Lovers of gardens realize that while bloom we must have in our 
gardens, it is not of sole importance, and proportion, balance, accent, 
architectural features count for as much, if not more, than flowers. 
For a knowledge of these things we must turn again and again to 
the gardens that history has pronounced beautiful. 
How many people build a charming and beautiful house and make 
a failure of the entrance gateway, and yet it would sometimes seem as 
if the interest in a house depended in a large measure upon the interest 
awakened at the gateway, and surely the enclosure of a garden may 
give it charm and dignity or leave it insignificant and without grace, and 
the indiscriminate craze for pergolas has often ruined the setting of the 
otherwise artistic creation of an architect. 
In "The Practical Book of Garden Architecture" we find an 
entire volume devoted to these often neglected details. One is inclined to 
wish that there had been fewer topics and more matter — spring houses 
and studios need scarcely have been included — but the book fills a dis- 
tinct need in garden literature and is readable and practical. Not only 
are suggestions in design given and well-known examples on private estates 
offered as illustrations, but the method of construction in each case of 
garden architecture is carefully outlined. Particularly interesting is the 
description of the beautiful retaining wall on the Woodward estate at 
Chestnut Hill. 
We wish to recommend to beginners in growing roses the excellent 
pamphlet on "How to Grow Roses," by Mrs. Baines, Vice-President of 
the Rose Society of Ontario, one of the most successful rose growers in 
Toronto. It can be procured for 1 cents from the Honorary Secre- 
tary, Miss Marion Armour, 103 Avenue Road, Toronto, Canada. 
We have received "The Practical Book of Outdoor Rose Grow- 
ing for the Home Garden," by George C. Thomas, Jr. (Lippincott, 
Philadelphia). Mr. Thomas' book represents years of successful ex- 
perimenting, assisted by Dr. Huey, the veteran rose grower, with the 
particular object of discovering what roses are best grown in this region. 
Lovers of roses will find the text well written, practical and reliable 
and the many color plates absolutely fascinating. It is a book that 
one must have. 
From Chas. Scribner's Sons, too late for reviewing, comes "The 
Italian Gardens of the Renaissance," by Julia Cartwright, a recon- 
struction from many documents of the beautiful and beloved, but almost 
entirely vanished, gardens of that epoch-making resurrection of classic 
taste which moulds us to this day. The book should help us to see and 
feel the old gardens with our imagination, that we may never see with 
our eyes, and thus realize our debt to the great classic past. 
