90 
House & Garden 
Berkey & Gay 
FURNITURE 
These (jifts 
Will Carry 
Happiness 
I T is when June comes’round again 
that the charm of gifts, such as the 
pieces pictured above, is peculiarly 
manifest. For wedding or gradua¬ 
tion, or simply as a gift whose 
unexpectedness enhances its value, they are equally delightful. 
Built throughout of American Walnut, they are faithful in 
beauty, in usefulness, in lasting service, to the ideal Berkey 6? Gay 
have maintained for over 60 years. 
Each piece — harmonious, graceful, friendly — will carry with 
it an enduring happiness in its possession. Foremost merchants 
invite you to view these occasional gift pieces this month. To 
the prices quoted below, your merchant adds freight charges. 
Hope Chest . . $70.00 
This massive piece, with its richly figured 
surfaces and embellishments cf fancy burl, 
claims kinship to the old Jacobean saddle¬ 
bag chest. Admirably decorative. 
Butterfly Table . $42.00 
A charmingly designed table, whose 
famous forebear now graces The Wayside 
Inn at Sudbury, Massachusetts. 
Sewing Cabinet . $37.50 
A piece Mother will love. Its symmetry 
of line and three-tone color harmony were 
inspired by the old Spanish sea chests. 
Occasional Table . $20.00 
One of those quaint, convenient tables 
adaptable for infinite, varied uses in the 
living room. A table dear to the feminine 
heart. Just the right height. 
With the prices of Berkey & Gay Furniture now uniform 
throughout the country, you know not only the quality, but you 
\now the value. Henceforth, uncertainty is eliminated from all 
your furniture buying, for you have an unfailing standard by 
which to judge confidently, and to compare accurately. Buying is 
at once easier and more satisfactory. 
Our brochure, illustrating and describing these gift pieces, together 
with name of nearest Berkey & Qay merchant, sent on request 
Berkey & Gay Furniture Company 
444 MONROE AVENUE, GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN 
New York Wholesale Showroom: 1 15 West 40th Street 
(Admittance by letter of introduction from your merchant or decorator) 
THE EVOLUTION o/SHRUB PLANTING 
(Continued from page 88) 
weigelia, effective at a distance though 
somewhat coarse nearby, faces the 
ailanthus trees. In one place a white 
fringe contrasts with dark foliage of a 
copper beech, so placed as to allow for 
its fullest splendid development. In an¬ 
other spot the Harrison’s yellow rose 
gleams against the hemlocks, followed 
in July by the gorgeous single pink 
prairie rose, likewise too coarse for in¬ 
timate planting. To afford variety of 
contour, little trees are interspersed here 
and there, not planned to reach their 
ultimate fullest development, but to 
mingle with the rest. Some of these 
have been already mentioned. Others 
are the thorns, valuable alike for flowers 
and late-hanging fruit, and the little- 
used Kohlreuteria, whose graceful pani¬ 
cles of yellow flowers hang for several 
weeks in July. 
Other midsummer effects have been 
mentioned in passing, when describing 
the low planting next the street. Next 
to this is a combination planned for 
Septembe r—the feathery-fruited 
groundsel tree, the lilac tassels of the 
buddleia, and the flaming red foliage 
of the Euonymus alatus. Other fruits 
are seen as well, blue-berried dogwood, 
orange bittersweet climbing the poplars, 
red chokeberry and the uncommon pho- 
tina or Christmas berry. Vines drape the 
fence, white clematis, flaming foliage of 
Virginia creeper and gleaming lapis 
lazuli of the turquoise berry. Nor must 
we omit to mention the little yellow 
flowers of witch-hazel appearing in 
late November. 
The little flower border against the 
big gray house is just about the last 
word for ease of maintenance and suc¬ 
cession of effective color. Purple cro¬ 
cus in large masses, followed by tulips 
of rose and primrose yellow, the big 
porcelain-blue iris pallida, creamy pink 
peonies early and late, and deep rose- 
colored phlox—the whole edged with 
aromatic gray-leaved Nepeta Mussini 
with its lavender blossoms, and built up 
higher at the ends next the shrubs with 
purple asters and white boltonias staked 
erect, have proved a durable and beau¬ 
tiful selection. 
