House and Garden 
immutable. It can be made yearly to respond 
to one’s changing moods. It can be gay and 
somber by turns, a place in which to laugh, 
or an echo of one’s gravest thoughts. Let 
the one who plants avoid imitation, and 
strive to express his own idea. If his gar¬ 
den means something to him, it will be of 
moment to someone else. Like a room, it 
should express individuality and have charm. 
Do not set out a flower because someone 
else has it, but because you think it will 
become a certain spot. Study the ground, 
and study the plant before you fix upon its 
final habitation, and let Nature have her 
own way a little; it is often better than 
ours, as can easily be seen, if one examines 
a woodside shrubbery of her planting. 
There are books in abundance which give 
one the technique of the garden, and illus¬ 
trations to guide to its picturesque form; 
but these are for education of the mind and 
eye, not for crude copying. From them 
one learns the elements of the art, not its 
final combination. A century ago all English 
gardens of note had grottoes in them, stuck 
over with shells and stones. . Now, we 
Americans run to pergolas, often meaning¬ 
less pergolas, which lead nowhere, shade 
nothing, not even a seat for the weary. The 
mock Italian gardens, which are freaks, are 
decorated with bits of marble that make them 
look like a child’s playhouse. The American 
gardener should have wit enough to evolve 
a garden of his own ; something character¬ 
istic, suited to the climate and his ultra¬ 
modern home. I ill the garden becomes an 
expression of the needs of its owner and the 
requirements of its climate, it is a failure, 
an anomaly, merely a senseless copy of an 
inappropriate scheme. It seems to me that 
we need to be simple and not affected, and 
on such lines we can be as large as our purses 
permit, for of large simplicity is grandeur 
made. Each nation has had its garden with 
a characteristic touch. Shall we alone fail to 
achieve the distinction of individuality ? 
I have wandered from my theme, but 
return to the starting point, the memory 
of those colonial gardens whose traces still 
linger at “Overlea” in the box arbor, and the 
ancient, time-honored perennials, which still 
cling to the soil with the sweet savor of an 
earlier age, homely and lovable, which we 
do well to cherish and to honor. 
The old well, from which generations 
have drunk, embowered in Persian lilacs 
and rose-bushes of an unknown antiquity, 
recalls the past as we draw up the oaken 
bucket and drink its sparkling water; and, 
as we sit upon the steps that lead up to it, 
the catbird draws near to scold, and tell us 
we are but things of yesterday beside these 
century-old relics which surround us, on the 
site of the vanished garden of a bygone day. 
A SUN-DIAL 
TO BE PLACED IN FAIRMOUNT PARK, PHILADELPHIA 
Designed and Modeled by A. Stirling Calder 
T HE collection of sculpture which the Art 
Association of Fairmount Park has been 
instrumental in bringing to that pleasure 
ground is to be increased this year by the 
addition of a sun-dial. It is the first dial of 
any sort the Park contains and probably the 
first American example to be aided by such 
elaborate sculptural treatment as may be seen 
in the accompanying illustration, which was 
taken from the plaster model now completed 
at the studio of Mr. Alexander Stirling Cal¬ 
der. To him the commission for the work 
was given by a member of the Fairmount 
Park Art Association, who desires to with¬ 
hold her name that the gift may be anony¬ 
mous. 
The dial is to be placed beside the “Sunken 
Gardens” of the Horticultural Hall in the 
Park and the observer will approach it upon 
ground almost level with the bottom of the 
platform. With this in view the relation of 
the approaching eye to the figures can be 
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