88 WALKS AXD ROADS. 



Steps it is desirable to have greater width than in other parts of 

 the walk. 



The width of carriage-drives should be governed by the same 

 considerations as the walks. Eight feet is the least width, and 

 fourteen feet the greatest, that will be appropriate to the class of 

 places for which this book is designed ; and whatever the width 

 elsewhere, it should not be less than twelve feet opposite the main 

 entrance steps, unless it traverses a porte-cochere. The turnway in 

 front of the main entrance should be on a radius of not less than 

 ten feet to the inner line of the road, and more if space permits ; 

 but not to exceed a radius of twenty feet, unless the location of 

 trees or the shape of the ground make it specially desirable to turn 

 a larger circuit. 



Opportunities to make or lose pleasing effects are always pre- 

 sented where there are trees or shrubs already grown. To conduct 

 walks or roads so as to make them seem to have grown there ; to 

 arrange a gateway under branches of trees or between old shrubs, 

 or leading around or between them ; to have walks divide so that a 

 tree shall mark their intersection ; to weave a turnway smoothly 

 among old tree trunks — all such arts as these are precisely the 

 small things which prove the taste, or lack of it, in the designer. 



In making the carriage-road and the walks, there is an immense 

 difference in expense between excessive thoroughness and the 

 "good enough" style. Digging out from a foot and a half to two 

 feet of the soil the whole width of the road or walk, tile-draining 

 on each side, then filling up with broken stone or scorite, and 

 finally covering the surface with several inches of pure gravel, 

 and paving the gutters with pebbles, is the thorough style. But 

 on sandy and gravelly soils we have seen excellent walks and 

 roads (for light carriages) made by simply covering the ground 

 with from two to three inches of good gravel or slate. The prepa- 

 ration necessary for this kind of road-making being to excavate 

 below the level of the 



Fir,. \'). 



border, so as to leave a 



rounded surface with tile ^F ' 



of three to four inches '' ' ^' 



diameter, placed in the 



