GRADES, LEVELS, CONTOURS 47 



ings to look at a hillside with an eye to building 

 a house thereon, without immediately begin- 

 ning to calculate how the work of leveling will 

 improve God-given conditions. Even those who 

 are most truly lovers of nature, of rocks and 

 woods and wilderness, fall into the same line of 

 thought when it comes to a consideration of 

 domestic grading; and the suburban place ad- 

 justed to its site, when that site is the least bit 

 unruly, is the rarest of rarities. 



Already the rule which I would establish in 

 handling grades is apparent, I think, without 

 being formulated; but if it is to be a rule it 

 must be expressed. I have always called it fol- 

 lowing the lead of the land. After all, this is 

 what we are bound to do, in the long run. We 

 may stir up a little dust here, and scratch off a 

 little there, but from the great lead of the land, 

 rising and dipping or stretching off to the hori- 

 zon as level as the sea, we can never, actually, 

 get away. And it is a waste of energy and time 

 — and beauty — to try. 



Approach your individual problem without 

 preconceived ideas to befog its real demands as 

 well as its real possibilities. Then you will be 

 able to conceive a design or scheme for it that 

 will be actually a part of it, and of it alone, un- 

 influenced by this or that that has appealed to 



