PARK AND CEMETERY 
155 
natural contour of the land. Natural beauty is sacri- 
ficed to an imaginary necessity.” 
“Many cross roads make cross people, while short 
cuts always give relief to those who use them.” 
“Every ‘Keep Off the Grass’ and ‘No Trespassing’ 
sign and every barrier to divert travel, and every tram- 
pled-down, projecting corner, is conclusive evidence 
that the contest between bad designing and the public 
is on.” 
“Utility establishes the standard of beauty. Every 
landscape gardener should wear the word ‘Utility’ in 
his hat.” 
“While women wear birds, abhor the sight of an 
earth worm, admire the torture of grass spread out 
in front of the house with its lungs cut out, and allow 
trees to be treated as telegraph poles, and while their 
husbands measure the desirability of all things by the 
cash value put upon them, it is no wonder that homes 
are not better decorated.” 
“When I speak of the landscape gardener as doing 
the decorating, I think of him as in the capacity of a 
physician; the best one does not have healthy patients, 
but he usually has the largest number of them and 
signs the greatest number of death warrants.” 
“City people seem to think that when the October 
leaves begin to turn, they have seen all that is desirable. 
The changes of autumn and spring, with the meanings 
that go with them, are full of a charm that city folks 
hunger for without knowing what ails them.” 
“Although there may be much in nature that lacks 
beauty, nothing can be beautiful unless it conforms to 
the requirements of nature.” 
“The principal reason why the country is considered 
more beautiful than the city is the more natural meth- 
ods followed in maintaining highways and byways. 
Yet these are constantly being obliterated bv what are 
called improvements.” 
“Illustrations of expensive homes are nearly always 
made from photographs ; artists whose ambitions are 
idealistic will not waste their time on them.” 
“I wonder what percentage of the people notice the 
persistent and unconscious effort of the public to estab- 
lish paths, notwithstanding the fact our laws make it a 
criminal offense to do so. Few stop to think that at least 
95 per cent of travel in a city is from the extremities 
to the center and back again; with this fact in mind, 
try to imagine the waste travel daily in the zigzag 
routes we are compelled to take.” 
Marbleifor Lawn Furnishings 
One of the recent innovations that has brought 
about a large importation of Italian marbles 
is the growing use of marble art objects as lawn fur- 
nishings and outdoor decorations for handsome coun- 
try estates. In all parts of the country this display 
has become evident. At Bar Harbor, Newport and 
the famous country seats up the Hudson, not only are 
the usual marble statues displayed upon the lawns and 
in shaded parks of millionaires’ homes, with costly 
marble lions and dragons guarding entrances and gate- 
ways, but little spring-houses have given place to ex- 
pensive marble well-sweeps, and wonderfully carved 
tables and lawn benches are frequently found. The 
Philadelphia Press illustrates and describes a number 
of these marbles found on the country estate of the 
Harrison family near Philadelphia. Marble and ce- 
ment and beautiful carvings surround a spring which 
has been deepened into a well and three broad circular 
steps are surmounted by two colonial columns which 
support the handsomely carved well-sweeps. Near by, 
on the same lawn, is a massive circular table of marble, 
with richly carved marble benches on each side, while 
a little further up the slope of the lawn is a handsomely 
carved sundial. 
This class of adornments includes well curbs, 
wall fountains, garden benches, vases, sarcophagi and 
an extensive variety of stone or marble lions. Importa- 
tions of these objects from Italy began about five years 
ago, and there are now two firms in New York and one 
in Chicago which import them extensively. Some of 
them are genuine antiques bought from bankrupt Ital- 
ian families, but the majority are clever imitations by 
Italian “fakirs”. They employ expert marble cutters 
and have close copies made of fine works of art on 
private estates, especially in the neighborhood of Flor- 
ence, Naples and Venice. Copies are also sometimes 
made of pieces in museums, but not so often. While 
the antique works are usually of the white Carrara 
marble or the pinkish Verona marble, the copies are 
chiefly of sienna marble, Istrian stone or a hard cement 
which closely resembles stone. 
A variety of processes are skillfully used to give the 
imitations the desired antique effect. Among these 
are judicious hammering to remove any sharpness of 
outline, the use of acids and other chemicals, exposure 
to rain which has dripped against iron and burial of 
the object for a time in the earth. They do draw the 
line at stone and marble lions, however, as these are 
too plentiful and nearly all are admittedly copies of 
antiques at garden gateways and palace entrances. It 
is said that only some six or eight pairs of genuine 
antique lions have ever been brought from Italy to this 
country, but more have been secured from England 
and France. 
