One seldom has a well to maKe into A cement well head at the entrance An old fragment provides a convenient This is a Japanese antique fountain 

 a garden feature to a California estate water supply on a Bar Harbor estate 



Garden Furniture— By Henry H. Saylor, ?s 



SUGGESTIONS FOR TRANSFORMING THE HOME GROUNDS INTO AN OUTDOOR LIVING-ROOM— A CLEAR AND ORDERLY 

 ACCOUNT OF THE MANY ARTICLES WHICH ARE OFTEN PURCHASED WITHOUT A THOUGHT OF THEIR FITNESS 



[Editor's Note. The Garden Magazine ojjers $25 for the best article inspired by this one. It must be by an amateur who has transformed his garden into an outdoor living-room^ 



FURNISHING a garden is, after all, 

 much like furnishing a house. The 

 safest rule to follow is that oft-quoted dictum 

 of William Morris, "Have in it only such 

 things as you know to be useful or believe 

 to be beautiful." He spoke of the house, 

 but what is the garden if not an outdoor 

 living-room — an extension of the home with 

 a merely incidental omission of the floor, 

 walls and ceiling? 



And it is far easier to follow this rule in 

 the garden than indoors, where the gifts of 

 unthinking relatives and the purchases of a 

 reckless moment clutter mantel shelf, table 

 and wall in hopeless confusion. Fortun- 

 ately, one does not receive Christmas presents 

 of garden bric-a-brac — as yet. 



What things are necessary, then, in the 

 garden? A place to sit down, surely; for 

 though some of us are so busy digging and 

 spraying that we never have a chance to 

 rest and enjoy the beauty that we are foster- 

 ing about us, still our family and our friends 

 can enjoy it, and will enjoy it if they can 



sit down and do so at their leisure. A seat 

 or two, then, is our first necessity. A bench 

 for two of red cedar can be bought for from 

 $8 to $15. Or, you can build one for your- 

 self if the digging and spraying does not 

 require your undivided attention. Red cedar 

 is the best wood for this purpose, white cedar 

 coming next. The bark clings to the wood 

 if the sticks are cut in the fall when the sap 

 is not running. Paint the ends of the poles 

 with a heavy red or ochre lead paint, and 

 drive all nails well in, so that the heads do 

 not make unsightly rust spots. 



If you do not consider rustic seats beautiful 

 as well as useful there are other kinds. The 

 marble seat — a slab on two supports — is 

 beautiful in a formal garden which has 

 evidently not lacked anything else that money 

 could buy. A most incongruous sight it is, 

 however, in the garden which has been 

 starved for want of good plants and care. 



For the man who does not like rustic 

 furniture and can afford a fitting setting for 

 it there is the marble bench costing from $60 



to $250. The same designs in limestone 

 are ten or fifteen per cent, cheaper. Then 

 too, there is the bench made of cement, a 

 material which has proven its adaptability to 

 so many uses in the last few years. A simple 

 bench without a back costs about $30. The 

 more elaborate designs with backs, six or 

 seven feet long, cost from $65 to $75, while 

 a still more elaborate seat, semi-circular and 

 about ten feet in diameter, costs $150. 



Cheaper still are the seats in finished 

 cypress, painted white or green. A six-foot 

 seat of good design may be had for $25, 

 while the semi-circular kind, ten feet in 

 diameter, cost about $45. A four-foot bench, 

 with no back, costs $12. 



Leaving garden seats, the necessities in 

 furniture depend entirely upon the size and 

 character of the particular garden in question. 

 In a small, informal one anything other than 

 a resting place would have to be classed with 

 "those things we believe to be beautiful." 

 In a more pretentious outdoor living-room 

 a fountain, a cement or wood balustrade, or 



FolKs used to build seats around a tree but it is a 

 good deal of a makeshift 



A garden seat of stone nearly covered by Japanese 

 Ivy (Ampelopsis tricuspidata, also known as A. Veitchi) 



278 



It costs as much to do this as it does to put in 

 attractive furniture 



