spaces must always be given, no matter how small the trees have to be kept to ensure this.
I remember a lovely garden at Karuizawa, where the British Ambassador’s wife spent a summer, which, to the Japanese idea, was ruined because of neglect in this point. The plan had doubtless been all right in the beginning, but, as the place was let to foreigners, less pains were taken to keep its values right, and the trees grew too big, and open spaces were crowded. Even to our ideas the trees and shrubbery were too close to the house, stifling it, keeping out the breeze, and harbouring insects in their damp shadows. All these errors brought it strikingly home to one who battled with mosquitoes at tea on the lawn how right Japanese gardening principles are, even from their and our different view-points.
One idea of theirs, with regard to trees, might be adopted by the foreigner who wishes to have it appear that he owns more country than is really his. If vegetation of a distinct and characteristic sort is seen beyond a man’s limits, he at once plants other trees of the same sort on his ground, so that it looks as if all were part of his own domain. And if one rare tree were found at a distance from the house, another would be planted near, to give a ‘family’ look to it. But this does not cause a cheapening of effect by too much repetition. It is exactly a parallel of the method of a painter
