70 



ascents and descents. In woods or thickets, a short bend in a walk would 

 be proper and quite in character, especially if there should be a fine tree, 

 bush, seat, precipice, or any other object requiring a deviation. In all 

 cases, the bends of walks must be sufficiently deep or bold (figure 17, c) to 

 afford room for shrubs to be planted, so as to prevent the eye from looking 

 over more than one bend at once. A walk taking, as it were, one direct 

 line, with numerous zigzag or serpentine bends, (figure 17, d), is objection- 

 able in the extreme. 



In the formation of a walk, the earth should be thrown out to allow a 

 depth of stone, or gravel, of eight or nine inches ; but, of course, if the soil 

 is valuable, materials for forming the walk are plentiful, and expense is no con- 

 sideration, there can be no objection to the soil being taken out to twice that 

 depth. What I have named is sufficient to make a walk firm and dry, except 

 in clayey and very retentive soil, in which case a drain should be made, six 

 inches square, down the middle of the walk, and covered with a flag, (figure 



Figure 18. 



18), or chaining tiles may be placed there instead. Then the whole breadth 

 of the walk should be filled up with rough stones, broken bricks, dross, or 

 other rough materials, to the depth of four or five inches, or to such a depth as 

 to allow of three or four inches of small broken stones, averaging art inch, or 

 an inch and a half, in diameter, being laid on the top of them ; or gravel of a 

 similar size would do, leaving room for about an inch only of fine gravel to 

 be laid on the top. Care must be taken, in forming the level of the walk, to 

 avoid the offensive barrel-like appearance which we commonly see ; an inch 

 and a half in the yard faU, from the middle to the side, will be quite suffi- 

 cient. Previous to laying on the fine gravel, (if it is not of itself of a cementing 

 naturej, this foundation must be well rolled, and then have spread on it 

 as much of scrapings from limestone roads as will just fill up the crevices ; or, 

 if this cannot be procured, very small dirty limestone or chalk scrapplings, or 



