The Japanese garden, like the house, presents features that never enter
into similar places in America. With us it is either modelled after
certain French styles, or it is simply beds of flowers in patches or
formal plats, or narrow beds bordering the paths; and even these attempts
are generally made on large areas only. The smaller gardens seen around
our ordinary dwellings are with few exceptions a tangle of bushes, or
wretched attempts to crowd as many different kinds of flowers as possible
into a given area; and when winter comes, there is nothing left but a
harvest of dead stalks and a lot of hideously‐designed trellises painted
green.
It is no wonder, then, that as our people have gradually become awakened
within recent years to some idea of fitness and harmony of color, the
conventional flower‐bed has been hopelessly abandoned, and now green grass
grows over the graves of most of these futile attempts to defy Nature. The
grass substitute has at least the merit of not being offensive to the eye,
and of requiring but little care save that of the strenuous pushing of the
mechanical grass‐cutter. This substitute is, however, a confession of
inability and ignorance,—as much as if a decorator, after having struggled
in vain with his fresco designs upon some ceiling, should give up in
disgust and paint the entire surface one color.
The secret in a Japanese garden is that they do not attempt too much. That
reserve and sense of propriety which characterize this people in all their
decorative and other artistic work are here seen to perfection.
Furthermore, in the midst of so much that is evanescent they see the
necessity of providing enduring points of interest in the way of little
ponds and bridges, odd‐shaped stone lanterns and inscribed rocks, summer‐
houses and rustic fences, quaint paths of stone and pebble, and always a
number of evergreen trees and shrubs. We, indeed, have feebly groped that
way with our cement vases, jigsaw pavilions green with poisonous compound,
and cast‐iron fountains of such design that one no longer wonders at the
increase of insanity in our midst. One of every hundred of the fountains
that our people dote upon is in the form of two little cast‐iron children
standing in a cast‐iron basin, holding over their heads a sheet‐iron
umbrella, from the point of which squirts a stream of water,—a perennial
shower for them alone, while the grass and all about may be sear and
yellow with the summer’s drought!
The Japanese have brought their garden arts to such perfection that a plot
of ground ten feet square is capable of being exquisitely beautified by
their methods. Plots of ground that in this country are too often
encumbered with coal‐ashes, tea‐grounds, tin cans, and the garbage‐barrel,
in Japan are rendered charming to the eye by the simplest means. With
cleanliness, simplicity, a few little evergreen shrubs, one or two little
clusters of flowers, a rustic fence projecting from the side of the house,
a quaintly shaped flower‐pot or two, containing a few choice plants,—the
simplest form of garden is attained. So much do the Japanese admire
gardens, and garden effects, that their smallest strips of ground are
utilized for this purpose. In the crowded city, among the poorest houses,
one often sees, in the corner of a little earth‐area that comes between
the sill and the raised floor, a miniature garden made in some shallow
box, or even on the ground itself. In gardens of any pretensions, a little
pond or sheet of water of irregular outline is an indispensable feature.
If a brook can be turned to run through the garden, one of the great
charms is attained; and a diminutive water‐fall gives all that can be
desired. With the aid of fragments of rock and rounded boulders, the
picturesque features of a brook can be brought out; little rustic bridges
of stone and wood span it, and even the smallest pond will have a bridge
of some kind thrown across. A few small hummocks and a little mountain six
or eight feet high, over or about which the path runs, are nearly always
present.
In gardens of larger size these little mountains are sometimes twenty,
thirty, and even forty feet in height, and are built up from the level
ground with great labor and expense. On top of these a little rustic
lookout with thatched roof is made, from which if a view of Fuji can be
got the acme is indeed reached. In still larger gardens,—that is, gardens
measuring several hundred feet each way,—the ponds and bridges, small
hills and meandering paths, with shrubs trimmed in round balls of various
sizes, and grotesquely‐shaped pines with long tortuous branches running
near the ground, are all combined in such a way by the skilful landscape
gardener that the area seems, without exaggeration of statement, ten times
as vast.
[Fig. 263.—Garden tablet.]
Fig. 263.—Garden tablet.
