176 HOW TO PLAN THE HOME GROUNDS 



grounds, and that will be specially adapted to securing 

 the best outlooks and vantage points for the scenery. 

 Lots of medium size, from one-half an acre to an acre, 

 had to be secured, and the best places for houses on 

 them suggested. The problem was a knotty one, and 

 one that depended largely for its difficulty on the irreg- 

 ularity and picturesqueness of the contours. The place 

 had fine views, and not much else that fitted it for a 

 residence park. If the owner had fully realized in the 

 beginning all he would have to contend with, it is doubt- 

 ful whether he would have deliberately faced the difficul- 

 ties. It would have been so much easier to select a 

 level or rolling piece of ground, where the grades would ] 

 have been reasonably easy, and the course of the roads ] 

 and the shape of the lots so much more readily adapted | 

 to the ends of design. It would have been altogether j 

 so much more satisfactory and sensible. But then undue 

 consideration of beautiful objects will always tend to 

 lead us away from the paths of wisdom, and the residen- 

 tial park-maker did really love those mountain views ; and 

 then it must be remembered that gently rolling meadows 

 and level plains did not abound in front of those moun- 

 tains. Let us look at the conditions that it was neces- 

 sary to face. Here was a piece of ground (look at the 

 section on page 182, and it will be evident) where the 

 grade from the lowest point to the highest is over twenty 

 per cent., or a rise of one foot for every five feet of lon- 

 gitudinal extent. In other words, one end of a forty- 

 acre plot is 300 feet higher than the other; and to 

 make the problem still more difficult, the contours are 

 strongly plicated laterally, so that a backbone or ridge 

 runs right up through the center, with deeply depressed 

 valleys on either side (see page 181.) 



