1. Seat, five feet long. Design based on develop- 
ment of the diagonals. Cost: 
$7.50; incidentals, 60 cents. 
cedar $1; labor, 
Total, $9.10 
Practical Suggestions for Rustic Work—By Richard Ferris, 
2. Ornate contrast with the overhanging rocks. 
Seat eleven feet long. Cost: cedar,$2; labor, $12.50; 
incidentals, $1. Total, $15.50 
3. Good in design, but the wood should have been 
heavier te give massiveness. Cost: cedar $1;labor, 
$7.50; incidentais, G0 cents. Total, $9.10 
New 
York 
UTILIZING THE NATURAL MATERIAL OF THE WOODS TO MAKE SEATS AND SUMMER HOUSES THAT “FIT” 
THEIR SITUATIONS, AND HOW DESIGN ENTERS INTO THE SCHEME — COMMON ERRORS THAT CAN BE AVOIDED 
pee simplest, elemental garden furniture 
is that made from the actual materials 
found on the place itself — trunks of fallen 
trees, broken limbs, and oddly shaped bran- 
ches that lend themselves to any sort of design 
work. In the wild woods a log roughly 
hewn and placed in any spot commanding 
a view, or where one might desire to rest 
in quiet seclusion, is rustic work in its 
simplest and most appropriate form. And 
as gardens become more objects of care 
and applied art — artificial in the strict 
sense of the word—there develops an 
appropriateness for artifice in the furniture, 
and hence the element of design is intro- 
duced into rustic work. 
As a rule, rustic work seems to lack fitness 
and repose, due to an almost nervous desire 
to make it too elaborately ornate, and it 
quickly passes into the grotesque and ridic- 
ulous. The amateur rustic-work builder’s 
greatest danger lies in not having the courage 
to leave off. The best rustic constructions 
are those made of a few heavy pieces for 
the main lines, and what little ornament 
The upright poles and the pine 
4. Covered seat. 
trees are in harmony. 
$9.25; incidentals, 65 cents. 
Cost: cedar, $2; 
Total, $11.90 
labor, 
Aw 
DB Fem Pe oro Bee Ee 
SP GAC GHE OE ® 
Showing how the straw is attached to the roof 
frame. A, section. B, method of wiring 
there is added only on a definite scheme of 
decoration. These points are emphasized 
in the present series of illustrations showing 
work done for a semi-public place at Lake 
Mohonk, N. Y. 
One advantage of this class of work is its 
cheapness. The materials cost next to 
nothing; labor is the one costly item, but 
many GARDEN MaGaZIne readers will like 
the occupation and there is at times play for 
considerable ingenuity in selecting and fitting 
properly the various pieces of wood. Then 
again the work offers a congenial occupation 
during periods of the year when garden 
work proper is slack. 
There is no more durable material and, 
in my opinion, none more picturesque than 
red cedar. It is worked up easiest when 
freshly cut; if left to dry, it becomes very 
tough and is inclined to crush under the tool. 
If it is cut very early in the spring, the bark 
may loosen a little while the wood is being 
worked on, but as the wood dries out it will 
tighten again. When red cedar is used 
the seat pieces are made from wood three to 
five inches in diameter split through the 
276 
centre to display the deep red heart in the 
white sap-wood. In finishing, these pieces 
are hewn slightly hollow on the flat side and 
smoothed with a small block-plane and 
sandpapered. After being nailed in place 
they are immediately oiled, for the fading 
of the red color in the heart-wood is very 
rapid. The next day a coat of spar varnish 
is applied, and a second and third coat given 
at intervals of two days. The same treat- 
ment is given to the ends of all prominent 
posts and braces, which are rounded and 
smoothed with jack-knife, block-plane and 
sandpaper. 
The joinings are all hollowed out with a 
gouge so that the parts will fit snugly and 
smoothly. The beauty of the finished 
structure depends largely upon an accurate 
fitting of parts. Variety is obtained by 
sometimes halving in the sticks, allowing 
the ends to pass by. Generally, these 
structures are built in place, the posts being 
set in holes two feet deep and well rammed. 
But in some locations the character of the 
5. Semicircular seat with, back in three flat sur- 
faces forming a half hexagon. Cost: cedar, $1; 
labor, $7.50; railing and platform. $8; incidentals, 
65 cents. Total, $17.15 
