The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-08-16
PHOTOGRAPHY HAS AL WAYS INTERESTED
 KING GEORGE EKEENLY
FINE ADDITION TO
 ARMOR COLLECTION
King Sends Number of Pieces 10 Tower of London-American Gar dens Improving, Says Eng
 fish Horticultural
 Expert
Fly PHILIP EvERETTE


 l London, August 15.--(Special) --Thougn not an expert photographer himself, King George has always taken the Seenest in. terest in the progress and development of the art and has given his children ev- cry encouragement to practice it to their hearts content. It is not generally known I that among the equipment of the royal household is a Kinematograph projeetor and it is not an uncommon thing to find Kinema show figuring as part of the royal entertainments specially in the win ter months
 Copies of practically every film made of the Kings tours either at home or abroad find their way to Windsor Castle or Buckingham Palace and are added to the ever-growing collection which was started during the reign of King Edward
 Big Collection of Photographs Of still photographs there Is a veritable art gallery at Windsor castle and quite recently King George gave orders that collection should be formed of portraits of all the leading soldiers and sailors of his reign. A start has been made in the room alloeated for the purpose with
 
 erts and Field Marshal Lord Kitchener both close personal friends of the King and in the next week or two the walls will further be adorned by the pictures in oils of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher and Admiral Lord Charles Beres- ford. Paintings of other celebrated of ficers will be added from time to time and in cases where these are not avail able, the King has given orders for them to be obtained at his expense. Men of lesser note will be specially photographed for the Windsor gallery and in the course of a year or so the new gallery will un- doubtedly be one of the most interesting of Windsor Castles manifold attractions.
 ArmOr Collection Enriched
 The wonderful collection of old armor in the Tower of London has just been enriched by the kindness of King George. His attention was called to the fact that at Windsor there were several pieces be- longing to armor shown in the tower. He immediately commanded that these should be returned to complete those suits of which they originally formed part.
 The comptroller of the tower informs me that this armor belonged to Henry VIII, William Somerset, Earl of Worces- ter and Sir John Smuthe. Of the Earl of Worcester's armor the headgear alone weighs almost 20 pounds, and the decora- tions on the Smythe suit are of extreme beauty and almost in the original condi- ton. Delicate figures of the Cardinal Virtues are engraved in gold on "sanguine' background.
 Besides these there is shield of Charles when Prince of Wales These additions are by far the most important since the year l66l, when the armor was collected from Greenwich Hampton Court and other royal palaces and stored in the Tower of London.
 American Gardens Improving
 l had a talk this week with Mrs. Philip Martineau, the English lady horticulturist who has just returned from second tour in the United States, where she tells me she has laid out a number of English gardens and gave a series of lectures on the gardening art as it is understood in England.
 She is enthusiastic in her praise of the Improvement she noticed in the private and public gardens of America, but she is still of the opinion that the big defect in American gardening Is that it is too architectural-there is an excess of stone and too little flower Mrs. Martineau speaks highly of the adoption of garden ing as profession for American women and she believes that her visit and her lectures have done much to foster female interest in the art
 She also tells me that it is possible she may design an English garden for the English section at the Panama Pacific ex- position. During the past year" she added, some amazing effects have been produced at the exhibition site by tho transplanting of forest trees and giant eucalyptus. Hedges 20 feet high are in process of creation to divide the grounds the ice plant Mesembryanthemum) be- ing used for the purpose that when the hedge Is in flower the avenues of the grounds will be one brilliant sheet of blue It is easy to imagine the effect which an English garden would produce in such a setting"