14 GARDENIXG fOK PLEASURE. 



CHAPTER IV. 

 WALKS. 



It is no unusual thing to see the owner of a neat cot- 

 tage make himself perfectly ridiculous by the way in 

 which he lavs out the walk from the street to his front 

 door. There is a prevailing opinion that such walks 

 should be curved ones, and gentlemen, often otherwise 

 shrewd and intelligent, place themselves without ques- 

 tion in the hands of some self-styled ^^ garden architect/' 

 and thus manage to make themselves the laughing stock 

 of a neighborhood. There was a well-marked instance 

 of this in a garden occupying a block in almost the cen- 

 ter of Jersey City, where a man pretending to have a full 

 knowledge of the subject, induced the proprietor to have 

 a walk running about one hundred yards from the street 

 to the house, made so curved that its length was nearly 

 twice that distance. It was hard on the butchers and 

 grocer's boys, and it was said that even book-peddlers, 

 sewing-machine agents, and lightning-rod men looked 

 ruefully at it and left him in peace. Some old authority 

 on this subject says that there "never should be any 

 deviation from a straight line unless from some real or 

 apparent cause." So if curved lines are insisted on, a 

 tree, rock, or building must be placed at the bend as a 

 reason for going around such obstacles. It will be evi- 

 dent to any one who reflects upon the matter, that a 

 curved walk running a distance of a hundred yards or so 

 from the street to the house, across an unplanted lawn, 

 is utterly absurd. All short foot- walks from the street 

 to the house should be straight, entering from the street at 

 as near right angles as possible, and leading direct to the 

 front door. There should be no necessity for a carriage 

 road to the front entrance of a house, unless it is distant 



