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RUSTIC FURNITURE. 



The reason why we so seldom see good 

 examples of rustic furniture, is because 

 the makers of this sort of work are, 

 generally speaking, a set of miserable 

 incapables. Take a turn anywhere 

 about the suburbs of London at this 

 season, and you will see, here and 

 there on the roadsides, little collections 

 of lop-sided, splay-footed, bandy, bow- 

 legged, and broken-backed specimens 

 of tables, baskets, garden seats, and 

 little vases at the top of broomsticks, 

 from any hundred of which a man of 

 taste would find it difficult to select a 

 single specimen that he could pleasure- 

 ably put to use. Having no sense of 



of wood for the purpose. Oak is the 

 leading material with most makers. 

 It is gnarled and knotty, picturesque 

 even to the last chip ; but in my ex- 

 perience I have found it the very 

 worst of woods when exposed to the 

 weather. The summer sun searches 

 into every fibre, and soon makes a ruin 

 of any piece of furniture constructed 

 of it, and it gets worm-eaten to such 

 an extent as to resemble the bottom of 

 a colander, and at last falls to pieces. 

 Others may give a different verdict. 

 The Oak I have had has usually come 

 from Epping and Hainhault forests, 

 and it really is a most miserable mate- 



propriety, these carpentering geniuses 

 work by the rule, that to be rustic a 

 thing must be ugly — the uglier the 

 better. They see beauty in swelled 

 knees and cork-screw legs ; they have 

 yet to learn that a lew rough loppings 

 and gnarled branches are as capable of 

 symmetrical arrangement, as if they 

 were polished mouldings of satin-wood. 

 But the customers are most to blame, 

 for I suppose they do find people to 

 admire their zigzags. What is there 

 that somebody with more money than 

 wit will not admire ? 



There is one matter of great im- 

 portance to every one who dabbles in 

 rustic work, and that is a proper choice 



rial. For tables and blocks of any 

 kind that are required to be ornamen- 

 tal there is nothing better or more 

 beautiful than Yew. It may be either 

 varnished or polished, and either way 

 its colour and veining are admirable, 

 and it lasts for ever. For smaller 

 work, and especially for the pet of 

 baskets or other uses where light tim- 

 ber is required to come in contact with 

 the soil, there is nothing better than 

 the Locust tree, or false Acacia, a wood 

 that proves brittle and chippy in all 

 ordinary carpentering, but _ which 

 never parts with its bark, or yields to 

 the influence of moisture. For trel- 

 lises to rustic arbours the crooked lop- 



