262 



THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



help to protect the sides of airy sheds. Larch comes in well where Oak 

 is not to be spared, and Larch shingling for the roof might be used, 

 as is commonly done in farm-houses in Northern Europe and America. 

 Little shelters for mowing machines, tools, and the like can be made 

 with wood covered with Larch bark, as at Coolhurst, and a very 

 pretty effect they have, besides being less troublesome to make 

 than the heather or thatched roofs, especially in districts where 

 the good thatcher is getting rare. The chip roof, also, of the wooded 

 country around London is an excellent one, lasting for half a century 

 or so if well made, but the men who made it so well are now less 



Vine-shaded bower. 



and less easy to meet with. And on the whole the best roof 

 for any structure that has to last is of tiles of good colour : tiles 

 made and tested in the locality being often the best. 



In this moist climate of ours water needs to be used with great 

 discretion. Above all things it must flow and not stagnate. Bacon, 

 who said so many things about gardens, summed 

 Fountains in up the case for fountains with his usual felicity: 

 gardens. " For fountains, they are a great beauty and refresh- 

 ment ; but pools mar all." No doubt we can all of 

 us recall some pool of great beauty, some moat with little broken 

 reflections that made almost all the charm of the garden wherein it 

 lay, but as a general rule Bacon is right. 



