138 Xan^scape Hrcbitecture 



require its deviation from its natural sweep, but a 

 further caution should be given to be careful not to 

 make the artifice of placing a rock to excuse a curve too 

 evident. The recourse to such obvious devices would 

 tend to make the road take on a formality and same- 

 ness which would very likely be much worse than the 

 most rigidly formal design of walks with straight lines 

 and circles. The latter would start out with a distinct 

 and entirely defensible purpose if it were located in 

 the right portion of the place. A badly related, in- 

 congruous design is possibly the worst kind of land- 

 scape gardening and yet it prevails largely because 

 the person who really controls the layout of the place 

 probably fails to appreciate the difficulties involved 

 and the necessity of basing the work on well conceived 

 and definite principles. 



Because the road or path is not" in itself beautiful 

 does not prevent the most attractive rural incidents 

 from clustering along the borders. Mr. Olmsted ex- 

 presses the same idea when he writes as follows in the 

 Mt. Royal Park Report : 



"Taking then, as an illustration, a road (because it 

 is the most unavoidably conspicuous artificial thing 

 that you must have), you will have been compelled 

 at various points by the topography to so lay it 

 out, [that] though slightly curving, its course is open to 

 view and excessively prominent far ahead, dissect- 

 ing, distracting the landscape. Planting trees close 

 upon the road, they must either be trimmed too high 



