pattern-bed, an uninterrupted
sward. Even where there are lapses from this delightful excellence they
often do not spoil, but only discount, more or less, the beauty of the
general scheme, as may be noted--if without offence we may offer it the
homage of criticism--in one of the gardens we have photographed [page
176] to illustrate these argumentations. There eight distinct
encumbrances narrow the sward without in the least adding to the
garden's abounding charm. The smallest effort of the reader's eye will
show how largely, in a short half-day's work, the fair scene might be
enhanced in lovely dignity simply by the elimination of these slight
excesses, or by their withdrawal toward the lawn's margins and into
closer company with the tall trees.

In New Orleans, where, even when there are basements, of which there are
many, the domains of the cook and butler are somewhere else, a nearly
universal feature of every sort of dwelling--the banker's on two or
three lots, the laborer's on half a one--is a paved walk along one side
of the house, between the house and the lawn, from a front gate to the
kitchen. Generally there is but the one front gate, facing the front
door, with a short walk leading directly up to this door. In such case
the rear walk, beginning at the front door-steps, turns squarely
along the house's front, then at its corner turns again as squarely to
the rear as a drill-sergeant and follows the dwelling's ground contour
with business precision--being a business path. In fact it is only the
same path we see in uncrowded town life everywhere in our land.

[Illustration: "There eight distinct encumbrances narrow the sward....
In a half-day's work, the fair scene might be enhanced in lovely dignity
by the elimination of these excesses."

The sky-line of this beautiful garden becomes a part of the garden
itself, a fact of frequent occurrence in New Orleans. The happy contrast
of rearmost oak and palm is also worthy of notice.]

But down there it shows this peculiarity, that it is altogether likely
to be well bordered with blooming shrubs and plants along all that side
of it next the lawn. Of course it is a fault that this shrubbery
border--and all the more so because it is very apt to be, as in three of
our illustrations [pages 174,178, 180], a rose border--should, so
often as it is, be pinched in between parallel edges. "No pinching" is
as good a rule for the garden as for the kindergarten. Manifestly, on