344 The American Flower Garden 



half wild or naturalistic planting come close to the doors as a patent 

 swing would be in an old-fashioned garden. Fitness is a factor 

 in giving pleasure. 



The Colonial lattice of maira patterns is, perhaps, seen at its 

 best about Southern houses, ^^elaborately illustrated chapter 

 might be devoted to the infinite variety of the lattice alone. 

 Where it is used for porches, galleries, fences, screens, well en- 

 closures, summer houses and garden furniture generally, it has a 

 decorative value none may gainsay. 



Wood is the most popular material for out-of-door furniture, 

 chiefly because it may be adapted to various styles; it can be made 

 up artistically and it is cheap,.but comparatively few gardeners have 

 any idea of the charming and varied uses to which lattices may be 

 put aside from screening off unsightly places and affording a foot- 

 hold for vines. Iron can rarely be introduced into a garden unless 

 it be handsomely wrought into grills for gates or frames for lanterns 

 at an entrance, or used for arches to support roses and other 

 climbers, as has been said. The iron mushroom seats painted white 

 or green that are often seen in public parks ; the comfortless settees 

 made of painted iron slats, usually rusty and destructive of clothes; 

 the iron chairs with alleged decorations of iron grape-vines ; the iron 

 figure of a little Negro boy holding out a ring to tie a horse to; iron 

 urns that afford the scarlet geraniums and magenta petunias a 

 rarely lost opportunity to swear at each other; the iron fountain 

 where a child holds a rusty iron umbrella over its head to catch 

 the spray; the iron deer that stands at bay amid harmless flower 

 beds on a suburban lawn these and all their awful kind are 

 rubbish for the junk heap, intolerable eyesores to people of taste. 

 Would that they might be banished forever from the American 

 flower garden! 



