368 THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



with cast patterns on them are ugly, but iron seats need not be so, 

 and some old iron seats quite simply made of lath or rod iron were 

 fairly good, and it is not difficult to cover the seat with bamboo 

 trellis-work or matting for the summer season. Some of the French 

 wooden seats are simple and good in form, and, painted a nice carna- 

 tion-leaf green, they look very well. Bamboos, which come in such 

 quantities now in the sugar ships, might be more used for making 

 pretty garden seats. Sometimes old tree stumps help to make useful 

 seats, and the bole of the tree, if cut, makes a very good rustic seat. 

 Where stone is plentiful, as in many hill and other parts, it is often 

 easy to make useful seats out of blocks of stone in rocky places. Of 

 this sort I saw some pretty examples at Castlewellan and the rocky 

 district around. 



THE COVERED WAY may be a charming thing in a garden and 

 make a home for climbers, as well as a shady way, and also form a 



Marble slab seat with Oak lattice cover. 



valuable screen. Shade is more essential in other countries than in 

 ours, and the Italian covered way is often a very picturesque object. 

 The best material to make the supports of is rough stone or brick. 

 On an enduring support like this the woodwork is more easily con- 

 structed afterwards. Simple rough stone posts may be had in certain 

 quarries in the north of England, in the lake country, but in the 

 absence of these it will be better to build columns of brick or stone 

 than to trust to any wood. In all open-air work the enduring way is 

 true economy, and though we cannot all readily get the hard green 

 stone gate posts stained with yellow Lichen of the farms about 

 Keswick, or the everlasting granite fence posts that one sees in Italy, 

 we should make a stand against work which has to be done over 

 and over again. Of woods, Oak free of sapwood makes the best 

 supports ; Larch is good, but best of all, perhaps, is the common 

 Locust tree, which, however, is seldom plentiful in a mature state. 

 For all the other parts of covered ways nothing is better than old 



