64 THE GARDEN BEAUTIFUL 



there was a space of six feet between a fence three 

 feet high and the house. A few light battens were 

 run from top of fence to bottom of windows on the 

 house at a height of about six or seven feet. On 

 these battens was fastened two-inch mesh chicken 

 wire and squash vines allowed to clamber over all 

 in early spring. All summer this arbor proved a 

 cool, shady and wholesome retreat for children from 

 all over that neighborhood. A load of river sand 

 on the ground beneath keeps it a popular resort 

 throughout the year. 



MISUSE OF VINES 



Many of our home owners have the "vine habit" 

 in chronic form; everything possible is weighted 

 down with an excess of overgrown and often inap- 

 propriate climbers. When they are used to cover 

 bare, unsightly walls and ugly buildings a justifica- 

 tion exists for allowing them to grow rampant and 

 riotous, but where used for ornament alone they 

 must be kept in check. Their delicate tracery upon 

 buildings is decidedly one of greatest beauty, but 

 they should never be allowed to grow so as to ob- 

 scure good architecture. 



There are buildings so inexpressibly ugly that 

 anything that would cover would be pardonable, but 

 such examples are rare, and generally he who has 

 such poor staste in building lacks sufficient love 

 for plant life to use vines at all. The greatest 

 abuse of vines really comes from those who 

 have more or less love for them, coupled with a 

 faulty judgment regarding the standard of beauty 

 as exemplified in plant life. Nearly all vines get 

 bare and ugly below with years of growth and nearly 

 all need to be replaced every few years. 



