50 HOW TO PLAN THE HOME GROUNDS 



other parts of the place may be often brought into har- 

 monious relations without sacrificing a bit of the origi- 

 nal charm of the surface of the territory. 



Perhaps it may not be amiss at this time to further 

 explain the position taken above, by reducing the theory 

 of primal arrangement to the following simple terms, 

 provided they are made subject to considerable modifica- 

 tions that circumstances may render necessary. Given 

 an open lawn, and a house, and a plantation of trees and 

 shrubs on the boundaries, and the place will be essen- 

 tially complete. The roads and paths simply serve to 

 link these features conveniently together, and being no 

 integral part of the artistic or pictorial design of the 

 place, should therefore be screened and kept out of 

 sight as much as possible, and run where they can be on 

 one side and go through the bordering plantations. 



After all, there should be allowance made for the 

 peculiarities of different places, which have to be met in 

 different ways, but when we come to the actual construc- 

 tion of the lawn, the preparation of the ground and its 

 enrichment and seeeding, the practical operations must 

 be carried on according to certain tolerably well-fixed 

 rules. 



Depth of cultivation, it need hardly be said, will be 

 found to be almost indispensable to the creation of good 

 sod, and every pound of superphosphate of lime, bone- 

 dust, or well-rotted manure — amounting to, say, a maxi- 

 mum of a ton of phosphate of lime or bone-dust, and 

 fifty tons of manure to the acre— will make itself evi- 

 dent in good results. The exact amount that it will be 

 found profitable to apply will naturally depend on the 

 kind of soil intended for its reception. It may seem un- 

 necessary that this advice concerning the liberal appli- 



