STYLE IX ARCHITECTURE. 403 



fleeting' thatch roof and the Ijroacl masses of white wall. My 

 advice is, let no one attempt this style who cannot afford these 

 two features of length and mass — gables separated by 50 feet 

 of moleskin-like thatch look very different huddled together 

 on the iron roof of a suburban villa. The Cape gable was 

 bred from its Amsterdam prototype, but some of the Stellen- 

 bosch gables may be well compared with similar types in the 

 Isle of Thanet. Indeed, these so-called IJutch gables were 

 common at the period all over the north of Europe from Dant- 

 zic to Kent. 



I should like to refer for one moment to the subject of the 

 crafts of gardening", as it is intimately connected with the 

 setting" of our buildings on the landscape. In this country, as 

 in France and Italy, though less in picturesque England, all 

 buildings demand some modifying" connection or introduction 

 for the eye between the art of the building and the wildness 

 and crudeness of nature. There are few old buildings, or in- 

 deed whole towns, in the countries I have referred to, which 

 do not owe some of their beauty to their formal setting" in 

 hedge or avenue or terraced walls. 



In Italy the avenues of clipped ilexes are part of the soul of 

 the country. The Cape Colonists brought this wise tradition 

 from Holland, and much of the charm of the Cape homesteads 

 consists in the way the art of the formal group of buildings 

 is carried away gradually into wild nature by geometrical lines 

 and mass of garden walls and paddocks or avenues of oaks 

 and pines. 



While on this subject I cannot refrain from pointing" out how 

 thoroughly the recent snowstorm has justified the wise policy 

 of the Johannesburg Municipality in clipping" their trees. 

 Those that were clipped, unlike their wild neighbours on 

 private property, hardlv suffered from the storm. This 

 custom, derived from Italy and France, and dating" back prob- 

 ably to Rome and to earlier times, was probably invented in 

 the first instance to help the trees to resist the weight of snow 

 and strain of hurricanes. Then it was discovered that the habit 

 increased the shade-giving properties of the trees, and so there 

 grew up an appreciation of the beauty, as well as utility, of 

 the clipped avenue. The hedge also was cut and interwoven 

 or pleached, as it was called, lirst for protection and then for 

 beauty. 



Some of the clipped blackwood in the Job.annesburg streets 

 have almost the beauty of the Italian ilex — the beloved of all 

 artists — but if I may offer a hint to the Municipal Forester, the 

 artistic value of these rows of blackwood would be increased 

 manifold if double rows of the same kind were planted instead 

 of alternate rows of different varieties, a mistake never made 

 by the French or Italians with their keener sense of fitness and 

 beauty. I am far from advocating the clipping of all trees. 

 But nature, as it approaches the handicraft of man, should be 

 gradually brought into formal subjection to it. As Bacon 

 means in his " Essay on Gardens," there should be no sharp 

 contrast between art and nature, and, therefore, the formal 

 garden is introduced. 



