3 1 6 LANDSCAPE-GARDENING 



The plat should also indicate bodies of water, 

 rock ledges, outlines of woods, and special trees or 

 other objects which can be determined easily and 

 definitely. With such a plat in hand, the landscape- 

 gardener should be able promptly to locate his 

 position upon it while studying the land itself. The 

 topographical plat can be made by the landscape- 

 gardener or someone from his office, or by a surveyor. 

 In making the survey, the stadia method is the most 

 economical and the best. Dividing the land up 

 into squares with stakes at the corners is useful for 

 some purposes, but generally the stakes are lost so 

 that it is difficult, without going over the work of 

 surveying a second time, to find one's location on the 

 property. The making of a topographical survey 

 by means of squares is slow and expensive. It is 

 always a satisfaction, when looking at a topograph- 

 ical plat and seeing some special object like a big 

 rock, a thirty-inch sycamore tree, or a spring, to be 

 able to look on the land itself and see definitely the 

 object indicated. It is unsatisfactory to find on 

 the plat a special object, like a twelve-inch black 

 oak, and discover on the land a dozen such oaks near 

 the location designated, any one of which might be 

 the tree that had been surveyed. Either all the 



