January, 1913 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



RATHER PERSONAL 



January ist is supposed to be 

 the best time of the year to turn 

 over new leaves and make good 

 resolutions. We have a number of 

 these new high-minded self prom- 

 ises ready to put in action at the 

 tolling of the New Year bells. 

 One of the most important is that 

 we shall restrain ourselves from 

 spending so much ink and paper in 

 describing our business home here 

 at Garden City and without proper 

 modesty setting forth our aspir- 

 ations. 



But, fortunately for us, these 

 pages of the January number go 

 to press a month before the end of 

 the year, and so before our new 

 resolutions come into force we 

 want to print a picture of our new 

 sun dial, which, after about two 

 years, has come to completion and 

 will last until long after this gener- 

 ation has gone to its final reward. 

 This illustration does not, we think, 

 do adequate justice to the dial, 

 which has many remarkable char- 

 acteristics. In shape it is ellipti- 

 cal, about seven feet by six, and 

 the base, which is embedded in the 

 ground below the line of frost is 

 made of marble dust and cement. 



It is placed at the lower end of 

 the path, in a room made of cedar 

 trees — or, as the editorial depart- 

 ment would say Juniperus Vir- 

 giniana — about i ,000 feet south 

 on the straight path from the pool. 



The designer is Mr. Walter 

 Gilliss, who has slaved on it for two 

 years, spending all the time he 

 could spare from his more difficult 

 job of keeping up the quality of 

 the work done by Country Life 

 Press, and on its white surface 

 are brass plates, made in our own 



shop, representing the first one hundred years of printing, begin- 

 ning with the Gutenberg Bible, the open pages of which, with beauti- 

 ful rubrics, show that superb specimen of printing — about the 



/ 



The great Sun Dial representing the first hundred years of printing 1455-1555 



best, as well as the first. The book 

 lies open at the Latin passage 

 which rendered into English words 

 reads: "Oh, that my words were 

 now written! oh, that they were 

 printed in a book." This repro- 

 duction was made from the well- 

 known Hoe copy now owned by 

 Mr. Henry E. Huntington. 



About the border are reproduced 

 in brass, embedded in the cement 

 of the base, the colophons of twelve 

 great printers who made the first 

 century of printing famous in 

 Germany, Italy, France, and Eng- 

 land. 



As a sun dial it is, of course, ac- 

 curate, and each day the upstand- 

 ing arm throws the sun's shadow 

 across the name plates of those 

 who led the world in the art of 

 printing from movable type. Mr. 

 Gilliss has composed and engraved 

 in enduring metal these words: 



O measure of time I Thou merest 

 mite within the endless providence 



of God, 

 May thy unerring finger ever 



point 



To those who printed first the 



written word. 



We think it a worthy monu- 

 ment to these venerable men: 

 Fust & Schoeffer 

 Bernardinus de Vitalibus 

 Hans and Paul Hurus 

 Aldus 

 ' Jenson 

 Caxton 



Wynkyn de Worde 

 The St. Albans Printer 

 Thierry Martens 

 Guillaume le Rouge 

 Gering & Rembolt 

 Plan tin 

 and well worth a visit. 

 Mr. Gilliss has written an account of the significance of the 



dial, a copy of which we will send to any of our readers who are 



interested in such things. 



