The Modernist Garden 



Here a spade is no longer a spade, nor are the birds 

 you see of the featliery kind. 



The Eesthetic lady gardener of today wears a cos- 

 tume in tune with the great out-of-doors and only the 

 flowers are still what nature intended them to be, it 

 seems. 



The art of to-morruw has struck the gardening cult and 

 struck it hard. The strong and steady hand of the aes- 

 thetic reformer having accomplished its winter stunt in 

 studio and household interior has now turned its attention 

 to the open air, and an interesting exhibition of imple- 

 ments and designs for the use of the amateur gardener is 

 the result. 



No more can one say with economical impulse toward 

 the conservation of material, "Of course the old dress is 

 nothing but rags, but I can take it into the country and 

 use it for gardening," and sit back with that righteous 

 feeling that one has when one has conquered the obsession 

 to spend money. 



For the gardening costumes are as complete, as ex- 

 pensive and as artistic as those designed for my lady's 

 matinal shopping tour, her luncheon party, her tango tea 

 and her dinner. Looking at them one is inclined to be- 

 lieve that gardening is destined to become an artificial 



accomplishment, such as it was when Marie Antoinette 

 built "Le Petit Trianon" so that she might be a charming 

 shepherdess, and in pompadour gown, a Fragonard hat, 

 carrying a tiny fan, she might be rowed about upon a 

 make-believe lake. 



Charming smocks, dainty gowns, embroidered blouses 

 and gloves whose gauntlet wrists show crests and coat of 

 arms are shown by specialists in gardening equipments. 



In this same display there are wonderful baskets that 

 look like hats and hats that look like baskets. One is 

 tied under the chin, the other over the arm. Equipped 

 with these you may sally forth, perchance to dig, per- 

 chance to dream, perchance to reap the harvest you may 

 have sown, but always secure in the ethical ease that 

 comes from wearing good clothes appropriate to the occa- 

 sion. 



There are also shovels, not the old-fashioned kind our 

 grandmothers used when a spade was just a spade and a 

 yellow primrose by the brook's brim was just a yellow 

 primrose, but shovels that answer all the requirements 

 of the very latest nomenclature ; they will even, it is 

 claimed by the fair owner, dig if one insists. The handles 

 are painted in those vivid colors which, it is claimed, our 

 souls require after the long penitential season of pastel 

 shades or sackcloth-and-ashes-of-roses tints. When you 

 go to plant daiTodils you may have a spade to match the 

 flowers exactly. Pink snapdragons need no longer have 

 the siiil placed about their roots by a drali or dustv gray 





'^^3/'';^>ri'^l'^.^ 



.\N IDEAL LOCATION FOR .\ CITY G.\RDEN SPOT— /F TIIK "IRKIG.MOR" PROVES TRUSTWORTHY. 



