Formal Planting 
River (probably previous to 1660) which had 
been rendered untenable by encroachments 
of the changing river bed. Many of the 
doors and casings were evidently taken from 
the old building, as may be seen in the 
photograph of one of the doors, marks of the 
old fastenings being still visible. 
Incidentally is shown the door of St. 
Mary’s Episcopal Church at Charlton, for 
many years untenanted except by church 
rats and mice. The front door of the sum¬ 
mer home of a family of swallows may be 
seen above the gable ot the door casing. 
The doorway of Guy Park, the home of 
Colonel Guy Johnson, is also illustrated, as 
well as the Herkimer mansion, situated 
about three miles east of Little Falls, 
on the south bank of the Mohawk River. 
This was the home of General Herkimer, 
the hero of the battle of Oriskany, and the 
place where he lived nine days under an 
unskilful amputation, after that gruesome 
ambuscade. A large granite monument to 
his memory stands about one hundred yards 
east of the mansion. The Mabie house at 
Rotterdam, N. Y., is a very good illustration 
of the stvle of houses built by the Dutch 
Boers of the Mohawk Valley during the 
latter part of the seventeenth century. The 
tall pointed roofs of these one-and-a-half 
story houses were frequently seen in the old 
Dutch towns of Albany and Schenectady. 
FORMAL 
PLANTING 
BY 
GEORGE F. PENTECOST, Jr. 
Lawson s Cypress 
The Yew 
T HE value of planting in relation to the 
formal garden is paralleled by the value 
of the poetic form for the more sensuous 
expression of abstract thought. That is, 
neither the design nor the planting scheme 
are to be considered as separate units—their 
values are inter-dependent and their effects 
must be of mutual benefit. 
That this, the essential principle of plant¬ 
ing, may be better exemplified, let us create 
a phantom garden and theoretically eluci¬ 
date it. 
In form, then, our phantom garden is 
oblong in outline, with its greatest axis par¬ 
alleling the gentle slope of the ground. It 
is divided into three main terraces, each ter¬ 
race demarked by a low retaining wall, broken 
by generous flights of steps. The dwelling 
rests upon the highest level. This disposi¬ 
tion of the house-site screens the two lower 
terraces from the vulgarizing eve of the pub¬ 
lic, thus giving the “ living” portion of the 
garden that seclusion which is so essential for 
the full enjoyment of garden life. 
Viewing our garden in bird’s-eye perspec¬ 
tive, we have before us the three levels in 
their ascending heights, the dwelling being 
on the highest and most distant terrace. 
Considering the garden for a moment as a 
picture, we have the conventional divisions 
of foreground, middle-distance and back¬ 
ground. The dark background of trees is 
222 
