To begin with, Holland has a meagre list of in-
digenous trees and shrubs, and scarcely an indigenous
ligneous flora. There is little wood in the country,
for the heavy winds are calculated to destroy high-
growing trees, and the roots cannot penetrate into the
ground to any depth, without coming to water. The
land is flat, and although artificial mountains of
granite brought from Norway and Sweden have been
erected as barriers against the sea, there is scarcely
a stone to be found except in the Island of Urk.
The conditions of the country being so unfavour-
able to artistic handling, it needs a determined effort
on man's part to lift things above the dead-level of
the mean and commonplace. Yet see how Nature's
defects may only prove Art's opportunity ! Indeed, it
is singular to note how, as it were, in a spirit of noble
contrariness, the Dutch garden exhibits the opposite
grace of each natural defect of the land. The great
plains intersected with sullen watercourses yield up
only slight strips of land, therefore these niggardly
strips, snatched from "an amphibious world" (as
Goldsmith terms it), shall be crammed with beauty.
The landscape outside gapes with uniform dul-
ness, therefore the garden within shall be spick and
span. The flat treeless expanse outside offers no
objects for measuring distance, therefore the perspec-
tive of the garden shall be a marvel of adroit plan-



54, GARDEN-CRAFT.
