44 The Landscape Gardening Book 



we find them — providing of course that conditions as we find 

 them do not already direct it along the easiest, best and most 

 generally beautiful course. 



On a large place this is as likely to be the case as not, if the 

 ground is rolling. Long, sweeping curves will come naturally 

 from following the easiest grade and avoiding mounds and 

 hummocks. But with less land, natural contours are less 

 varied; and something must be done to supply the lack of them. 

 What shall it be? 



Decide, in the first place, at what point of the grounds travel 

 towards the house naturally focuses. If you will notice where 

 your own steps tend to leave the sidewalk and stray truantly 

 across the lawn, or the place where the lawn is going to be, 

 you will easily fix this point. Then, starting from it, determine 

 the course that is ideal for the walk to follow— the course which 

 will suit you perfectly as you walk over it, and that will look 

 best from house, grounds and street. This will almost never be a 

 straight line. 



When it is found, if no excuses exist for its deviation from a 

 straight line, provide them. Plant a tree squarely in the way, 

 with another near enough to give both the appearance of 

 happening to be there. Reinforce these with groups of shrubs 

 if necessary, which the walk will have to avoid. Lead and coax 

 it along in this way until, adjusting itself to the obstructions 

 you have furnished, it follows your own sweet will, with nothing 

 to hint that it could have taken any other course. 



In view of the fact that the " direct ' ' Hne is usually interpreted 

 to mean a straight line, this will of course seem to be an absolute 

 contradiction of the one general rule with which we started. But 

 the direct line, as a matter of fact, is almost never a straight line, 

 running at a right angle from the street. It is instead a direction 



