Oldal 284 [284]
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This, too, is bordered and arched with towering trees and shrub¬
bery. One looks down a fine vista of two hundred feet to catch
a glimpse of water. The western slope of the garden breaks away
suddenly in a broad terrace to the bank of the little estuary of the
Ware. Along this bank, willows and cedars rise to a great height,
the nearer distance being filled with crepe myrtle, Pride of China,
lesser trees, and large clumps of shrubs. The terrace and its banks
are given over to bulbs, ferns, and grasses.
The walk at the northern end of the garden is edged with
numerous fruit trees. Originally the wide central space, allotted to
vegetables, berry bushes, asparagus beds, etc., was divided into
four squares, separated by lesser walks than those which sweep
around the four sides. These have now been abandoned.
The space originally designed to contain flowers and flower¬
ing or ornamental plants comprises between forty and fifty thou¬
sand square feet. In it will be found today many of the original
shrubs and bushes placed there by the Seldens. It is needless to
say that, in eighty-odd years, they have achieved a growth which
renders many of them conspicuously fine specimens of their several
varieties. A hastily-made catalogue compiled recently showed the
garden to contain more than forty kinds of shrubs and flower¬
ing trees. The display of lilies is especially intensive and fine.
Iris of every hue; great beds of tiger lilies; lilies, white and yellow,
and of other colors. ‘These for the spring and summer. In the
autumn thousands of chrysanthemums, dispersed in clumps that
vary from one or two stems to a hundred or more, keep the eye
well occupied.
The abiding interest and the chief distinction of the Sherwood
garden are the “old” things it contains. There is a gnarled smoke
tree the trunk of which is nearly two feet in diameter. Down
another walk a yaupon tree, a veritable cluster of stems, has at¬
tained a height of thirty-odd feet. By its side there is a Camelia
japonica that might grace the lawn as a shade tree. Before it
came to Sherwood, it had formed a single item in a bridal bouquet,
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