the Swiss cottage, it may justly be esteemed an incomparable model 
for general imitation in areas similarly circumstanced, and should be 
minutely copied in the banking plantations of every splendid mansion. 
It does more than supply exemplidcation of the directions herein before 
given. In the British metropolis, such a superior specimen of tasteful 
selection and scientific disposal of trees and shrubs was peculiarly 
required, in a spot sufficiently detached from the induence of its smoky 
atmosphere, so deleterious to vegetation as to render evergreens in the 
areas of every square deciduous. 
“ It is of material importance to the enjoyment of a garden, even of 
the smallest scale, to form from its commencement, previously to the 
shelter of trees and shrubs, some immediate provision for a shaded 
walk. It may be accomplished the very brst summer, by two rows of 
