^96 
AMEEICAIT AGRlCtiLTTJElST. 
[July, 
Various Garden Structures. 
The beauty as well as the enjoyment of a garden 
may be greatly enlianced by the introduction of 
structures, the utility of which is apparent. If there 
Fig. 1.— A STILE FOE HEDGES. 
is a high eminence, it may be appropriately sur¬ 
mounted by an observatory, to allow of a still more 
extended view. If there is a lake or a stream, 
bridges will be suggested, and a boat-house may 
often be desirable. If there are ornamental fences, 
gates with ornaments are required, or if the grounds 
are divided by hedges, stiles will be needed. While 
garden structures are, as a rule, made in winter, 
summer, the time when the garden is most fre¬ 
quented, is the proper season for seleeting the lo¬ 
calities for them, and the best for judging what 
their effect will be. Summer is also a good time in 
which to select the material, though it may not be 
made up until winter. The several designs here 
given are those suggested by Mr. Elias A. Long, 
a landscape gardener of Buffalo, N. Y. 
Stiles. —Ornamental hedges are much more gen¬ 
erally used than formerly, and in some localities they 
largely serve the purpose of boundary fences. One 
of the objections to a hedge is the difficulty in cross¬ 
ing it. A gate in a hedge seems out of place, and 
the stiles are usually cumbrous stractures. There 
is no reason why a stile should not be as portable 
as a step-ladder, to be used wherever it is needed. 
Figure 1 shows how a stile of this kind may be 
built. The two parts, where they cross, are held 
together by bolts, or a single long bolt may be used ; 
the curved form of the sides allows it to be em¬ 
ployed without resting on and injuring the hedge. 
Bkidges.— Whoever has a stream, Iiowever small, 
running through his grounds can produce a variety 
of ornamental features. It may be improved as a 
stream, it may often be made to form a small 
lake, or its current may be dammed to produce 
pleasing cascades. A stream will often require the 
introduction of a bridge, or, in some cases, a bridge 
may cross a dry ravine. A bridge should be abun¬ 
dantly strong in its roadway, and the railings, while 
they may be ornamental, should always convey the 
idea of sufficient strength. Rustic bridges are very 
pleasing, and the design given in figure 2, is easily 
executed by the use of the branches of Red Cedar. 
In some places a bridge may be constructed of 
rocks, and bgiu better keeping with the surrouud- 
and dust, and generally became convenient tool- 
houses for the garden. A rustic summer-house may 
often be introduced as a picturesque object in the 
grounds, and may be a pleasing resort for reading, 
sewing, etc., in hot weather. A summer-house may 
often fitly crown a high portion of the grounds, 
wherever an extended view may be had, or an ab¬ 
rupt promontory on a lake. Figure 4, gives a pleas¬ 
ing design for a rustic summer-house of a hexago¬ 
nal form. It is built of Red Cedar, with three sides 
closed and three open. The interior is finished in 
small, straight branches of eedar, nailed on ob¬ 
liquely. The exterior of the closed sides, and the 
two half open sides, are finished in pieces of cedar 
poles, about three inches in diameter, and split in 
halves ; these are nailed on as shown in the engrav¬ 
ing. The, roof is thatched with straw, laid on 
from nine to twelve inches thick; this serves to keep 
the interior cool, and accords with tlw rustic style. 
The Importance of a Supply of Wood. 
No one who is .at all familiar with forests and 
their products, needs to be reminded of the impor¬ 
tance of having at hand an abundance of wood of 
various kinds, or how much it contributes to the 
general welfare and happiness of a nation. But there 
are those who have not paid much attention to this 
subject, who claim, and no doubt honestly believe, 
that the great progress made of late years in the use 
of iron in the place of wood in building houses, 
bridges, piers, ships, and other structures, are but 
indications of what is to follow, and that in a few 
years there will be no great demand for wood. 
