346 The American Flower Garden 



youth upholding a bronze bowl to catch the splash from the fountain 

 in Mr. Louis Tiffany's garden, has a reason for existence, and it suf- 

 fices on a large estate of remarkable beauty. But to clutter a garden 

 with marble figures and mutilated fragments of antiques from a 

 New York auction room in the misguided belief that such are 

 essential to an American garden designed in the Italian style is 

 "good taste misplaced/' 



Old English formal gardens contained much lead statuary 

 which was counted more harmonious with the sombre landscape 

 than white marble images. A craze for the curious figures has 

 recently revived among our cousins across the sea, but it has 

 little to feed upon because many were shipped to America as 

 "works of art" during the Revolution and promptly melted into 

 bullets here probably the most effective use to which they were 

 ever put. A very few that escaped the smelting pot are still extant 

 in old New England and Southern gardens. 



Native stone of mellow colour makes admirable garden furni- 

 ture and it ages well, which cannot be said of marble in our climate. 

 Simple pieces in stone may be made at a not prohibitive cost by 

 any good mason, working by the day slab seats and tables for 

 pergolas, sun-dial pedestals and low, broad steps, for example. 

 Wherever stone and marble seats are used in shady places, portable 

 cushions will surely be laid on them by the sensitive and the 

 rheumatic. Elaborate ornaments for entrance gates, balustrades 

 for terraces, fountains and vases will probably be secured by one's 

 architect and seldom be home made, unless one can secure the ser- 

 vices of some exceptionally skilful stone-cutter with an artistic eye 

 v/ho can be trusted to copy a picture or scale drawing. But Italian 

 masons, expert in decorative work, are already numerous in this 

 country, and more will be forthcoming. See to it that the replicas 