Irregularly and grotesquely shaped stones and huge slabs of rock form an
important feature of all gardens; indeed, it is as difficult to imagine a
Japanese garden without a number of picturesque and oddly‐shaped stones as
it is to imagine an American garden without flowers. In Tokio, for
example, there being near the city no proper rocks of this kind for garden
decoration, rocks and stones are often transported forty or fifty miles
for this purpose alone. There are stone‐yards in which one may see and
purchase rocks such as one might use in building a rough cellar‐wall at
home, and also sea‐worn rocks of various shapes and colors,—among them
red‐colored stones, that fetch a hundred dollars and more, brought from
Sado, an island on the northwest coast of Japan. So much do the Japanese
admire stones and rocks for garden decoration, that in their various works
on the subject of garden‐making the proper arrangement of stones is
described and figured with painstaking minuteness. In the figures to be
given of Japanese gardens, reproduced from a work entitled “Chikusan
Teizoden,” written in the early part of the last century, the arrangement
of rocks in the various garden designs will be observed.
Tablets of rock, not unlike a certain type of gravestone, and showing the
rough cleavage of the rock from the parent ledge, are often erected in
gardens. Upon the face of the rock some appropriate inscription is
engraved. The accompanying sketch (_fig. 263_) is a tablet of this sort,
from a famous tea‐garden at Omori, celebrated for its plum‐blossoms. The
legend, freely translated, runs as follows: “The sight of the plum‐blossom
causes the ink to flow in the writing‐room,”—meaning that one is inspired
to compose poetry under the influence of these surroundings. This tablet
was raised on a slight mound, with steps leading to it and quaint pines
and shrubs surrounding it. The sketch gives only a suggestion of its
appearance.
[Fig. 264.—Ishi‐dōrō in Tokio]
Fig. 264.—Ishi‐dōrō in Tokio
The stone lanterns _(ishi‐dōrō)_ are one of the most common yet important
accompaniments of garden decoration. Indeed, it is rare to see a garden,
even of small size, without one or more of these curious objects. They are
usually wrought out of soft volcanic rock, and ordinary ones may be bought
for a few dollars. They resemble stout stone‐posts of various contours,
round, square, hexagonal, or octagonal; or the upper part may be
hexagonal, while the shaft supporting it may be a round pillar; or they
may be of irregular form, built of water‐worn rock. The upper portion is
hollowed out, leaving various openings cut in ornamental shape; and in
this cavity a lamp or candle is placed on special occasions. They are
generally made in two or three sections. There are at least three distinct
types,—short and broad ones with tops shaped like a mushroom, these
generally standing on three or four legs; tall, slender ones; and a third
form composed of a number of sections piled up to a considerable height,
looking like a pagoda, which, for all I know, they may be made to imitate.
[Fig. 265.—Ishi‐dōrō in Miyajima]
Fig. 265.—Ishi‐dōrō in Miyajima
[Fig. 266.—Ishi‐dōrō in Shirako, Musashi.]
Fig. 266.—Ishi‐dōrō in Shirako, Musashi.
These stone lanterns are called _ishi‐dōrō._ A legend states that in
ancient times there was a pond on a certain mountain, in the vicinity of
which robbers repeatedly came out and attacked travellers. In consequence
of this, a god called Iruhiko caused to be built stone lanterns to
illuminate the roads, stone being a more enduring material. In a temple
built by Prince Shotoko, in the second year of Suiko (594 A.D.) the first
_ishi‐dōrō_ is said to have been erected, and the legend states that it
was removed from the region above named to this temple.(22)
[Fig. 267.—Ishi‐dōrō in Utsunomiya.]
Fig. 267.—Ishi‐dōrō in Utsunomiya.
A few sketches are here given illustrating some of the forms of _ishi‐
dōrō_ observed. The one shown in _fig. 265_ was sketched on the temple
grounds of Miyajima, on the inland sea. I was informed by the priest there
that this stone lantern was over seven hundred years old. Its base was
buried, and the whole affair showed evidences of great age in the worn
appearance of its various parts. Figs. 264 and 266 represent forms from
Tokio and Shirako, and fig. 267 an elaborately wrought one from
Utsunomiya.
[Fig. 268.—Stone foot‐bridge.]
Fig. 268.—Stone foot‐bridge.
The little bridges of stone and wood are extremely good examples of
rustic‐work, and might be copied with advantage in our country. The
ingenious device of displacing the stones laterally (_fig. 268_), or of
combining the bridge with stepping‐stones, as seen in some of them, is
decidedly unique.
