o 
House Garden 
fill such places, much as a child might, with 
regard chiefly to the number and variety of 
our selections. Such ideas would seem lamen¬ 
tably crude and even laughable to a Japanese 
gardener, in whose eyes every stone possesses 
character and every plant and species of plant 
life a distinct individuality. But plants are, 
with him, ever a minor consideration. The 
garden space itself is first, and that is selected 
with as much care as a canvas for a picture, or 
the space for 
a wall decora¬ 
tion. Upon 
thisissketched 
the lines of a 
compositio n 
in rock, tree, 
hill, and 
stream. Color 
comes last and 
sometimes is 
wanting alto¬ 
gether. Such 
gardens, with¬ 
out flowering 
plant or shrub 
to soften their 
bold outlines, 
are like a vig¬ 
orous Chinese 
landscape 
drawing in pen and ink, and many of the most 
famous of the old landscape gardens are of this 
class. But the elements of a garden are, after 
all, very simple, and such as mav be found 
almost everywhere except in the most arid 
sections of the earth. Rock, tree, hill, and 
stream—I think I have never seen a Japanese 
garden without these four primary elements. 
Kndurance, aspiration, contemplation, and 
activity, they might be said to represent. 
But whatever their fancied qualities they are 
present in reality or semblance in even the 
most miniature of all gardens, such as may be 
kept in a shallow bowl on one’s desk. 
In the little village of Horikiri, situated 
a few miles out of Tokyo and within easy 
jinrikisha distance, is to be found what is 
perhaps the oldest and most famous Iris 
garden in the world; although it is only 
one hundred and twenty years old, which is 
very young for a Japanese garden. To this 
garden, however, and to the founder of it, 
A GROUP OF IRIS BLOSSOMS 
Kodaka lzayemon, we owe the Iris as we 
see it to-day. It is not generally known, 
perhaps, that this flower in its present re¬ 
markable state of development is so modern 
a product. Up to the time of Kodaka’s 
discovery, it was nothing more than the 
little wild mountain Iris which has been so 
charmingly portrayed by some of the old 
flower painters, and which may be found 
now on almost any hillside in certain locali¬ 
ties, growing 
scarcely more 
than one foot, 
or at most 
two, in height, 
the blossoms 
of two colors 
f * | " ^ only, blue and 
’ k * • white, and 
with three 
petals as in the 
fleur-de-lis or 
in our own flag 
lily. But one 
hundred and 
twenty years 
ago a certain 
well-to-do 
Japanese far¬ 
mer, who 
surely had the 
soul of a discoverer, even if he was only a sort 
of head gardener in the little flower-raising 
village of Horikiri, in making a journey to the 
foot of Fuji, brought back a specimen of the 
Iris growing there. With this and two other 
specimens procured from different places, he 
formed the nucleus of the garden which was to 
grow into what is at present one of the most 
celebrated gardens in Japan. It was not until 
late in the Tokugawa period, however, in the 
time of the second Kodaka, the son of the 
original founder, that Koda-ka-en , as it was for a 
long time called, came into prominence. Two 
samurai chanced to visit it, and their reports 
attracted others, until finallv the fame of it 
reached the ear of the reigning shogun himself, 
who came in person to see it. Since then the 
tide of visitors has annually increased until it 
is not only known to all Japanese, but has also 
become a favorite resort of the foreign tourist. 
The fact that there are comparatively few 
flower gardens in Japan may account in part 
35 
