FENCES, BRIDGES, AND SUMMER-HOUSES 191 



of bark, and setting it in the ground on brick or stone 

 foundations. 



Used in this way, in accordance with simple and taste- 

 ful designs, rustic architecture finds its proper place in 

 the domain of the home grounds, but the moment the 

 rustic building becomes more pretentious in appearance 

 than is needed to carry the clinging folds of climbing 

 vines — and the fact should by this time have been made 

 evident that the structure's special function is support- 

 ing vines and giving people convenient and attractive 

 resting places — then such buildings, overloaded and ex- 

 cessively ornamented, look like intrusions on the lawn. 



,..-^v.„ 



WW=^M- 



SUMMER-HOUSE, CENTRAL PARK, NEW YORK. 



It scarcely needs to be said, however, that the highest 

 designing ability may be exercised profitably on the 

 simple lines and structure needed to complete the plain- 

 est arbor or summer-house for vines. There is a little 

 precaution to be taken in training vines over arbors and 

 summer-houses which, while it seems hardly worth men- 

 tioning, in practice helps the development in a short 

 time of an effective growth of leaves, and that is the inva- 

 riable erection of wires or lattice-work on all buildings 

 before the climbing plants are set out. In this way the 

 vines will gain support at once, and push up with redoubled 

 vigor, which may be still more enhanced by daily train- 



