282 
The Garden Magazine, June, 1924 
T H E climate of many parts of the United States has almost 
tropic summers, and in addition to that, our wealthier 
families are building themselves Aladdin’s palaces from south¬ 
ern California to Florida in order that summer may be gained 
all the year. This means that life out of doors is increasing 
and the need of gardens as places of refuge from our too con¬ 
centrated and hectic lives is being felt and craved. 
In early days our forefathers turned to English gardens as 
models that harmonized with their Colonial or Georgian 
houses, but now interest in the open-air life of southern Cali¬ 
fornia and Florida has brought with it adaptations from Spain 
and Italy. For centuries Southern Europeans have used 
their gardens for family life more than for utilitarian purposes, 
and both Spain and Italy give us an infinite variety of models 
in the sense of the house being the center of the scheme. 
All these gardens give opportunities for fountains, pools, 
streams, brooks, and small lakes. There is no need to slavishly 
copy the Old World, but only to take suggestions and inspi¬ 
ration, developing these to fit our own needs and the topog¬ 
raphy of a particular plot of land. 
There are few regions in the United States where water is 
not plentiful and therefore, the use of it for decorative pur- 
POTTERY GIVES 
BRILLIANT COLOR 
“A number of artists are be¬ 
ginning to design and model 
fountains in pottery, glazing 
them with brilliant colors. 
This idea comes to us from 
the Orient and later through 
Spain.” Two wall fountains 
designed and executed by 
Susan W. Tyler in Persian 
blues, greens, and grays 
poses should increase. At 
the Vanderbilt Estate, Bilt- 
more, N. C., the landscape 
scheme is on a vast scale 
and water plays an interest¬ 
ing part. The French Broad 
River is included in the 
middle distance and this 
again is diverted to form 
a lagoon, which lies at the 
foot of the mountain whose 
top was levelled to build the 
house and formal gardens 
on. Biltmore House, its 
gardens and its approach, 
are an interesting adaption 
of old French chateau arch¬ 
itecture to an extremely 
WALL FOUNTAIN FOR GARDEN OR SUN-PORCH 
A vivacious and distinctive rendering of the familiar and pleasantly 
convivial grape and bacchante motif in terra-cotta and natural color 
cement against cement wall with coping of terra-cotta brick; de¬ 
signed by Maude S. Jewett and exhibited by the East Hampton 
Garden Club at this season's International Flower Show, New York 
no possibility of a fountain or cascade there would surely be 
a pool. 
In many parts of India and China water was plentiful enough 
for liberal use, but in Persia, an arid country, only the rich could 
attain fountains or pools by means of a primitive irrigation 
system which brought water from a great 
distance. The poor placed a jar of water 
in the centre of the garden as a suggestion 
or symbol of what they could enjoy only in 
imagination. Egypt had elaborate still- 
water effects, made by drawing the waters 
of the Nile into canals. In these canals 
grew the famous Fotus, the symbol of im¬ 
mortality. 
The drier the country the more passion¬ 
ately the dweller therein longs for water 
and green foliage, and it is no wonder that 
much labor, wealth, and thought were 
spent in the Orient on gardens and foun¬ 
tains. The combination of heat and lack 
of water made those containing pools or 
fountains very oases of life. Moreover, for 
the seclusion of the women and children, 
this green place set apart, cage though it 
might be in fact, was at least one furnished 
with every comfort for the body and 
beauty for the eye. When the heat of the 
day was over the household assembled 
there for conversation, music, dancing, and 
play for the children. With the sound of 
running water, the song of birds, the scent 
of tropical flowers and delicious fruits to 
be eaten for the picking, the gardens of the 
East were a boon to those who gathered 
in them after the heat of the day. 
