CHAPTER FIVE 



Garden Architecture 



4*^'4'-S-4i-HE architectural features of the garden — its arbors, 

 •^ I ^ gateways, fountains, and walls — are not onlv important 



^ ^ 'M . . ■ 



•^^'^^•^ sources of interest in themselves, but the means of com- 

 pleting the garden, of rounding it out, and giving it a 

 finished appearance. A path which leads one through a gate is 

 ever so much pleasanter a wav to take than one which has no such 

 inviting barrier, and a vista whicli is terminated is more delight- 

 ful than one which dwindles off with no object of interest to hold 

 the eye at its end. Even the flowers for which a garden chiefly 

 exists take on a charm and elusivencss thev do not possess of them- 

 selves, when thev are glimpsed through the posts of the plainest 

 grape arbor or seen through the frame of an arch. It is a certain 

 pictorial quality which good architecture contributes to the gar- 

 den and which flowers and shrubs alone lack, as well as an inter- 

 esting human note introduced bv it, that make it an important 

 consideration in planning a garden. 



Such intangible benefits are not easily explained to the man or 

 woman who has no interest in architecture itself, but the many 

 photographs in this chapter will express in more concrete form, I 

 hope, the value of good architectural detail in the garden. 



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