But it is worth noting, as an
expression of the pecuniary element in popular taste, that such a
method of keeping public grounds is seldom resorted to. The best
that is done by skilled workmen under the supervision of a
trained keeper is a more or less close imitation of a pasture,
but the result invariably falls somewhat short of the artistic
effect of grazing. But to the average popular apprehension a herd
of cattle so pointedly suggests thrift and usefulness that their
presence in the public pleasure ground would be intolerably
cheap. This method of keeping grounds is comparatively
inexpensive, therefore it is indecorous.
Of the same general bearing is another feature of public grounds.
There is a studious exhibition of expensiveness coupled with a
make-believe of simplicity and crude serviceability. Private
grounds also show the same physiognomy wherever they are in the
management or ownership of persons whose tastes have been formed
under middle-class habits of life or under the upper-class
traditions of no later a date than the childhood of the
generation that is now passing. Grounds which conform to the
instructed tastes of the latter-day upper class do not show these
features in so marked a degree.
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