_Fig. 269_ illustrates a stone bridge in one of the large gardens of
Tokio. The span of this bridge was ten or twelve feet, and yet the bridge
itself was composed of a single slab of stone. Fig. 270 shows a little
brook in a private garden in Tokio. Here the foot‐bridge consists of an
unwrought slab of rock. The _ishi‐dōrō_ showing in the same sketch
consists of a number of naturally‐worn stones, except the lantern portion,
which has been cut out.
[Fig. 269.—Stone foot‐bridge.]
Fig. 269.—Stone foot‐bridge.
[Fig. 270.—Garden brook and foot‐bridge.]
Fig. 270.—Garden brook and foot‐bridge.
The summer‐houses are simple and picturesque; sometimes they have a seat
and a _do‐ma,_ or earth floor; others will have a board or a matted floor.
These houses are generally open, the square thatched roof being supported
on four corner‐posts; others again will have two sides closed by permanent
partitions, in one of which an ornamental opening or window occurs. We
cannot understand what so intelligent an observer as Rein means when he
makes the statement that the Japanese garden contains no summer‐house,—for
it is rare to see a garden of any magnitude without one, and impossible to
refer to any Japanese book on the subject in which these little rustic
shelters and resting‐places are not figured.
The training of vines and trees about the summer‐house window is often
delightfully conceived. We recall the circular window of one that
presented a most beautiful appearance. Three sides of the summer‐house
were closed by permanent plaster partitions, tinted a rich brown color,
with a very broad‐eaved thatched roof throwing its dark shade on the
matted floor. In the partition opposite the open side was a perfectly
circular window five feet in diameter. There was no frame or moulding to
this opening, simply the plastering finished squarely at the border; dark‐
brown bamboos of various thicknesses, secured across this opening
horizontally, formed the frame‐work; running vertically, and secured to
the bamboo, was a close grating of brown rush. Over and around this
window—it being on the sunny side—there had been carefully trained outside
a vine with rich green leaves, so that the window was more or less shaded
by it. The effect of the sunlight falling upon the vine was exquisite
beyond description. When two or three leaves interposed between the sun’s
rays, the color was a rich dark green; where here and there, over the
whole mass, a single leaf only interrupted the light, there were bright
green flashes, like emerald gems; at points the dazzling sunlight glinted
like sparks. In a few places the vine and leaves had been coaxed through
the grating of rushes, and these were consequently in deep shadow. I did
not attempt to sketch it, as no drawing could possibly convey an idea of
the exceeding richness and charm of the effect, with the cool and shaded
room within, the dark‐brown lattice of bamboo and rush, the capacious
round opening, and, above all, the effect of the various rich
greens,—which was greatly heightened as the wind tremulously shifted the
leafy screens without, and thus changed the arrangement of the emerald
colors within.
My attention was first attracted to it by noticing a number of Japanese
peering at it through an open fence, and admiring in rapt delight this
charming conception. Such a room and window might easily be arranged in
our gardens, as we have a number of vines with light, translucent leaves
capable of being utilized in this way.
[Fig. 271.—Summer‐house in private garden, Tokio.]
Fig. 271.—Summer‐house in private garden, Tokio.
_Fig. 271_ gives a view of a summer‐house in a private garden in Tokio.
Four rough posts and a few cross‐ties formed the frame; it had a raised
floor, the edge of which formed a seat, and two plastered partitions at
right angles, in one of which was cut a circular window, and in the other
a long, narrow opening above; and crowning the whole was a heavily‐
thatched roof, its peak capped by an inverted earthen basin. Whether the
basin was made expressly for this purpose or not, its warm red color added
a pleasing effect to the gray of the thatch. In front and about it stones
and rocks were arranged in pleasing disorder, while a number of exotic
flowers and quaintly trimmed shrubs added their charms, and a little brook
found its way across the path leading to it.
_Fig. 272_ is the sketch of a summer‐house in one of the imperial gardens
in Tokio. The frame, as in the one last figured, consisted of round sticks
with the bark retained; this was capped with a thatched roof, surmounted
by a ridge of thatch and bamboo. A very pretty feature was shown in the
trellises, which sprung diagonally from each post,—the frame of these
trellises consisting of tree‐branches selected for their irregular forms.
The lattice was made of bamboo and rush, and each trellis had a different
design. The seat within was of porcelain; and about the slight mound on
which the summer‐house stood were curiously‐trimmed shrubs and dwarfed
pines.
The openings or windows in these summer‐houses are often remarkable for
their curious designs. The following sketches (figs. 273, 274) give a
faint idea of the appearance of these rustic openings,—one representing a
gourd, its frame being made of grape‐vine; the other suggesting a
mountain, the lattice being made of bamboo.
