WALKS AND EDGINGS. 209 



moist, while the broken and varied incidents of the surface get rid of 

 the hard unyielding lines of the gravel walk and help the picture. 

 They should never be set in mortar or cement of any kind, but 

 in sand or fine sandy soil, and the work can be done by a careful 

 man with a little practice. If in newly-formed ground there is a 

 little sinking of the stone, it can be corrected afterwards. Small 

 rock plants, like Thyme, the Fairy Mint, and little Hairbells, may be 

 grown between the divisions of the stone, and, indeed, they often 

 come of themselves, and their effect is very pretty in a small garden. 

 Another point in favour of the stone walk is that it forms its own 

 edging, and we do not need any living edging ; and if for any 

 purpose, in a wet country or otherwise, we wish to somewhat raise the 

 flower-beds, we can use the same kind of stone for edging the beds. 



Once free of all necessary walks about the house of gravel or 



stone, which constant work and use make essential, it is often easy 



in country gardens to soon break into grass walks 



Grass, heath, and which are pleasantest of all ways of getting about 



moss walks. the country garden or pleasure ground. Not only 

 can we take them into the wild garden and rough 

 places, but they lead us to flowering shrubs and beds of hardy 

 plants and to the rock garden, or through the pleasure ground 

 anywhere, as easily and more pleasantly than any regularly set 

 out walks. There is much saving of labour in their formation 

 because, given sound drained ground, which is to be found around 

 most country houses, we have little to do except mark out and 

 keep the walks regularly mown. When this work is compared with 

 the labour of carting, the knowledge and the annual care which 

 are necessary to form and keep hard walks in order, the gain in 

 favour of the grass walk is enormous. It is perhaps only in our 

 country that the climate enables us to have the privilege of these 

 verdant walks, which are impossible in warmer lands, owing to the 

 great heat destroying the herbage, and, therefore, in Britain we should 

 make good use of what our climate aids us so much in doing. 



We have, of course, to think of the fall of the grass walk for the 

 sake of ease in mowing and in walking too, as very much of their 

 comfort will depend, at least in hilly ground, on the careful way 

 these walks are studied as regards their gradation. There is really 

 not much difference in the degree of moisture in such walks and 

 gravel walks, and, besides, so little use is made of walks of any kind 

 in wet weather, that, taking them all the year round, they serve as 

 well as any other. 



Apart from the grass walks which can be formed in so large an 

 area of Britain we may have walks through Heath and the short 

 vegetation that grows in heathy districts, and these walks will be no 



O 



