MY OWN ACRE 



natural conditions, these paths were given a 

 winding course every step of which was pleas- 

 ing because justified by the necessities of the 

 case, traversing the main inequalities of the 

 ground with the ease of level land yet without 

 diminishing its superior variety and charm. 

 And so with contour paths I began to find, right 

 at my back door and on my own acre, in nerve- 

 tired hours, an outdoor relaxation which I could 

 begin, leave off and resume at any moment and 

 which has never staled on me. For this was 

 the genesis of all I have learned or done in 

 gardening, such as it is. 



My appliances for laying out the grades were 

 simple enough: a spirit-level, a stiff ten-foot rod 

 with an eighteen-inch leg nailed firmly on one 

 end of it, a twelve-inch leg on the other, a 

 hatchet, and a basket of short stakes with which 

 to mark the points, ten feet apart, where the 

 longer leg, in front on all down grades, rested 

 when the spirit-level, strapped on the rod, 

 showed the rod to be exactly horizontal. Trivial 

 inequalities of surface were arbitrarily cut down 

 or built up and covered with leaves and pine- 



9 



