[Illustration: STONE-BUILT PERGOLA WITH WROUGHT OAK BEAMS.] “I do not like a mean pergola, made of stuff as thin as hop-poles. If means or materials do not admit of having anything better, it is far better to use these in some other simple way, of which there may be many to choose from—such as uprights at even intervals, braced together with a continuous rail at about four feet from the ground, and another rail just clear of the ground, and some simple trellis of the smaller stuff between these two rails. This is always pretty at the back of a flower-border in any modest garden. But a pergola should be more seriously treated, and the piers at any rate should be of something rather large—either oak stems ten inches thick, or, better still, of fourteen-inch brickwork painted with limewash to a quiet stone colour. In Italy the piers are often of rubble masonry, either round or square in section, coated with very coarse plaster, and limewashed white. For a pergola of moderate size the piers should stand in pairs across the path, eight feet clear between. Ten feet from pier to pier along the path is a good proportion, or anything from eight to ten feet, and they should stand seven feet two inches out of the ground. Each pair should be tied across the top with a strong beam of oak, either of the natural shape, or roughly adzed on the four faces; but in any case, the ends of the beams, where they rest on the top of the piers, should be adzed flat to give them a firm seat. If the beams are slightly curved or cambered, as most trunks of oak are, so much the better, but they must always be placed camber side up. The pieces that run along the top, with the length of the path, may be of any branching tops of oak, or of larch poles. These can easily be replaced as they decay; but the replacing of a beam is a more difficult matter, so that it is well to let them be fairly durable from the beginning.” Miss Jekyll gives illustrations which are reproduced. She says that the climbers which she finds best are Vines, Jasmine, Aristolochia, Virginia Creeper, and Wistaria, and that Roses are about the worst, for they soon run up leggy, and only flower at the top out of sight. I am not familiar with the Aristolochia, but Vines, Jasmine, Virginia Creeper, and Wistaria, all of them grow well in the inner London suburbs such as Chelsea and Kensington much better than Roses. Nearly every London garden has its flower bed, two or three feet wide, running along its wall, and its gravel path, two or three feet wide, running outside that. All that remains therefore is to have brick piers seven feet high built on the outside edge of the gravel path and to have the roof framework carried across from them to the wall. With this a hideous London back garden can be converted into a thing of beauty.