TREATMENT AND PLANTING OF LOW GROUND. 
It oftens happens that the builder of a home has a piece of 
low land, too wet for gardening or ordinary cultivation, which is 
really an eyesore. Now it is quite possible to work every foot 
of such land into the general scheme of landscaping and to make 
it as beautiful as any part of the grounds. This is true of brack- 
ish as well as fresh water swamp. Wherever the land is so low 
that it is generally under water it may easily be made into a 
pool, pond or lake with a moderate amount of labor, and the 
mud which is removed can either be filled into adjoining low 
land or used as muck for high land. I have elsewhere in this 
work written about the construction of pools, so that it will not 
be necessary here to treat at length on the subject. In some 
cases there will be a considerable growth of scrub or even timber 
on low land which is to be treated and there may be open spaces 
here and there upon it. Such open spaces would seem to be 
natural locations for artificial bodies of water. 
In laying out walks in low land it will, perhaps, be found best 
to carry them in a general way on the higher, firmer ground. If 
the land is partly timbered they may be so laid out that very 
little cutting will need to be done. If one has rock it may be 
broken finely and two or three inches laid over the mud where the 
walk is to be, an inch of sand being put on over all for a cover. 
I have made such walks throughout several acres of swamp, 
some of it being so soft that one would mire down in it, but with 
the amount of material I have mentioned, a walk has been made 
that bears up with any amount of foot travel, though the whole 
trembles when it is walked over. If rock cannot be had marl 
and sand or even sand mixed with a little muck will answer, 
though a considerable depth must be put on in order to make it 
bear up. 
Rustic seats can be built in low land if a sufficient amount of 
rock or sand is placed around them to make it dry under foot. 
Such seats may often be so placed that a fine view can be had 
from them over artificial bodies of water. I have constructed 
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