# Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings/Chapter 6

CHAPTER VI.
GARDENS.
THE Japanese garden. like the house, prescuts 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, summerhouses 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.
Irregularly and grotesquely shaped stones and luge 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 Image missingFig. 263.Garden Tablet. 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.
​The stone lanterns (ishi-dōrō) are one of the most common yet important accompaniments of garden decoration. Indeed, Image missingFig. 265.Ishi-dōrō in Miyajima. 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 Image missingFig. 264.Ishi-dōrō in Tokio. 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. Image missingFig. 266.Ishi-dōrō in Shirako, Musashi. 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.
These stone lanterns are called ishi-dōrō. A legend states that in ancient times there was a pond ou 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 Image missingFig. 267.Ishi-dōrō in Utsunomiya. Prince Shotoko, in the second year of Suiko (591 {{asc|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.
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.
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 steppingstones, as seen in some of them, is decidedly unique.
​Page:Japanese Homes and their Surroundings 1885 by Edward S. Morse (1889 4th ed).pdf/319 ​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 ​Page:Japanese Homes and their Surroundings 1885 by Edward S. Morse (1889 4th ed).pdf/321 ​Page:Japanese Homes and their Surroundings 1885 by Edward S. Morse (1889 4th ed).pdf/322 ​Page:Japanese Homes and their Surroundings 1885 by Edward S. Morse (1889 4th ed).pdf/323 ​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.
​Page:Japanese Homes and their Surroundings 1885 by Edward S. Morse (1889 4th ed).pdf/325 ​Page:Japanese Homes and their Surroundings 1885 by Edward S. Morse (1889 4th ed).pdf/326 ​Page:Japanese Homes and their Surroundings 1885 by Edward S. Morse (1889 4th ed).pdf/327 ​Page:Japanese Homes and their Surroundings 1885 by Edward S. Morse (1889 4th ed).pdf/328 ​Page:Japanese Homes and their Surroundings 1885 by Edward S. Morse (1889 4th ed).pdf/329 ​Page:Japanese Homes and their Surroundings 1885 by Edward S. Morse (1889 4th ed).pdf/330 ​Page:Japanese Homes and their Surroundings 1885 by Edward S. Morse (1889 4th ed).pdf/331 ​Page:Japanese Homes and their Surroundings 1885 by Edward S. Morse (1889 4th ed).pdf/332 ​Page:Japanese Homes and their Surroundings 1885 by Edward S. Morse (1889 4th ed).pdf/333 ​Page:Japanese Homes and their Surroundings 1885 by Edward S. Morse (1889 4th ed).pdf/334 ​tons), 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.
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.