THE NATURAL STYLE. 23 



sometimes they are very disgusting. As instances come 

 under my own observation, I may mention a lawn rase 

 made of an old stove painted red; a big rat-traj) trellis 

 with no honeysuckles to grow on it; a pile of oyster 

 shells supporting a plant tub on the green lawn ; and 

 small flower beds edged with inverted beer bottles. 



One of the most generally distributed mistakes of 

 this sort is the conventional rockery. There is not 

 space here to exj^lain how to make a good rockery; but 

 the general i^rinciple needs most to be emphasized, that 

 nothing will save a rockery from condemnation unless it 

 appears natural to its surroundings. It may be added 

 that the proper surroundings are not easily secured ; 

 and that the small, flat front yard of a city lot can 

 never furnish the associations to justify a rockery. 

 When a heap of stones is placed carefully in the mid- 

 dle of the hand's-breadth of clipped lawn it must be 

 evident to the most sightless observer that naturalness 

 is lost. 



Another affair much affected in some places is the 

 little trellis placed on the lawn for the exhibition of 

 climbing j^lants. This gives always a note of discord 

 amidst natural or semi-natural elements, and it is very 

 doubtful if such a trellis could be made agreeable in any 

 method of gardening. Climbers on the porches and 

 walls or on old tree trunks, or clambering wildly over 

 the tops of bushes, give a more efficient expression of nat- 

 uralness than almost any other material at the command 

 of the horticulturist ; and it is perhaps because of this 

 that they break so forcibly upon the rurality of the 

 scene when treated so thoughtlessly. 



The summer house, which may also be one of the 

 choicest charms of certain grounds, sometimes appears 

 as a very monster of ugliness. A long chapter might 

 be written here, also, detailing what is good and what 

 bad in the way of summer houses, rustic arbors and 



