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placed in this area should be included in the garage or else erected along the 

 boundaries. Unless small buildings are decorative in themselves, as might be the 

 case with children's play houses, they are apt to be unsightly. However interest- 

 ing they may be, small buildings must be correlated with the entire plan for the 

 yard if they are to become an integral part of its scheme and look well. It is 

 possible to place garages, playhouses, arbors, and like structures along the lines of 

 division between service yards and lawns, and thus they may serve simultaneously 

 as boundaries, and as decorative and useful features. Of course, all coordina- 

 tion of the parts of a yard plan expresses planning and forethought, and makes the 

 yard appear orderly, useful, and interesting, it looks well because it is 

 essentially good. 



Considerable interest may be added to small yards by the judicious use of 

 gateways, lattices, trellises, arbors, seats, and other architectural details. It is 

 well to use only such details as are apparently useful. A gateway between the 

 garden and the front yard is a part of the barrier between the public and the private 

 areas; but it can also serve as a decorative feature of the garden. Necessary 

 lattices and walls may likewise be made decorative. Seats should not be so 

 placed as to be conspicuous termini of views, but should rather be situated in those 

 parts of the yard or gar den where one would en joy sitting. A bird house or a bird 

 bath may be grouped with a decorative seat ; but whatever the situation chosen for 

 them, it should not be such as to make them appear as an afterthought. All 

 decorations should be conceived only as a part of an entire plan. The designs of 

 such decoration should be refined, carefully proportioned, and of suitable motif; fur- 

 thermore, they should be suited to the house and yard in style, in material, and in 

 workmanship. Costly decorative objects, or imitations of them, are usually in 

 poor taste; and such decoration, especially if unsuccessful, makes a garden appear 

 ordinary. The results are displeasing indeed. So far as possible, wood should be 

 used about the garden, although iron is also appropriate for gates if the design is 

 very simple. 



Water features are, as a rule, a proper decoration only for more elaborate resi- 

 dences. For most city or suburban homes, running water is a considerable ex- 

 pense, and in this respect alone fountains or pools are costly. Yet to have foun- 

 tains which only play on great occasions is ridiculous. A fountain necessitates 

 constantly running water, and, in fact, fountains become interesting only when 

 they have been used for a considerable time till they have become mossy. 

 It is sometimes possible to use such features as a bird bath properly and with pleas- 

 ing effect, but in very simple homes one had better resort to other means of decor- 

 ation. Much the same may be said concerning the use of sundials. These were 

 formerly a useful means of telling the time; but now-a-days everyone recognizes 

 their impracticability for all but elaborate decorative schemes. It is impossible to 

 give definite advice, or to make definite statements, regarding these features, as 

 every situation is necessarily a law unto itself. A good plan needs little or no 

 decoration, and if one restricts the decoration of his yard practically to useful 

 architectual details, even within these narrow limits he must use great judgment 

 and exercise much good taste. 



