272 
The Garden Magazine, June, 1924 
terminated vista; but seldom is a seat the terminating object. 
The Italians used sculpture with a prodigal hand in their gar¬ 
dens; and fountains, temples, the hermae or terminal figures, 
urns, pedestals surmounted by figures, all recur at frequent in¬ 
tervals to reward the gaze compelled along given lines by clipped 
avenues or tree-bordered paths. 
Americans have an inherent dislike for sculpture in the gar¬ 
den, a dislike that is a heritage perhaps from the cast-iron rein¬ 
deer period which is still near enough to haunt us. Or it 
may be the scarcity and expense of good sculpture that 
are accountable for our reluctance to use it, or our fear 
of that other bugaboo, “formality.” Whatever the state 
of our minds regarding sculpture, we have got as far as 
granting that a vista must be terminated and, because a seat 
is one of the few objects we think permissible in a garden, we 
are forced to use it, regardless of its fitness for the purpose. 
It were better to design a place where the seat will be used and 
enjoyed and let the vista go unterminated. 
Arbors in Their Logical Relation 
A NOTHER accessory of the garden—the arbor—is, happily, 
more often treated as integral with the garden design, 
than the seat. Once in a while one sees an arbor or a pergola 
EXPRESSLY DESIGNED TO FIT THE PLAN 
Grape arbor and seats made to frame a formally arranged 
vegetable garden with dipping pool in the center of the 
path; at the home of Mrs. Charles G. Stamm, Westport, 
Connecticut; Marjorie Sewell, Landscape Architect 
that begins at no place in particular, and leads to no place at 
all, or an arbor that cuts down across a small parcel of property 
dividing it needlessly into badly proportioned pieces. It is 
an architectural feature and as such needs to have a 
logically related position in the garden scheme, related 
if possible to other buildings on the place rather than 
hanging loose in the landscape. If it cannot be 
hitched to any existing building its beginning and 
end are best lost in heavy planting which will tie 
it into the surrounding landscape; moreover the 
path that runs beneath it should connect easily 
with other paths, so that the arbor will appear 
to lead to some place. It has very definite direc¬ 
tion of itself and should therefore be placed where 
its direction will be useful to emphasize length, or 
if the contrary effect is desirable, to produce a 
feeling of greater width by cutting off a too long 
prospect. 
An arbor is seldom good over the center path 
of a garden by reason of the fact that it divides 
the garden into compartments—-one on each side; 
and yet this rule must be amended to except an 
old garden 1 once saw, which had a low old- 
fashioned arbor spanning the central path with 
very close gardening in the area between the arbor 
and the high walls on each side. Tall trees above 
the walls shut off any view at the sides and one’s 
entire attention was directed out under the arbor 
to the distant view framed at the end. Here the 
side walls, which, on account of the reinforcing 
trees, had the effect of being extraordinarily high, 
dwarfed the arbor so that the garden was still a 
unit, undivided by the arbor. 
Do not go so far in an attempt to connect the 
arbor with the house as to bring its end up against 
a terrace; if the terrace is above the grade of the 
arbor path, one feels as if it would be impossible 
to descend into the arbor without bumping one’s 
head. Even if the levels are the same the effort 
at a connection is too patent and the arbor would 
be better placed ten or twenty feet distant with 
a centering path that runs out from the terrace, 
and planting high enough to confine the view, and 
form a kind of tunnel to the arbor. 
Very often an arbor can be used advantageously 
as the partial background for a garden (it will always 
look better in the landscape if in turn it has a 
background of trees rising above it), and so-used, 
it must be pierced bv occasional openings to the 
garden itself. The path entering and leaving its 
ends should be a path which continues round the 
BIRD-BATH AS THE TERMINUS OF A VISTA 
“Whatever the state of our minds regarding sculpture, we have got as far 
as granting that a vista must be terminated.” Garden of Mrs. Daniel E. 
Pomeroy at Englewood, New Jersey; Ruth Dean, Landscape Architect 
