How to Choose a Site for a Country Seal 213 



wholly created, is by no means either a cheap or rapid 

 process. Labor and patience must be added to taste, time 

 and money, before a bare site can be turned into smooth 

 lawns and complete pleasure grounds. 



The best advice which the most experienced landscape 

 gardener can give an American about to select ground for 

 a country residence is, therefore, to choose a site where 

 there is natural wood, and where nature offers the greatest 

 number of good features ready for a basis upon which to 

 commence improvements. 



We have already so often descanted on the superiority 

 of trees and lawns to all other features of ornamental places 

 untied that our readers are not, we trust, slow to side with 

 us in a thorough appreciation of their charms. 



Hence when a site for a country place is to be selected 

 (after health and good neighborhood), the first points are, 

 if possible, to secure a position where there is some existing 

 \vood, and where the ground is so disposed as to offer a 

 natural surface for a fine lawn. These two points secured, 

 half the battle is fought, for the framework or background 

 of foliage being ready grown, immediate shelter, shade, and 

 effect is given as soon as the house is erected; and a surface 

 well shaped for a lawn (or one which requires but trifling 

 alterations) once obtained, all the labor and cost of grading 

 is avoided, and a single season's thorough preparation gives 

 you velvet to walk about upon. 



Some of our readers, no doubt, will say this is excellent 

 advice, but unfortunately not easily followed. So many 

 are forced to build on a bare site, "and begin at the begin- 

 ning." 



This is no doubt occasionally true, but in nine cases out 

 of ten, in this country, our own observation has convinced 

 us that the choice of a poor location is the result of local 

 prejudice, or want of knowledge of the subject, rather than 

 of necessity. 



How frequently do we see men paying large prices for 

 indifferent sites, when at a distance of half a mile there are 

 one or more positions on which nature has lavished treas- 



