298 PRACTICAL GARDENING. 



and be gi'a dually sloped off to make an easy sweep down 

 to the water, that the view may not be hidden by the 

 banks, which would naturally conceal the river from sight 

 at a very small distance. In this case the slope ought to 

 be carried to a considerable distance, say twenty yards, so 

 as to be able to avoid all appearance of abruptness, and 

 show the Avhole width of the stream a long way before we 

 arrive at it. 



It is quite reasonable to suppose, that water is too great 

 a treasure in a good domain to be lost for want of some care 

 and expense, and that all the means of preservation would be 

 used that could well be applied. !N^ow, presuming the water, 

 as in the first instance, be scanty, every httle that could be 

 returned to the head of the river would be au object. By 

 applying the water-ram, (an ancient implement, but now 

 rapidly coming into use,) at the outer fall, a considerable 

 quantity could be sent back through pipes some hundred feet, 

 and as the instrument is self-acting, the only expense is the 

 first, and the greater the fall at the lower end of the stream, 

 the more powerful and effective will be the ram. We have 

 seen this simple instrument the means of forcing water to the 

 toj) of a house to supply cisterns for all purposes of the 

 establishment. 



Formation of Lakes. — But it may be that there is no 

 water, and that we have to form an ornamental lake. Let the 

 size be in proportion to the work all around it, not a mere 

 duck pond, but more rather than less than can be afforded for 

 the space under management, for nothing can be more orna- 

 mental. TVe remember once being betrayed into making a 

 mere pond for gold fish, and unfortunately instead of its being 

 among the avowedly formal part of the garden, it was placed 

 on the la^^ai, which was laid out ^yiih its roads and plantations 

 in true landscape style. As it was a brick and cement affair, 

 thirty feet by fifteen, there was no moving it ; but we were 

 soon determined to plant it out as a nuisance, instead of 

 pointing it out as a beauty. Such things are not for landscape 

 gardens ; they are for parterres in the neighbourhood of archi- 

 tectural beauties, and not for rural gardening. Xothing could 

 be more paltry, nor was there anything about the place of 

 which we were so much ashamed. Let your lake be of any 

 odd shape, or no shape, if you please, not with angles and 

 corners, but such outlines as nature gives us in her ordinary 



