Beautiful Gardens in America

"A garden was wonderful at night--a place of strange silences and yet stranger sound: trees darkly guarding mysterious paths that ran into caverns of darkness; the scents of flowers rising from damp earth heavy with dew; flowers that were weary with the dust and noise of the day and slept gently, gratefully, with their heads drooping to the soil, their petals closed by the tender hands of the spirits of the garden. The night sounds were strangely musical. Cries that were discordant in the day mingled now with the running of distant water, the last notes of some bird before it slept, the measured harmony of a far-away bell, the gentle rustle of some arrival in the thickets; the voice that could not be heard in the noisy chatter of the day rose softly now in a little song of the night and the dark trees and the silver firelight of the stars."

--HUGH WALPOLE.

FOREWORD

Books and magazines written by and for American architects usually show in their illustrations fine imitations of lovely French, English, and Italian formalism and works of art in marble or other stone ornamenting the gardens of great mansions in this country.

The object of this book is to present, more particularly, another type of garden, demonstrating the cultured American's love of beauty expressed through plant life rather than in stone; showing the development of his ideal in more original directions, when planning for himself the garden spot in which he is to live rather than when building wholly in imitation of some accepted type of classic art.

With but few exceptions, these illustrations are of a class which might be called personal gardens. The attractive features in nearly every view speak so eloquently for themselves that there seems but little need of detailed verbal description of each beautiful spot.

In covering all sections of the country, occasion is given for the observation and study of widely varying climatic conditions, the results of which the author has also sought to consider.

Some difficulty has been felt in properly ascribing the ownership of a number of the gardens illustrated. As a rule, there is but one recognized director of the garden's welfare--rarely are two members of a household equally interested. While he is by custom acknowledged master of the house, it is oftener she who rules supreme among the flowers. Misnaming the real possessor might be a serious mistake; attributing the ownership to two is superfluous; the benefit, where any doubt existed, has been therefore given to the fair sex, with due apology for possible errors.

LOUISE SHELTON. MORRISTOWN, N. J., October 28, 1915.

BEAUTIFUL GARDENS

IN AMERICA

A GARDEN

Come not with careless feet To tread my garden's unfrequented ways. No highroad this, no busy clanging street, No place of petty shows and fond displays. Here there are blossoms sweet That shrink and pine from inconsiderate gaze; And here the birds repeat Only to loving ears their truest lays. Hither I can retreat And drink of peace where peace unravished stays. Herein are streams of sorrow no man knows-- Herein a well of joy inviolate flows; Come not with careless feet To soil my garden's sanctuary ways.

--ANONYMOUS.

I

THE GARDEN AND ITS MEANING

A world without flowers! What would it be? Among those who know, such a question needs no answer--and we are not seeking a reply from the uninitiated who, for lack of understanding and sympathy, can but gaze at us with wondering pity, when our gardens cause us to overlook so much that to them means life. But is there any life more real than the life in the garden for those who actually take part in its creation and nurture it carefully week by week and year by year? If, owing to this absorbing occupation, we fail to give a full share of ourselves to some of the social avocations of the busy world are we to be pitied for getting "back to the soil" to which we belong? Man was put by the Creator "in the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it," and even after his forced departure therefrom he was bidden to "till the ground," and the reward seems great to us who know the meaning of the signs and wonders continually being revealed in the garden world.