It is a good plan to excavate the soil to a greater depth in the middle than at the sides, a shallow ledge round the margin will keep the roots of the water plants from spreading towards the walls. Most lilies and other aquatics look better if kept somewhat in the centre of artificial basins, and are more effective if entirely surrounded by water than crowded against the walls and corners.

Deep tanks have a further disadvantage in that they are seldom properly filled. Nothing looks more un­sightly than a tank in which the water scarcely rises half way. The walls cast a heavy shadow over the surface, the plants are unhealthy, and the water cold.

Besides, the lily tank should form a definite note in the scheme of design, a center which inspires the arrangement of plant grouping around. Sunken water surfaces are useless as reflectors, and are lacking in those color values which in sunlight are so precious. Even in quite large tanks the distance between the top of the kerb and the water line should not be more than two feet, in smaller basins twelve inches is sufficient.

If the ground surrounding sunk tanks has an upward slope it should be laid out in a succession of terraces. This is especially important where there is a wide margin of turf.

Nothing looks worse than a grass slope falling abruptly to the water's edge. Such an arrangement is fraught with danger, and the use of a mowing machine is difficult.

By connecting the various levels by short flights of steps, and substituting walls of rough stone or brick for the grass slopes, a much better effect will be gained. A skilled mason is not required to construct such walls, which may be built of the cheapest materials, the crevices furnished with wall and rock plants.

In garden courts abrupt changes of level are to be preferred to monotonous slopes and easy gradients, we gain then the charm of variety, and open up endless possibilities in the way of color and shadow effects.

In more elaborate lily tanks steps should actually lead into the water itself. A flight of broad, but shallow, stone stairs at either end of the tank cannot fail to greatly enhance its beauty. Their presence is a direct invitation to view the lilies more closely, a note of intimacy, which suggests that the water garden is made for our particular pleasure and interest.

High copings and balustrades act as barriers, and prevent the jeweled water surface from forming any close relationship with its surrounding features. Some may argue that steps leading into water, even continuing their way beneath the surface, are ridiculous, in this case, however, picturesque value far over-­rules any worthwhile principles.

We have only to remember a flight of weed-stained steps, the boat landing on some sleepy quay side, or the broad and spacious stairway, white and sunlit, which dips into a Venetian lagoon, to appreciate the idea.

Tanks which form part of some architectural scheme should be planted only with the best kinds of Water ­Lilies, whose formality and clearness of outline exactly fits them for such places. In the beds around should be grouped plants of stately foliage and somewhat stiff habit - Cannas, admirable both as to their well shaped leaves and gorgeous flower spikes, Madonna Lilies, Salvia patens, Funkias, especially F.sieboldi, Irises of sorts, and the cool green of Harts-tongue.

Free growing herbaceous plants must be excluded in this instance; however well adapted they may be as a setting for the quiet pool in the homely garden, they will be as weeds in the almost tropical brilliance of the formal Lily­ Court.