House & Garden 
however from the rest of 
the grounds. At the back 
is a space reserved for the 
well outlined and neatly 
tended beds of vegeta¬ 
bles. The Plan, drawn 
to scale, will show this 
space to be much larger 
than the flower garden, 
but it is arranged with 
equal formality, with low 
box borders and with 
simple rustic arbors on 
which grape-vines are 
reared. A circular bed 
of turf, about which fruit 
trees are clustered, marks 
the intersection of two of 
its paths. By alow, almost 
imperceptible terrace it is 
raised above the grade of 
the flower garden and the 
central division. 
It is this central divi¬ 
sion, with its winding 
paths and irregular islands 
of grass, which excites 
THE PLAN 
our curiosity. Why have 
straight lines and box 
edgings been here so sud¬ 
denly abandoned ? could 
a designer with conscious 
art have planned a con¬ 
trast between the purely 
formal and the serpen¬ 
tine ? or did an owner, 
influenced by the grow¬ 
ing vogue of the natural¬ 
istic school, sweep away 
older lines for the sake of 
fashion? In truth no 
such guile was behind the 
designer’s hand, and for¬ 
tunately no such fickle¬ 
ness has the Read House 
and its garden ever suf¬ 
fered from their owners. 
In the intermediate divi¬ 
sion of the garden rectan¬ 
gular forms were put by 
for the simple purpose of 
preserving the group of 
cedar trees, the box and 
the balsam firs which had 