[Fig. 272.—Summer‐house in imperial garden, Tokio.]
Fig. 272.—Summer‐house in imperial garden, Tokio.
For border hedges, trees of large size are often trained to form a second
barrier above the squarely‐trimmed shrubs that come next the path. A
jinko‐tree is trained so that it spreads like a fan, in one direction, to
a width of thirty feet or more, while it may not be over two feet in
thickness. An infinite amount of patient work is required in tying all the
big branches and little twigs to bamboo supports in order to bring trees
into such strange forms.
[Fig. 273.—Rustic opening in summer‐house, Kobe.]
Fig. 273.—Rustic opening in summer‐house, Kobe.
[Fig. 274.—Rustic opening in summer‐house, Okazaki.]
Fig. 274.—Rustic opening in summer‐house, Okazaki.
In the garden of Fukiage, in Tokio, some very marvellous effects of
landscape‐gardening are seen. At a distance you notice high ground, a hill
in fact, perhaps fifty or sixty feet in height; approaching it from a
plain of rich green grass you cross a little lake, bridged at one point by
a single slab of rock; then up a ravine, down which a veritable mountain
brook is tumbling, and through a rock foundation so natural, that, until a
series of faults and dislocations, synclinals and anticlinals, in rapid
succession arouse your geological memories with a rude shock, you cannot
believe that all this colossal mass of material has been transported here
by man, from distances to be measured by leagues; and that a few hundred
years ago a low plain existed where now are rocky ravines and dark dells,
with heavy forest trees throwing their cool shadows over all. You wend
your way by a picturesque forest‐path to the summit of the hill, which is
crowned by a rustic summer‐house with wide verandah, from which a
beautiful view of Fuji is got. Looking back towards the park, you expect
to see the ravine below, but, to your amazement, an absolutely flat plain
of shrubbery, resembling a closely‐cropped tea plantation, level to the
top of the hill and extending to a considerable distance, greets your eye.
Have you lost the points of the compass? Walking out in the direction of
this level growth of shrubbery, a new surprise awaits you; for peering
through the bushes, you look down the slopes of the steep hill you had
ascended. The forest‐trees which thickly cover the slopes of the hill had
been trimmed above to an absolute level; and this treatment had gone on
for so many years that the tops formed a dense mass having the appearance,
from the summer‐house, of a continuous stretch of low shrubs springing
from a level ground.
I have spoken of the love the Japanese have for gardens and garden
effects, the smallest areas of ground being utilized for this purpose. As
an illustration of this, I recall an experience in a cheap inn, where I
was forced to take a meal or go hungry till late at night. The immediate
surroundings indicated poverty, the house itself being poorly furnished,
the mats hard and uneven, and the attendants very cheaply dressed. In the
room where our meal was served there was a circular window, through which
could be seen a curious stone lantern and a pine‐tree, the branches of
which stretched across the opening, while beyond a fine view of some high
mountains was to be had. From where we sat on the mats there were all the
evidences of a fine garden outside; and wondering how so poor a house
could sustain so fine a garden, I went to the window to investigate. What
was my surprise to find that the extent of ground from which the lantern
and pine‐tree sprung was just three feet in width! Then came a low board‐
fence, and beyond this stretched the rice‐fields of a neighboring farmer.
At home such a narrow strip of land would in all likelihood have been the
receptacle for broken glass and tin cans, and a thoroughfare for erratic
cats; here, however, everything was clean and neat,—and this narrow plot
of ground, good for no other purpose, had been utilized solely for the
benefit of the room within.
Reference has been made to the ponds and brooks as desirable features in
garden‐making. Where water is not obtainable for the purpose, or possibly
for the ingenuity of the idea, the Japanese sometimes make a deceptive
pond, which is absolutely destitute of water; so perfectly, however, are
the various features of the pond carried out, that the effect of water is
produced by the illusion of association. The pond is laid out in an
irregular outline, around the border of which plant‐pots buried out of
sight contain the iris and a number of plants which naturally abound near
wet shores. The bottom of the pond is lined with little gray pebbles, and
a rustic bridge leads to a little island in the centre. The appearance of
this dry pond from the verandah is most deceptive.
[Fig. 275.—Various forms of garden paths.]
Fig. 275.—Various forms of garden paths.
