The American Flower Garden 



Dianas surprised at the bath, detract from the central point of 

 interest in these fountains just a single jet of water tossed high 

 into the air forty or fifty feet in the larger ones and falling in 

 clouds of misty spray among the towering cypresses and pink acacias 

 in the surrounding groves. Everywhere is water in motion the 

 same water utilised over and over again now sparkling and pris- 

 matic in the sunshine, now deep and dark in pools that reflect the 

 exquisite colours of the surrounding vegetation or the moss-grown 

 balustrades on the lofty terraces that rise tier upon tier up the 

 steep, verdant hillside. Whoever owns even a little brook and a 

 little cottage on a hill and a little money to invest in joy will wish to 

 play with some of the ideas for garden making that crowd his 

 mind as he strolls through the grounds designed by Cardinal 

 Ipolito d'Este, the master gardener of his day. For the principles 

 of art are of well nigh universal application. 



Happily for those to whom stone work and marble are pro- 

 hibitively costly, there are now made in this country some admirable 

 reproductions of classical models in artificial stone that withstand 

 frost. The fountain of conventionalised lions that is the central 

 feature of a small circular garden in a carriage turn-around, 

 illustrated in the second chapter of this book, is made of a con- 

 crete composition that is as practical as it is effective and inexpen- 

 sive, having weathered five winters without showing a crack. A 

 village carpenter made the moulds for the round basin into which 

 concrete was poured to dry and harden in the sun. Garden fur- 

 nishings in artificial stone Pompeiian tablets, Roman chairs, 

 Greek vases, Italian fountains, pergola columns, balustrades, 

 well-heads, ornaments for entrance gates and garden walls, sun- 

 dial mounts, big decorative pots for flowers, clipped boxwood, 

 bay and formal evergreen trees, may all be bought so cheaply that 



