180 STATE BOAKD OF AGRICULTUEE. 



pearance. People make mistakes by not starting right, and make themselves 

 a great deal of unnecessary trouble. I know a man who thought he would have 

 something nice in the way of a walk. He sifted out some nice gravel, cut a 

 place for his walk two inches deep by three feet wide, and filled it with the 

 gravel. The first season he became disgusted with the whole arrangement, for 

 the weeds and grass were well nigh overpowering. To keep these down he put 

 on a generous supply of leached ashes. The first good shower rendered these 

 go sticky that the grass was far preferable to walk upon, and the utility of his 

 model path was entirely wanting. The next season he was going to profit by 

 this experience, so he took out the gravel and ashes and laid a brick walk. 

 This looked very nice for a time, but the infamous grass got started between the 

 brick, and from here found it almost impossible to eradicate it. The final 

 method adopted was a little good earth upon the brick, in which the grass 

 caught readily, and now his path is a rounded piece of turf extending across the 

 yard from door to gate. 



The right method is to put the most of this work into the beginning. Dig 

 out the space for the walk or drive to the depth of nine inches ; and, if stone 

 are cheap, fill in a layer of stone at the bottom ; then cover with gravel, rather 

 coarse, to within an inch of the top, and finish with finer gravel. If there is 

 not clay enough in the gravel to pack it, a little must be added. This, once 

 completed, will last forever and require very little care. 



In the arrangement of walks and drives keep in view the positions for con- 

 venience, but remember that a curved line is a line of beauty, and where it will 

 not conflict with business allow gentle curves to enter, but never make a curve 

 without some apparent or real reason for it. If a slight curve is required for 

 beauty, and no tree is in tlie way to suggest the deviation from a straight line, 

 put one there, or a group of them. 



It is quite noticeable that the paths made by animals across the pastures down 

 to the spring or into the yard are nearly always lines of beauty. The first time 

 a farmer drives into his yard by his house to the barn, he makes, while he 

 avoids obstructions, a very direct course, and still it is in curved lines ; and 

 when a would-be practical man objects to my plan of curves, I can only tell him 

 in answer that when he follows a course without thought he takes a cui-ve him- 

 self, without the aid of liquor, too. 



Then let your business walks be direct, but where you are to loiter for pleas- 

 xire, among flowers and shrubs, or down to the stream, or into the grove, let 

 there be curves of beauty hidden from each other by the plantings, and giving 

 ^constant variety and entertainment to those who loiter. 



Trees and Shruhs. 



Do not think your landscape will be beautiful according to the sum of money 

 ■expended in foreign trees and rare exotics. To be sure there is a certain kind 

 of gratification in new and rare things, but to me and all you who delight in 

 our native woodlands, containing as they do a greater variety of beautiful things 

 than does any other country or clime, the trees and shrubs brought to our 

 grounds from the woods, the lowland, the highland, the swamp, and the river- 

 bottom, have greater cliarms than all others. Here it is, too, that we can bring 

 study of the best order into our work. The planning of little nests of shrubbery 

 that shall contain a good proportion of our native sorts, in such a manner that 

 all will thrive ; and to know them so well that each variety can be pointed out, 

 is a beautiful study that relieves the tedious process of transplantation. Then 



