590 



JOURNAL OF THE. ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



being precisely correspondent (as well as contributory) to anaemia in 

 animals. In other respects also the author shows that variations in the 

 vegetable world must produce variations in the animal world for which it 

 provides food, and that these variations or deficiencies are in the main 

 the predisposing cause in many diseases. " The quality of the food is 

 governed by the mineral constituents present in or absent from the soil." 

 " Variations in plant food affect the immunity or otherwise of the animal 

 living on it, and these variations, either directly or through the animal, 

 affect man." 



" The Book of Garden Furniture." By Charles Thonger. (Sm. 8vo. 

 John Lane, 1903. 2s. Gd. net, 100 pages.) 



Under the convenient term "Furniture " are included Seats, Summer- 

 houses, Arches, Trellises, Pergolas, Gates, Fences, Edgings, Sun-dials, 

 Statues, Bridges, Fountains, Vases, Tubs — a goodly category. There are 

 some capital designs for simple but solid garden seats. In the formal 

 or Italian garden they could not be better than painted white, but in the 

 English garden (by which we mean a combination of spreading lawn and 

 sweeping trees and hardy flowers and shrubs) we should prefer them in 

 oak, or, if they must be painted, then in a pale glaucous olive-green. On 

 summer-houses the author is equally happy in his remarks and gives us a 

 picture both of the outside and of the inside of one such delightsome 

 building, which he calls " An open-air breakfast house," which makes one 

 long for a garden large enough and a purse long enough for the erection 

 of an exact replica of it. At page 34 again there is a charming choice of 

 trellis-work which would look perfectly enchanting when scantily draped 

 with Vines, Roses, Clematis, and other such like climbing plants — but 

 again, oh, for the sufficient purse ! We have not caught the latest craze 

 of * Pergola-fever,' as in nine-tenths of England in nine out of ten years it 

 is hardly ever warm enough to make pergolas enjoyable ; delightful in Italy 

 and Spain and the southern parts of France, but in England we prefer to 

 form a vista with a simple series of Rose-arches at a good distance apart, 

 so as to let what sun we have come in — something after the style of the 

 picture on page 50, which is itself dignified somewhat undeservedly with 

 the name of Pergola. On page 94 there is an exceedingly pretty picture 

 of a " Two-handled Vase," which would probably be far less expensive 

 than most of the pretentious things we ordinarily see. The book is well 

 worth its modest price. 



