LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 281 



line of pegs, and each set down a stake or peg at the right 

 place as to width, and tolerably close. The gardener should 

 then survey his road before a turf is disturbed ; and if he, 

 upon looking and walking along it carefully, sees no awkward 

 bends, but easy sweeps and graceful though varied curves, 

 he may take up his centre row of pegs and have it dug out 

 one good spit deep all over, and thrown out ; and the cart, 

 which must bring stones or gravel, to fill up, may take off the 

 loam or top spit to fill up hollow places, or to replace the holes 

 that are made in digging gravel, or to improve mounds, or, 

 if there be no use for it, let it form an artificial mound any- 

 where, to be removed when required. "We are supposing the 

 ground to be well drained, and especially the road part ; for 

 unless land is properly drained, half the labour and money 

 expended on it is thrown away. This is the most laborious 

 of all the garden work, but unless there be a good foundation, 

 and the road hard and dry, it is the worst nuisance there can 

 be on an estate. 



Rolling. — After the rough stones and hard materials have 

 settled in their place, a coating of finer gravel must be used, 

 and the whole well rolled down after every shower of rain. 

 The road should be cut level, or nearly so, through all in- 

 equalities ; and if it ascend or descend a little all the way, 

 the slope should be kept uniform. With regard to the form 

 which the road should be left, it should be rising in the 

 middle so as to throw the wet off to the edges. If the grass 

 already on the land be good enough to represent lawn, or 

 pretty even pasture for park-like grounds, such parts as may 

 have been necessarily disturbed may be sown with grass seeds 

 after levelling ; but if the herbage has been for the most part 

 disturbed, each side of the road should be levelled to it at the 

 edge, and new turf edgings a foot wide should be laid along 

 at the whole distance, and the rest be made good. 



Paths are like roads upon a smaller scale ; but in the larger 

 features of the landscape they should never be less than six 

 feet wide, that three people may comfortably walk abreast ; 

 and as the road is more especially for carriages, we may be 

 excused for making a path go a nearer way to the mansion ; 

 but even in the necessary deviations to make it take graceful 

 sweeps, we must not omit the obstacles which should be 

 formed by planting, by mounds or other contrivances, and in 

 places it must go through, or between clumps of slirubs, close 



