178 THE PLAN OF THE PLACE 



Parson's "Landscape Gardening" is invaluable 

 Other books, and horticultural periodicals, may 

 be consulted. 



The first consideration is to grade the land 

 Grading is very expensive, especially if performed 

 at a season when the soil is heavy with moisture. 

 Every effort should be made, therefore, to reduce 

 the grading to a minimum and still secure a 

 pleasing contour. The smaller the area, the more 

 pains must be taken with the grading ; but in 

 any plat which is one hundred feet or more 

 square, very considerable undulations may be left 

 in the surface with excellent effect. In lawns of 

 this size, or even half this size, it is rarely ad- 

 visable to have them perfectly flat and level. 

 They should slope gradually away from the house, 

 and when the lawn is seventy- five feet or more 

 in width, it may be slightly crowning with good 

 effect. A lawn should never be hollow, that is, 

 lower in the center than at the borders, and 

 broad lawns which are perfectly flat and level 

 often appear to be hollow. A slope of one foot 

 in twenty or thirty is none too much for a 

 pleasant grade in lawns of some extent. 



In places in which the natural slope is very 

 perceptible, there is a tendency to terrace the 

 lawn for the purpose of making the various 

 parts or sections of it more or less level and plane. 

 In nearly all cases, however, a terrace is objec- 

 tionable. It cuts the lawn into two or more por- 



