Nor should there be an
unnecessary multiplicity of walks. We should aim at a certain breadth of
style. Flower beds may be here and there distributed over the lawn, but
care should be taken that it be not too much broken up by them. A few
trees may be introduced upon the lawn, but they must not be placed so
close together as to prevent the growth of the grass by obstructing
either light or air. No large trees should be allowed to smother up the
house, particularly on the southern and western sides, for besides
impeding the circulation through the rooms of the most wholesome winds
of this country, they would attract mosquitoes, and give an air of
gloominess to the whole place.
Natives are too fond of over-crowding their gardens with trees and
shrubs and flowers of all sorts, with no regard to individual or general
effects, with no eye to arrangement of size, form or color; and in this
hot and moist climate the consequent exclusion of free air and the
necessary degree of light has a most injurious influence not only upon
the health of the resident but upon vegetation itself. Neither the
finest blossoms nor the finest fruits can be expected from an
overstocked garden. The native malee generally plants his fruit trees so
close together that they impede each other's growth and strength. Every
Englishman when he enters a native's garden feels how much he could
improve its productiveness and beauty by a free use of the hatchet.
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