House iff Garden 
ALONG THE MAIN PATH 
mainland and gives a longer life to arbors, and 
other structures of wood. It is also to be 
attributed to the care with which these gardens 
have been maintained, and their freedom from 
modern innovations, like the cast-iron vase 
and plants with foliage of violent color con¬ 
trast. Their designers seem to have realized 
the value of a direct relation between the gar¬ 
den and the house, and the effectiveness of a 
formal design in the garden itself. The rect¬ 
angular shape of the land about the house and 
the rectangular subdivision of the house into 
rooms, suggested a general design tor the 
garden which hardly could be improved. The 
garden was treated as a modified extension of 
the house-plan in which clipped box edging, 
clearly defined walks, symmetrically placed 
arbors and vine-clad fences repeated the struct¬ 
ure and ornaments of the indoor dwelling. 
Distracting views of adjoining houses and 
traffic were screened from sight by high 
boundary fences, walls, and plantations which 
extended the privacy of the house into the 
garden. A further degree of seclusion was 
attained by plantations of apple and pear trees 
which tempered the light from the sky without 
producing a shade too dense for the thrifty 
SANFORD PLACE 
growth of verdure beneath. These trees 
also furnished a display of blossoms in May 
which almost outrivaled the later flowers of 
summer. There can be but little doubt that 
the gardens served a real usefulness in the 
family life, if we are to accept as evidence the 
presence of arbors and benches which afford 
agreeable resting places while offering effec¬ 
tive vantage points for views of the garden. 
Better testimony of the gardens’ favor in the 
family regard is evidenced by the mere fact 
of their existence to-day after a lapse of years, 
during which they would have been overgrown 
and obliterated had they not enjoyed constant 
and appreciative care. Destruction by the 
weather of wooden buildings is slow, and it 
can be arrested from year to year by renewal 
of shingles and clapboards; but the gardens 
fall so quickly a prey to exposure that, with¬ 
out the painstaking care of appreciation, they 
are likely to be lost as records and as places 
of delight. They belong to a period of 
wooden architecture, and therefore their 
arbors, benches, and terrace steps are frail and 
quickly fall to ruin. Indeed the most persist¬ 
ing objects in them are usually the edgings of 
box which often outlive the apparently more 
3 ] 3 