The building of railroads, which reach almost 
every part of the country, has aided in the distribu¬ 
tion of coal, and made this in a great measure a 
more convenient, and in many instances a cheaper 
fuel than wood, but in building these roads a vast 
quantity of wood has been used, and of the best 
kinds, not only for tics, of which nearly or quite 
three thousand are put down per mile, but on 
many of the roads wood is still used for fuel. 
There is now nearly or quite one hundred thousand 
miles of railroads in the United States, and we 
have only to multiply this by three thousand, to 
ascertain that three hundred millions of ties liave 
been used in their construction, leaving out of ac¬ 
count the thousands of wooden bridges and other 
structures, in the building of which more or less 
wood has been consumed. The railroads may have 
assisted very materially in checking the consump¬ 
tion of wood for fuel, but they have probably more 
than balanced the account in the amount used in 
their construction, besides the three hundred mil¬ 
lion of ties must be duplicated every ten years, for 
the average life of a railroad tie will scarcely exceed 
a decade, and with nearly all kinds, except the best 
oak, it is a year or two less. 
The demand for railroad ties is not likely to de¬ 
crease, but increase, although as timber becomes 
and while it has done much towards making it pos¬ 
sible to produce sufficient iron to meet the great 
and constantly increasing demand, it has pot super¬ 
seded charcoal, and there is probably more char¬ 
coal used to-day than at the time coke was. first 
employed in a smelting furnace. Charcoal is still 
used in furnaces and forges, and there are several 
establishments in this country that use annually 
over a million bushels each, and a score of others 
that consume from twenty to twenty-five hundred 
thousand bushels. 
Notwithstanding the number of substitutes that 
are employed, the demand for and consumption of 
wood appears to increase, and to-day there is prob¬ 
ably more wood used for making boxes of various 
kinds than there was in the construction of build¬ 
ings of all kinds in the country three-quarters of a 
century ago. Fui-thermore, no kind or quality of 
timber appears to escape the insatiate demand of 
the artisan of the period, and he not only finds 
ready uses for the large and small, the hardest, 
toughest, and most durable, but also for the soft 
and spongy, the latter being preferred for grinding 
up into wood-pulp for making paper. 
Not a year passes during which scores of new de¬ 
vices and inventions of new articles of manufac¬ 
ture, are not brought forward, that are made in 
part or wholly of wood, and while singly they may 
not call for a great quantity., they do in the aggre¬ 
gate use up an enormous amount of the material. 
The invention of a pleasing toy for children has 
frequently caused the demolishing of hundreds of 
acres of forests, to supply the manufacture with 
wood used in its construction. It is idle to talk of 
Fig. 2.— A EUSTIC BBIDGE. 
Fig. 3.— A BEIDGE OF EOCKS. 
ings than a more elaborate structure would be. 
Figure 3 will afford a suggestion for building 
bridges of this kind. Rustic and rock bridges may 
be made still more picturesque by trailing the Vir¬ 
ginia Creeper, and other hardy climbers upon them. 
SuMMEE Houses. —Some fifty years ago it was 
thought necessary for every garden, large or small, 
to have a summer-house. These were cumbrous 
structures of timber and boards, with shingled 
roofs, and usually painted white, with green blinds. 
They were rarely used, but given over to cobwebs 
scarce and prices advance, preserving processes 
will doubtless be employed to prevent rapid decay. 
Stone, brick, and iron will also come into more 
general use for buildings, but the increase in pop¬ 
ulation will also tend to increase the demand for 
wood for other purposes besides that of buildings. 
It is only a little more than a century since coke 
was first employed for smelting iron ores. The 
introduction of this fuel to take the place of char¬ 
coal, it was thought would save the forests of the 
world from destruction by the charcoal burners. 
our natural forests furnishing a supply of wood for 
the future use of our people, even with the most 
careful management and economy in preventing 
waste, there must soon come a time of great scarcity 
of all kinds of wood. With an increase in popula¬ 
tion, there must necessarily follow a corresponding 
increased demand, because experience has shown, 
that whenever any other material has been substi¬ 
tuted for wood, it merely releases a certain amount, 
and allows it to seek otlier channels or markets. 
No matter in what direction we turn, the fact meets 
