PERFUMERY-GARDENING 



PERGOLA 



2551 



and copious bloom of Rhododendron arborescens in the 

 southern mountains has been suggested for treatment. 

 It L to be feared that the delicious odor of the native 

 crab-apples would be too expensive, considering the 

 difficulty of collecting enough petals. The bloom of the 

 wild grape might well be thought of. Many of our 

 plants these are only examples will eventually be 

 tried and a few will be found steadily valuable. It is 

 useless to expect commercial success with small and 

 scanty-flowered plants like trailing arbutus, Epigsea 

 repens, however pleasing in their natural state. 



The production of perfumery oils may be conducted 

 on large farms by capitalists; or a central establish- 

 ment may contract with individuals for flowers, and 

 other materials; or the business may be conducted 

 cooperatively; or individuals may operate on a small 

 scale in connection with other lines of farming. Some 

 competent women to whom other avenues are closed 

 may find this work available and congenial. 



Intending experimenters should seek further informa- 

 tion in one or more of the books which are before the 

 public. With regard to methods of extraction, Asian- 

 son's ''Perfumes and Their Preparation" may be con- 

 fident! y recommended. Sawer's "Odorographia" (espe- 

 cially the first series) is valuable both to the extractor 

 and the grower. Piesse's "Art of Perfumery" will also 

 be found useful on both sides of the subject. Gilde- 

 meister and Hoffman's ''Volatile Oils" is also very 

 valuable. Also consult E. S. Steele's article on "Per- 

 fumery-Gardening" in the Yearbook of the United 

 States' Department of Agriculture for 1898. Vol. XXII, 

 part 2, of the Journal of the Royal Horticultural Soci- 

 ety (London, 1898) contains a list of perfumes and 

 plants that yield them, and also a list of books on 

 perfumes. E. S. STEELE. 



W. VAN FLEET.! 



PERGOLA. The word "pergola" closely interprets 

 its original meaning: from the Latin "pergula," a 

 projecting roof, shed, or vine arbor, from "pergere," 

 to reach forward or project; and from the Italian 

 "pergola," a grape which remains upon its trellis all 

 winter. From this derivation and use of the word, it 

 will readily be seen how the term has become one of 

 common usage in modern garden design, rightly or 

 wrongly to designate almost any type of arbor or vine- 

 support in the present-day garden. In order to under- 

 stand the purer and less general meaning of the word, 

 the garden vine-supports may be divided into two 

 kinds or types: (1) treillages, decorative or otherwise, 

 which may broadly be considered as designed in one 

 simple geometric plane, perpendicular to the garden, 

 their dimensions, height, and length being determined 

 only by their use and detail design; and (2) pergolas 

 and arbors, designed or planned in three planes, having 

 height, length, and breadth, and, in brief, being archi- 

 tecturally conceived tunnels over which vines are- 

 trained or grown, the arbor and the pergola differing 

 only in the detail of their design. 



The pergola is invariably flat-topped, its semi-open 

 roof being formed either by rustic poles or timbers of 

 varying size, laid at right angles to the length of the 

 structure, or by similarly laid but regularly spaced 

 rafters or timbers of definite size and cut, this partially 

 open roof being supported in either case by posts or 

 columns of an architectural character equally and 

 oppositely spaced. In simpler description, the pergola is 

 a horizontal vine-support raised upon piers or columns, 

 each of the latter standing free and independent of the 

 other, the vines being encouraged to lie flat over its top. 



The arbor, in distinction from the pergola, is, in its 

 simplest form, a treillage or vine-support of a skele- 

 tonized form, with sides and top generally alike, its 

 top, or roof, being flat or curved as its design may 

 determine. In detail, its construction consists usually 

 of regularly and oppositely spaced wooden posts sup- 



162 



porting not over-thick strips and rails of the same 

 material, these extending horizontally. Other material 

 than wood is often used in arbor-construction, but the 

 design and character remain generally the same, a 

 skeletonized tunnel for the support and training of 

 vines over its entire surface. Therefore, while similar 

 in origin and use in the garden, the pergola and the 

 arbor must not be confused in their character and 

 design. The arbor is, in fact, a development of the 

 even earlier-used pergola, which in medieval gardening 

 often became the pleached alley (or alle), and in the 

 early French and English gardens the very decorative 

 and often complicated tunnel or gallery of treillage. 



The pergola is numbered among the oldest pieces 

 of garden architecture extant. The Egyptian used it as 

 a covered walk from one part of his domicile to another, 

 or to his garden house; Pompeii and ancient Rome 

 prove its constant use, Vitruvius, describing the garden 

 attached to the villa of Diomedes, saying, "behind the 

 fish pond ornamented by a fountain, there was a plat- 

 form over which vines were trained on a wooden frame- 

 work supported upon six columns of stucco. " In Italy, the 

 pergola can be traced through the various transitions 

 of the Italian gardens from those of earl}' imperial times 

 through the medieval, to the architectural or formal 

 gardens of the Renaissance and today. In the great 

 medieval period, the pergola and the cloister were often 

 synonomous in use, differing only in the material of their 

 construction, the latter being largely the outgrowth 

 and development of the former. As early as the begin- 

 ning of the fifteenth century, the pergola was in com- 

 mon use in France, being found not only in the mag- 

 nificent gardens of the kings, but as a feature of the 

 smallest town gardens of Paris. Riat, in his most 

 authentic garden history, "I/ Art des Jardins," care- 

 fully notes and describes the use of the pergola at this 

 time; Hill, one of the earliest of English writers on 

 gardening, in his "Gardener's Labyrinth," published 

 about the middle of the sixteenth century, claims the 

 pergola to be "so winded that the branches of the vine, 

 melon, or cucumber, running or spreading all over, 

 might shadow and keep both the heat and the sun 

 from the sitter there under, and offer him cool and 

 shaded passage." William Herman, in his "Vulgaria," 

 published in 1519, tells us that "alleys in gardens, 

 covered with vines, do great pleasure with the shadow 

 in parch j-nge heat, and clusters of grapis maketh a 

 pleasant walkynge alley." Thus, in brief, it will be 

 seen that the pergola and its close kin, the arbor, have 

 been used in all time and manner of gardening, the 

 earlier English colonists bringing both to America, 

 where their popularity, especially of late, has been so 

 great as often to cause their degeneration in design 

 and misconception in use. 



There is no decorative or useful feature in the garden 

 scheme which has been more inadvisedly used than 

 the pergola. Like our gardening, which has naturally 

 become composite and therefore often impure in taste, 

 so the pergola has become subjected to all manner of 

 diversity in use, material, and design. It can be made 

 an excellent motif and component of a good garden 

 scheme, if properly and carefully considered. Its 

 value is not as a mere floating incident, untied and non- 

 related to some stronger element or to the frame of the 

 garden. It must be given a "tying-together" or cor- 

 ridor value in order best to serve and express its use. 

 The garden should be designed in a manner to call for 

 its use as a covered passage between the house and 

 the garden entrance; or to connect one garden, or 

 part of a garden, with another; or to separate garden 

 from garden, offering substitute for the wall, hedges, or 

 lattice, which might otherwise be used; or allowed to 

 enframe or terminate the garden, a situation in which it 

 may often be used to fine advantage either alone or in 

 combination with a garden house or shelter; but it 

 should not be so designed and placed as to serve merely 



