The size of your garden should not exclude the sun-dial. In this little English yard they have given the sun-dial the place of honor in a 
court of roses 
Sun-dials and How to Make Them 
THE MOST CHARMING GARDEN ACCESSORY OF ALL—HOW THE DIAL MAY BE LAID 
OUT FOR YOUR OWN LOCALITY—PEDESTALS AND WHERE TO PLACE THEM 
by William A. Vollmer 
Photographs by Thos. W. Sears, N. R. Graves and others 
W HEN the garden planning is all complete and each row 
has its proper relation to its neighbor, when the har¬ 
monies of color and form show forth the constructive unity of 
the artistic scheme, and bench and path are in the exact arrange¬ 
ment, is the work all done? Is there nothing more to do but the 
future weeding and spraying, the cutting and pruning? There 
is still one thing left 
out: the sun-dial. 
Whether the first 
thought or the last de¬ 
tail, it is necessary for 
completeness. 
Somehow the dial 
is closely linked with 
gardens. Its very 
name conjures up the 
associations of the 
old-fashioned — not 
merely a past decade 
or century, but ’way 
back before man had 
ceased companionship 
with Nature. The sun¬ 
dial is the interpre- 
A sun-dial with a millstone base that is tei of the garden s 
simple and unpretentious divinity, the sun; or 
perhaps the embodiment of its active principle which fosters life 
in the tiny seed-germ. We might repeat Lamb's question, “What 
a dead thing is a clock, with its ponderous embowelments of lead 
and brass, its pert or solemn dullness of communication, compared 
with the simple altar-like structure and silent heart-language of 
the old dial. It stood as the garden god of Christian gardens. 
W h y is it almost 
everywhere vanished? 
If its business use be 
superseded by more 
elaborate inventions, 
its moral uses, its 
beauty, might have 
pleaded for its contin¬ 
uance.” 
Not everywh ere, 
however, has it disap¬ 
peared, for the finer 
sentiments which gar¬ 
den-making nourishes 
have called it back to 
renew its message and 
preside once more 
over the realm of 
glowing things. Noi The j s not mere i y decorative; it 
does it come as a relic should be easily reached from the paths 
(15) 
