THE FLOKAL WORLD 



AND 



GAEDEN GUIDE. 



JULY, 1867 



ARTIFICIAL STONE EOR GARDENS. 



[0 find a reliable and elegant substitute for stone is a 

 matter of the highest importance in the laying out and 

 embellishment of gardens. In the formation of terraces 

 and in every variety of architectural garden, as also in 

 the formation of gardens in town, it is next to impos- 

 sible to do well without employing stone, or a substitute for it. As 

 a rule, stone is too costly to be extensively used in gardens, and in 

 the most richly-furnished places we find curbs, statuary, urns, 

 fountains, and vases made of iron or sham stone, of various degrees of 

 merit, there being no hesitation at all on the part of the proprietors of 

 great gardens in employing the cheapest material obtainable for the 

 purpose, the admitted costliness of stone making an end of all shame 

 on the subject. A man of means and taste would not care to put a 

 plaster urn in his entrance-hall, or a cast-iron vase upon the stair- 

 case in his mansion, but in the garden he will countenance them, for 

 the climate is not kind to marble, and custom sanctions the imitation 

 of it. 



The grand question for practical men is, whose or what particular 

 preparation is the best where real stone cannot be employed ? There 

 are several varieties of artificial stone offered to the public, but three 

 of them occupy a prominent place in the competition for favour, and 

 they are respectively known as Austin and Seeley's, Rosher's, and 

 Ransome's. The product of the last-named manufacturer has been 

 frequently recommended in these pages, and we are induced once 

 more to direct attention to it, for the patentee, Frederick Ransome, 

 Esq., has recently adopted a new method of manufacture, which 

 results in the production of a beautiful material, at a considerably 

 cheaper rate than heretofore. 



At the time of writing this, we have just returned from a visit 

 to the works of the Patent Concrete Stone Company, at East 

 Greenwich, where Mr. Ransome's new process is being carried out. 

 About a hundred scientific men were invited to witness the process 

 of manufacture, and the unanimous opinion was, that a most im- 

 portant advance had been made, not only in the production of a 



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