134 PLANS OF RESIDENCES 



only needs to see how pleasantly it looks and works in the keeping 

 of a neat family, to be surprised that this system has not long ago 

 been adopted at the north. It is not only a great economy in the 

 first cost of the house and stable, but an equal economy of lot- 

 room. Here is a lot of but little more than half an acre, with the 

 apparent ground-room for a mansion; with a lawn two hundred 

 and twenty feet in length, a large variety of trees and shrubbery, 

 an abundance of summer fruits, and a sufficient kitchen-garden for 

 the use of one family ; and yet nothing is crowded. This economy 

 of space is in part attributable to the compact unity of the dwelling 

 and domestic offices. 



Let us now examine the ground-plan. The street in front is 

 supposed to be two feet and a half below the ground-level on that 

 front, and to have a wall with a stone coping level with the 

 grass; the side-street rising so that where the carriage-road 

 enters it, the two are on the same level. The coping of the 

 front wall is carried around and continued up the sides of the 

 main entrance-walk in a style similar to, but not quite so 

 costly, as that illustrated in the vignette of Chapter IV. This 

 walk is six feet wide. Street trees, if any are planted in 

 front, should be placed so that the middle of the space between 

 them is on the line of the middle of the walk continued, and 

 should be the same distance apart as the trees of the short avenue 

 on each side of the walk ; that is, twenty feet. Supposing the 

 street trees are elms, we would plant at a, a, weeping Scotch elms, 

 Ulmus montana pendula ; at b, b, weeping beeches ; at <", c, cut- 

 leaved weeping birches. The evergreen screens on the right and 

 left are to be composed principally of hemlocks. That on the 

 right is intended to make an impervious screen so that the yard 

 behind it on that side cannot be seen from the street. The 

 flower-beds on the parlor side of the lot are designed to be the 

 especial charge of the lady-florist of the house, and these ever- 

 green screens will give a partial privacy to that section of the lot. 

 The screens also act as boundaries of the avenue, making the 

 entrance-walk a distinct and isolated feature a shadowy arbor of 

 the overarching foliage of deciduous trees, with a back-ground on 

 each side of evergreen verdure. The depth of shadow in passing 



