THE GARDEN BOOK OF CALIFORNIA 



nettings except they are used as a foundation for vines or 

 plants that conceal the wires from view. So covered, it is 

 both useful and artistic. An entire block of houses might be 

 fenced with the two-foot wire netting, and either the laven- 

 der or pink ivy geraniums, honeysuckle or other vines, roses, 

 or any other of a great variety of quick-growing plants will 

 speedily give it an attractive look. 



One of the charms of Montecito and Santa Barbara is 

 the free use of stone in the walls about the fine estates there. 

 There are literally miles of well-built stone walls, which will 

 be more beautiful after the "newness" wears off, and they 

 become vine-clad, and the mosses and lichens find them out. 

 I was also interested in walls built of the round "cobble- 

 stones," which are often taken out of the land which they 

 afterward inclose. By use of a little care very artistic walls 

 may be built of these stones, but they should be left in the 

 colors painted by nature. I speak of this because I have 

 seen with my own eyes "the impossible." Coming over a 

 country road, I passed a neat domicile, painted white, sur- 

 rounded with trees and flowers, and the whole neatly in- 

 closed with a wall of smooth "cobblestones," all carefully 

 whitewashed. 



One of the quaint sights of Santa Barbara is a fence, 

 a relic of pioneer days, built in what we are told is the 

 Mexican fashion, inclosing the grounds of the Natural 

 History Societies' buildings. In the early days of Santa 

 Barbara it was doubtless necessary to build such fences 

 against the incursions of cattle running wild over the hills. 



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