The Garden of “Weld” 
derson, Esq., by Mr. Charles A. Platt. It 
is the latest completed addition to a dis¬ 
tinguished group of, let us say, a dozen 
gardens which America now possesses and 
which she can match against the most 
admired garden-craft of other and older 
countries. Not a few of these gardens are 
in the vicinity of Boston, but none are held 
aloft by New England hills upon so unusual 
a site as “Weld” enjoys. His fears of pos¬ 
sible harm coming to a work of art would 
surely be allayed if the quaint writer, quoted 
above, could see this garden, crowning, as it 
does, a hill that overlooks all neighboring 
heights and commands verdant hollows where, 
in shade, run ringing driving roads. To the 
north are Chestnut Hill and the Newtons, 
while on the west is the wooded valley of 
the Charles. At the base of the hill on the 
east is Jamaica Plain, beyond whose roots 
and cupolas Boston Bay lies glittering. 
The apex ot the hill has been so built upon 
as to appear hollowed out like a basin, 
composing the garden and supported by 
stone walls, which throw their balustrades 
in silhouette against the sky, to the visitor 
who mounts the winding carriage drive and 
feels at each step his curiosity grow at 
the contents of the enclosure above him. 
Here, in truth, is a spot “ exempt from 
inundations and earthquakes, and distant 
from stagnant waters and falling mountains.” 
H ere is a garden made as no garden ever 
was before, hidden from vulgar eyes by 
nothing but its elevation, unshaded by sur¬ 
rounding trees, unsheltered by neighboring 
slopes, unwatered but by the hand of man, 
paying homage to the sky alone. Not the 
work of many hands is this, nor the result 
of piecemeal additions nor of the accidents 
of changing Time. T he long probation 
which gardening as an art has served appears 
not to have entered here. “Weld” is a 
deliberate creation, rather than an outgrowth; 
a consummate work started and finished, as it 
were, in a day. All difficulties of the work 
have disappeared, nor can they longer be im¬ 
agined to have halted the hand of the artist 
who here,apparently unhindered and unvexed 
with the toil and moil of execution, put all 
parts into place with the seeming ease of a 
child who turns his kaleidoscope at play. 
Problems of getting desired levels, there 
may have been; of avoiding long vistas 
over narrow paths by breaking them; of 
making all parts well proportioned amid a 
A BOUNDARY OF THE BOWLING GREEN 
106 
