House & Garden 
THE IRIS GARDEN AT HORIKIRI 
NEAR TOKYO, JAPAN 
BY ANNE H. DYER 
T HE gardens of Japan possess a signifi¬ 
cance which is, so tar as my knowledge 
goes, lacking in all other gardens in the world. 
They exercise a spell upon the beholder, the 
cause of which is undiscoverable We may 
analyze it in vain. After all is said there 
remains a quality unaccounted for in the 
physiognomy ot all Japanese gardens—a 
nameless something which in a human being 
we would call intelligence—but which in a 
garden we may, for want of a better word, 
term significance. We feel that something 
is meant, that it was not by chance a garden 
has come to express what it does, but that 
long ago it grew out of the mind and shaping 
intelligence ot some human consciousness to 
express or fulfil some human need, the mean¬ 
ing of which may be hidden from us but 
which is very clear to all Japanese. 
We do come to perceive, however, after 
a little study, that a Japanese garden is as 
closely related to the laws of composition 
as a poem or a picture, and that in a very 
true sense it is no less an inspired work of 
art. The ancient landscape gardens of Japan, 
indeed, live on like old pictures whose lines 
and tints do not fade but gather an added 
depth and richness from age. 
Most of us are accustomed to thinking of 
gardens as places in which to grow things, 
or at any rate as places in which they are or 
may be grown, and we generally proceed to 
IRIS BESIDE THE PONDS AT HORIKIRI 
33 
