Don't have the pond in a sunless corner, the water will turn black and will have an offensive smell which all the plants in the world cannot remove. In fact the plants will die and there are very few species of fish that like such rank conditions. The sun induces plant growth, enabling the plants to extract the noisome gases from the water and convert them into food.

Don't be in too great a hurry over either the design or position of the pond ; once made it cannot be moved easily and it is very difficult to alter the shape.

Don't begrudge the best materials and don't be too sparing with them, it is better to have the sides an inch too thick than an inch too thin ; a leaky pond is more trouble than a leaky bicycle tyre and more difficult to repair. Don't put the plants in until all the poison has been soaked out of the cement, and don't put the fishes in until the plants are established -fishes soon disturb half-rooted plants. A final don't : Don't expect your pond to be mature in a few weeks ; Nature will not be hurried. If it is properly constructed and stocked with the right plants, fishes, snails, etc., in due course Nature will take it in hand. So much for the ' Don'ts' ; now a few words on pond design, beginning with the formal type.

The rigidly formal pond requires more careful planning than any other kind ; it must be symmetrical and it must be in propor- tion with the rest of the garden. Moreover, it is essential that the sides of a rectangular pond should be parallel with the sides of the garden.

As there are so many different shaped gardens and so many different formal designs it would be invidious to attempt to describe them all ; so I will merely give suggestions for laying out one type and these can be modified according to individual requirements. (See Fig. i.) This particular garden is rectangular with an herbaceous border around it and a lawn in the centre; the lawn is thirty feetwide and sixty feet long. The pond should be, say, ten feet long and eight feet wide, thus leaving ten feet of lawn at the two ends. It should be situated two-thirds down the lawn, not in the centre, otherwise the perspective is spoiled.