LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE. 53 



comprising much inequality of surface. Wherever it has 

 been applied it has proved enormously costly, incon- 

 venient and destructive of natural beauty. And yet the ' 

 selfish greed of real estate proprietors prevents a depart- 

 ure from the practice, and renders them callous to the 

 sufferings they inflict upon the' future inhabitants, pro- 

 vided only that they can secure the largest immediate 

 returns from the sale of lots, with the least possible out- 

 lay in preparing them for market. Recent experience 

 has demonstrated in repeated instances that a larger 

 outlay for a more elaborate and tasteful design for sub- 

 urban additions has proved sufficiently remunerative to 

 warrant farther investment in preparatory plans and 

 improvements, and with such precedents it is to be hoped 

 that the spur of self-interest will prevent the perpetra- 

 tion of such barbarism as has heretofore prevailed. 



Take the common case of a town on a river bank, 

 whose site comprises a level area of bottom land of 

 greater or less extent, backed by a range of steep wooded 

 bluffs, which are intersected at. irregular intervals by 

 ravines, diverging at various angles from the course of 

 the main valley. Every Western traveler can recall 

 instances of towns so situated, and the hideous results 

 of the effort to force nature into formal shape by laying 

 out the streets without the slightest regard to topograph- 

 ical features. The exercise of artistic skill and judgment 

 might often render the peculiar natural features of such 

 a site, the source of its most striking and attractive 

 characteristic. The level land next the river is obviously 

 the most appropriate situation for the commercial and 



