22 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The great wave of "garden magic" that is sweeping over us 

 and is being so enthusiastically encouraged by many magazines 

 and writers of today is awakening in us the fact that we ought 

 to make more use of our gardens apart from the pleasure of gather- 

 ing and caring for flowers; and we ought to make them look 

 attractive by the introduction of features that will give charm 

 when there are no flowers in bloom, as is always the case in this 

 climate six or seven montlis out of the year. There is more to 

 gardening than the mere raising of flowers. If any person does 

 not think so he had much better raise his flowers as he would 

 vegetables, in simple beds by themselves, rather than make a 

 feeble attempt to dress up his grounds with fantastically arranged 

 flower beds. And this same princi})le holds true in regard to the 

 employment of garden accessories. Better make no attempt to 

 use them at all, if it cannot be done more artistically than we 

 sometimes see in some country places which have been absolutely 

 ruined by spotting them with hideous statues and flimsy iron 

 fountains and the like; but such cases are comparatively rare. 



One of the most useful of garden accessories and one that looks 

 appropriate in almost any garden is a summer-house, or garden- 

 house, or exedra, as it is sometimes called in Italian gardens. 

 No matter whether your garden is large or small, formal or natur- 

 alistic, there is generally a cozy sjjot where a simimer-house would 

 fit nicely. The intense heat of our summer sun in New England 

 almost necessitates such a shady retreat where one may sit and 

 enjoy the beauty of the surroundings. I dare say all of you can 

 recall many gardens beautiful enough in themselves but decidedly 

 unliveable because of this hot sun. 



The summer-house need not be a pretentious affair unless the 

 grounds around it are rigidly formal. Some of the most charming 

 ones are made of red cedar with the bark left on, or of rough oak, 

 roofed with stout beams and thatched with straw or pine needles. 

 I have in mind two such simple structures, illustrations of which 

 I will now show you. This one I had the interesting experience 

 of constructing unaided on my ])lace in Belmont, and I think I 

 learned more about carpentering during the time it was being 

 erected than I could have in years of study in theory. Surely if 

 bruised hands and hammered thumbs coiuit for anvthing I accom- 



