THE ESTATE 269 



the things which a man is primarily seeking when he goes into the 

 country to build himself a home.* 



The first requirement of a road f is that it shall be convenient for Access 

 traffic. Its surface must be suitable, its width sufficient, its radius 

 of curvature of turns ample for the use of the vehicles which pass over 

 it ; but a road is not of itself particularly a thing of beauty. More- Approach 

 over if its surface is fitted to modern traffic requirements, it is too rigid ^o"^^^ 

 and definite, too self-assertive to be wholly congruous with the natural- 

 istic style or natural character which is the expression of most of the 

 larger estates in this country; further, it is expensive to build and to 

 maintain. The problem of the landscape architect in providing ac- 

 cess by road in an estate is commonly to make the road as direct and as 

 useful as possible, but at the same time to make it as little conspicuous 

 as may be, and as little an interruption of the landscape through which 

 it runs. Since the road needs both shade and concealment, it usually 

 has trees along its course. In a good non-formal scheme these trees, as 

 we have seen, are usually so grouped that the side of the foliage masses 

 away from the road relates in shape not to the road, but to the ad- 

 jacent informal open areas of the estate. As these open areas enframed 

 by the foliage masses are commonly related to those facades of the 

 house from which the important views are seen, it comes about that 

 unless there is some reason to the contrary the roads usually approach 

 the house, concealed by the foliage, in a diagonal direction towards a 

 corner. 



In a large estate the approach road should seem to lead with rea- 

 sonable directness from the public street to the house, or if it be in- 

 direct, there should seem to be a sufficient reason for this. It is seldom 

 desirable to make a road very circuitous for the sake of making the 

 estate seem larger, and although at times it may be well to divert a road 

 considerably from its more direct course in order to afford to any one 

 passing over it a particularly good view, still this may be easily over- 

 done, because on a private estate the view is better enjoyed by people 

 afoot who have more leisure to contemplate it. In short, the ap- 

 proach road should afford as many pleasing outlooks as possible and 



* Cf. the section in Chapter IV, The Modern American Landscape Style, 

 t Cf. Chapter X, p. 218. 