The real ponds contain either lotus or other aquatic plants, or they may
be given up to turtles or gold‐fish, and are oftentimes very elaborately
laid out with rustic, wooden, or stone bridges. Little promontories with
stone lanterns standing at their ends like miniature light‐houses, rustic
arbors or seats, trellises above supporting a luxuriant growth of
wistaria, and tortuous pines with long branches reaching out over the
water, are a few of the many features which add so much to that peculiar
charm so characteristic of Japanese gardens.
The pathways of stone are of many kinds. Sometimes the slabs of stone may
be finished squarely, and then each may be arranged in line across the
path, or adjusted in such a way from one side to the other that a zigzag
path is made; in other cases the path may consist of long slabs squarely
trimmed, or of large irregular slabs interrupted with little stones, all
compacted into the hard earth. _Fig. 275_, copied from “Chikusan
Teizoden,” shows some of these arrangements; and an idea of the way in
which the stone paths are laid out is well illustrated in figs. 283 and
284 (pp. 291, 292), copied from the same work. The entrance from the
street is seen at the left. The stone path leads through a courtyard to a
second gate, and from thence to the _genka,_ or entrance to the house.
[Fig. 276.—Wooden trough for plants.]
Fig. 276.—Wooden trough for plants.
Flowers, shrubs, and dwarf trees in pots and tubs are commonly used in the
vicinity of the verandah, and also about the garden for decorative
features; and here tasteful and rustic effects are sought for in the
design and material of the larger wooden receptacles. _Fig. 276_
represents a shallow trough made from a fragment of an old shipwreck,
blackened by age, and mounted on a dark wood‐stand. In this trough are two
stones, a bronze crab, and a few aquatic plants. Another wooden flower‐pot
of large size (fig. 277) is made from the planks of an old vessel, the
wood perforated by Teredo, and the grain deeply worn out by age. Its form
permits it to be carried by two men.
[Fig. 277.—Plant‐pot of old plank.]
Fig. 277.—Plant‐pot of old plank.
Among the most extraordinary objects connected with gardens are the dwarf
plum‐trees. Before the evidence of life appears in the blooming, one would
certainly believe that a collection of dwarf plum‐trees were simply
fragments of old blackened and distorted branches or roots,—as if
fragments of dead wood had been selected for the purpose of grotesque
display! Indeed, nothing more hopeless for flowers or life could be
imagined than the appearance of these irregular, flattened, and even
perforated sticks and stumps. They are kept in the house on the sunny
side, and while the snow is yet on the ground, send out long, delicate
drooping twigs, which are soon strung with a wealth of the most beautiful
rosy‐tinted blossoms it is possible to conceive; and, cunously enough not
a trace of a green leaf appears during all this luxuriant blossoming.
_Fig. 278_ is an attempt to show the appearance of one of these phenomenal
plum‐trees. It was over forty years old, and stood about three feet high.
By what horticultural sorcery life had been kept in this blackened stump,
only a Japanese gardener knows. And such a vitality! Not a few feeble
twigs and blossoms as an expiring effort, but a delicious growth of the
most vigorous and dainty flowers. The pines are equally remarkable in
their way. It is very curious to see a sturdy old pine‐tree, masculine and
gruff in its gnarled branches and tortuous trunk, perhaps forty or fifty
years old, and yet not over two feet in height, and growing in a flower‐
pot; or a thick chunk of pine standing upright in a flower‐pot, and
sending out vigorous branches covered with leaves (_fig. 279_), and others
trained in ways that seem incredible.
[Fig. 278.—Dwarf plum.]
Fig. 278.—Dwarf plum.
[Fig. 279.—Dwarf pine.]
Fig. 279.—Dwarf pine.
In a large garden in Tokio I saw one of these trees that spread out in a
symmetrical convex disk with a diameter of twenty feet or more, yet
standing not over two feet in height (_fig. 280_); still another one, in
which the branches had been trained to assume the appearance of flattened
disks (fig. 281). It would seem as if the artistic and picturesque taste
of the gardener followed the shrubs even to their winter shrouds of straw;
for when they are enwrapped for the winter’s cold and snow, the objects
even in this guise look quaint and attractive, besides being most
thoroughly protected, as may be seen by _fig. 282_ on page 290.
[Fig. 280.—Curiously trained pine‐tree.]
Fig. 280.—Curiously trained pine‐tree.