A careful study of the plan and list, 
the latter listed according to season, will 
reveal the exact arrangement. Though 
the same conditions would seldom be 
duplicated, and thence deviations would 
have to be made in carrying out such 
a border, it should prove full of sug¬ 
gestions. Keep in mind, in seeking to 
evolve such a plan, that every tree or 
shrub is selected to fill a definite place 
and is put in in exactly that place both 
on paper, and on the actual ground. 
THE COLONIAL GARDENS of MEXICO 
(Continued from page 67) 
the former colony. Spain builds for 
eternity, and while these truly palatial 
mansions remain, no one may dispute 
how great is Mexico’s indebtedness to the 
Mother Country. But the Conquerors 
seem distinctly to have bestowed less 
pains upon their country residences. 
From the architectural point of view 
they are simplicity itself. Built in 
nearly every case much after the same 
pattern, they are rarely more than one 
story high. There is invariably a large 
central courtyard, the “patio”, enclosed 
on all four sides by vast pillared corri¬ 
dors which, in their turn, give access 
to the adjacent rooms. The owner’s 
coat-of-arms, elaborately carved in 
stone, was placed over the “zahuan”, or 
entrance way, upon the side facing the 
street; another porch opened out from 
the patio on to the garden, which often 
lay behind Towards the declining years 
of the colony, there would generally be 
a handsome fountain of glazed tiles 
from Puebla in the centre of the court¬ 
yard, whilst Maiolica pots, similarly of 
Mexican manufacture, and, like the 
tiles, betraying a strong Moorish influ¬ 
ence in coloring and design, would be 
lined up between the pillars or else 
completely within the corridors and 
close to the walls. Iron rings, let into 
the columns, were used for tethering 
horses in the day-time and supporting 
torches at night. At later dates it be¬ 
came the fashion to place structures, 
like well curbs holding trees and flowers 
and generally built of tiles matching 
those of the central fountain, in each 
of the four corners of the “patio”. 
We know very little about the gar¬ 
dens of the earlier days, but the prin¬ 
cipal country houses of the 16th Cen¬ 
tury were those lying in the suburb 
which to this day retains its original 
name of “La Tlaxpana”, and owned 
by Cortes himself and another Spaniard 
named Cantabrana, both renowned for 
their lavish hospitality. Soon, how¬ 
ever, the place was to a certain extent 
forsaken for the more picturesque vil¬ 
lages occupying the southern part of the 
valley. We may take it for certain 
that fruit trees were liberally employed 
from the outset, lawns and large open 
spaces being carefuly avoided: the latter 
is a distinctive feature of Mexican gar¬ 
dens, for it must be remembered that 
the scorching suns of Castille had 
taught her sons to look upon shade as 
one of the primal blessings. A regular 
plan was rarely adhered to, at any rate 
on an extensive scale, and all these 
peculiar characteristics combine to im¬ 
bue the gardens of the whole colonial 
epoch with a pronounced oriental 
aspect. 
Some of the finest gardens and or¬ 
chards belonged to the Church, per¬ 
haps the most famous being those 
attached to the celebrated Convento del 
Carmen in San Angel. These seem to 
have appealed strongly to Gemelli 
Careri, an Italian traveller of the 17th 
Century who visited New Spain whilst 
engaged upon a tour round the world. 
He solemnly assures us that the amount 
of fruit collected by the good friars of 
this one monastery alone provided them 
with an annual income not short of 
thirteen thousand pesos. But the or¬ 
chard was not only profitable from the 
financial point of view: it contained 
several copiously stocked ponds, and a 
variety of curiously fashioned foun¬ 
tains whence, we are no less gravely in¬ 
formed by the same authority, the holy 
men derived uninterrupted recreation. 
The same order had a no less fruitful 
domain in La Puebla, fruit here being 
produced in such fabulous quantities 
that a lay-brother had to be especially 
told off to attend to all the pros¬ 
pective purchasers who flocked to the 
gates. Carmelite gardens had generally 
one distinctive feature in common: the 
so-called “Chamber of Secrets”, which 
consisted of a small vaulted building, 
open on all sides, and so constructed 
that words barely whispered in one 
corner would be clearly audible in the 
opposite. One is to be found at San 
Angel to the present day. 
The 18th Century was undoubtedly 
the Golden Age for the orchard-gardens 
(Continued on page 92) 
