Faulkner Farm , Brookline , Massachusetts 
pictures, as craftily composed as though on 
canvas. H ow exquisitely the sun gleams on 
The End of the Pergola and filters through the 
bars of the latticed roof, and how fine is the 
contrast between the dark, thick masses of 
the clipped trees and the fine strong archi¬ 
tectural lines. In the Garden Walk , too, 
could anything be better than the isolated 
columns against the trees and the simple 
straight lines converging on the terminal piers 
of the pergola r Again, in the first illustra- 
FROM THE PERGOLA 
be perfect. Could any task be more arduous 
than this ? 
Judged by this test, the measure of success 
achieved in the Sprague garden is very re¬ 
markable : the illustrations show a certain 
number of perfect pictures, but there are hun¬ 
dreds more, all equally good, and this, as I 
sav, is the measure of success. 
Of course a flower garden must he a flower 
garden, and in this case it certainlv is. There 
wi 11 be rich masses of varied and splendid 
THE GARDEN WALLS 
tion of all, the detail of the steps to the ca¬ 
sino, one might almost imagine oneself before 
an Alma-Tadema from which the figure had 
mysteriously disappeared. Composition : 
this is the technical secret of it all, and com¬ 
position beside which a painter’s craft is 
child’s play. On canvas things stay where 
they are placed, but in a garden everything 
must be studied to be seen from ten thousand 
points of view, and from each the result must 
colour, small details crowding together to form 
great clumps of glory, and for this aggrega¬ 
tion of jewels a firm and controlling setting 
is absolutely necessary : the old and ludic¬ 
rous fashion of foolish blots of curvilinear 
beds spattered over a green lawn, has passed 
into the hands of the light-hearted suburban¬ 
ite and the municipal gardener; this most 
sane and delicate work of Mr. Platt’s shows 
well what the true treatment should be, and 
10 
