flow to Arrange Country Places 219 



the location of what may be called the kitchen offices. 

 By this, we refer, of course, to that wing or portion of a 

 country house containing the kitchen, with its storeroom, 

 pantry, scullery, laundry, wood-house, and whatever else, 

 more or less, may be included under this head.* 



Our correspondent, Jeffreys, has, in his usual bold manner, 

 pointed out how defective, in all cases (where the thing is 

 not impossible), is a country house with a kitchen below 

 stairs; and we have but lamely apologized for the practice 

 in some houses by the greater economy of such an arrange- 

 ment. But in truth we quite agree with him that no 

 country house is complete unless the kitchen offices are on 

 the same level as the principal floor containing the living 

 apartments. 



At first thought our inexperienced readers may not see 

 precisely what this has to do with laying out the grounds 

 of a country place. But, indeed, it is the very starting point 

 and fundamental substratum on which the whole thing 

 rests. There can be no complete country place, however 

 large or small, in which the greatest possible amount of 

 privacy and seclusion is not attained within its grounds, 

 especially within that part intended for the enjoyment of 

 the family. Now it is very clear that there can be no seclu- 

 sion where there is no separation of uses, no shelter, no por- 

 tions set apart for especial purposes, both of utility and 

 enjoyment. First of all, then, in planning a country place, 

 the house should be so located that there shall be at least 

 two sides; an entrance side, which belongs to the living, or 

 best apartments of the house; and a kitchen side (or "blind 

 side"), complete in itself, and more or less shut out from all 

 observation from the remaining portions of the place. 



This is as indispensable for the comfort of the inmates of the 

 kitchen as those of the parlor. By shutting off completely 

 one side of the house by belts or plantations of trees and 

 shrubbery from the rest, you are enabled to make that part 



* In the office parlance of landscape architects of l'>121 these arc 

 always grouped under the one term "service," and the endeavor is made 

 to dispose them all in one "service urea." - F. A. \\ . 