In this brief sketch of Japanese gardens only the more salient features
have been touched upon, and these only in the most general way. It would
have been more proper to have included the ornamental fences, more
especially the _sode‐gaki,_ in this chapter. It was deemed best, however,
to include fences of all kinds under one heading; and this has been done
in a previous chapter. The rustic wells, which add so much to garden
effects, might with equal propriety have been incorporated here; but for
similar reasons it was thought best to include with the wells the few
brief allusions to water supply and village aqueducts,—and these subjects
are therefore brought together under one heading in the chapter which is
to follow.
[Fig. 281.—Dwarfed pine.]
Fig. 281.—Dwarfed pine.
In this chapter on gardens, I regret the absence of general sketches of
the garden proper; but the few sketches I had made were too imperfect to
hazard an attempt at their reproduction. Moreover, not the slightest
justice could have been done to the thoroughly original character of the
Japanese garden, with all its variety and beauty. In lieu of this,
however, I have had reproduced a number of views of private gardens, from
a Japanese work on the subject published in the early part of the last
century,—though, so far as their general arrangement and appearance go,
they might have been copied from gardens to be seen in that country to‐
day.
[Fig. 282.—Shrubs wrapped in straw for winter.]
Fig. 282.—Shrubs wrapped in straw for winter.
[Fig. 283.—Showing approaches to house. (Reproduced from “Chikusan
teizoden”, a Japanese work.)]
Fig. 283.—Showing approaches to house. (Reproduced from “Chikusan
teizoden”, a Japanese work.)
The first illustration (_fig. 283_) shows the relation of the various
buildings, with the approaches from the street, which is on the left. Here
are seen two gateways: the larger one with swinging gates is closed; the
smaller one with sliding gate is open. The building with the two little
windows and black foundation is the _kura._ The pathway, of irregular
slabs of stone, leads around the sides of the _kura_ to a second gateway;
and beyond this the stone path continues to the _genka,_ or main entrance
to the dwelling. The drawing is a curious admixture of isometric and
linear perspective, with some violent displacements in point of sight and
vanishing points, in order to show fully the various details within the
limits of the plate. The other illustrations represent respectively a
little garden belonging to the priests’ house of a Buddhist temple (fig
284), a garden connected with the house of a merchant (_fig. 285_; the
legend says the owner is a dealer in dress materials and cottons), and a
garden connected with the residence of a Daimio (_fig. 286_). All of these
gardens were to be found in Sakai, Idzumi, nearly two hundred years ago,
and the more enduring features of some of them may still be in existence.
A study of these quaint drawings will enable the reader to recognize the
ornamental fences, quaint rocks, rustic wells, _ishi‐dōrō,__chōdzu‐bachi,_
stone pathways, and curious trees and shrubs so characteristic of the
Japanese garden, and so utterly unlike anything with which we are familiar
in the geometrical patches we are wont to regard as gardens.
[Fig. 284.—Little garden belonging to the priests of a buddhist temple.
(Reproduced from “Chikusan teizoden”, a Japanese work.)]
Fig. 284.—Little garden belonging to the priests of a buddhist temple.
(Reproduced from “Chikusan teizoden”, a Japanese work.)
[Fig. 285.—Garden of a merchant. (Reproduced from “Chikusan teizoden”, a
Japanese work.)]
Fig. 285.—Garden of a merchant. (Reproduced from “Chikusan teizoden”, a
Japanese work.)
[Fig. 286.—Garden of a daimio. (Reproduced from “Chikusan teizoden”, a
Japanese work.)]
Fig. 286.—Garden of a daimio. (Reproduced from “Chikusan teizoden”, a
Japanese work.)
It is a remarkable fact that the various trees and shrubs which adorn a
Japanese garden may be successfully transplanted again and again without
impairing their vitality. Trees of very large size may be seen, almost
daily, being dragged through the streets on their way from one garden to
another. A man may have a vigorous and healthy garden under way in the
space of a few days,—trees forty or fifty feet high, and as many years
old, sturdy shrubs and tender plants, all possessing a vitality and
endurance under the intelligent management of a Japanese gardener, which
permits them to be transported from one end of the city to the other. If
for some reason the owner has to give up his place, every stone and
ornamental fence, and every tree and plant having its commercial value,
may all be dug up and sold and spirited away, in a single day, to some
other part of the town. And such a vicissitude often falls to the lot of a
Japanese garden, enduring as it is. The whole affair, save the circular
well‐hole, may be transported like magic from one end of the country to
the other.