200 The Art of Landscape Gardening 



I would make the dressed pleasure-ground, to the 

 right and left of the house, in plantations which would 

 screen the unsightly appendages, and form the natural 

 division between the park and the farm, with walks 

 communicating to the garden and the farm. 



It will be found that these are exactly the positions 

 of all the appendages at Michel Grove. But, in sup- 

 port of my opinion, it may be proper to give some 

 reasons for the choice of these general positions. 



1. The aspect of a house requires the first consid- 

 eration, since no beauty of prospect can compensate 

 for the cold exposure to the north, the glaring blaze of 

 a setting sun, or the frequent boisterous winds and rains 

 from the west and southwest ; while, in a southern 

 aspect, the sun is too high to be troublesome in sum- 

 mer, and during the winter it is seldom an unwelcome 

 visitant in the climate of England. 



2, 3. It can hardly be necessary to enumerate the 

 advantages of placing the offices near and stables at no 

 great distance from the house. 



4. The many interesting circumstances that lead us 

 into a kitchen-garden, the many inconveniences which 

 I have witnessed from the removal of old gardens to 

 a distance, and the many instances in which I have been 

 desired to bring them back to their original situations, 

 have led me to conclude that a kitchen-garden cannot 

 be too near, if it be not seen from the house. 



5. So much of the comfort of a country residence 

 depends on the produce of its home-farm that even if 

 the proprietor of the mansion should have no pleasure 

 in the fashionable experiments in husbandry, yet a farm, 

 with all its appendages, is indispensable: but when 

 this is considered as an object of profit, the gentleman- 

 farmer commonly mistakes his aims ; and as an object 



