LAWNS, GLADES AND GARDEN WALKS. 



measures are taken to prevent it, become and remain waterlogged. To prevent this a trench 

 must be dug along the foot of the bank, as shown in the accompanying section (111. 

 No. 151), and a pipe drain laid in the bottom. Over the pipe dry loose stones, between 

 which the water can easily percolate, are piled to within a foot of the surface and the 

 soil and turf laid on these. 



Where the subsoil is formed of some material such as dry flints or gravel, which 

 allows all moisture to drain away so fast that the grass burns in hot weather and all 

 composts or fertilizers are washed away by heavy rain, an opposite case is presented. 

 Here the best way is to sink the lawn as suggested above for bowling greens and to 

 treat the soil with heavy manures and a certain proportion of clay. 



Suggestions for the arrangement and design of one or more games-lawns may be 

 culled from almost all the plans of gardens illustrated in this work, while in illustration 

 No. 409 is shown a combination which is rather unusual though most convenient. It 

 includes a tennis lawn, a hundred and twenty feet square, a bowling alley and a cedar 

 avenue on rising ground with a handsome resthouse at the top of the glade. This 

 glade is long enough and wide enough to be used as an archery ground, and, at the 

 end, but centering with the bowling alley, is a croquet lawn with a loggia and raised 

 terrace. As before stated, the advantage of a tennis lawn of the above size is that it 

 allows of two courts, which can be placed either way, according to the time of day at 

 which they are to be used. 



Turning now to the consideration of informal lawns, we find that, while they are 

 not susceptible to definite rules for general application, there are certain main principles 

 which must be observed in their formation and some pitfalls to be avoided which have 

 led to much failure in the past. 



The most common error is to falsify the natural contours by the creation of artificial 

 undulations, a process which has already been condemned. Instead of this, the natural 

 contours of the land must be incorporated into the scheme and emphasized, and in 

 those districts where the whole of the surroundings of the mansion are at one dead level, 

 the attempt to reform the surface into flowing lines must inevitably result in such a 

 contrast with the remainder of the prospect outside the domain, as at once to suggest its 

 artificiality to the least observant beholder, in which case it had far better be confessedly 

 artificial and arranged as a formal garden throughout. 



In practice, however, there are occasionally 

 cases where gradients become necessary which 

 are not part of the natural undulations of the 

 site. For instance, to obtain an easy walk, it 

 may be advisable to excavate below or fill 

 above the surrounding natural levels. In all 

 such cases it is well to remember that a garden 

 in any style is simply landscape adapted, and 

 that it is the gentle undulating lines of nature 

 which are to be followed, not the rough broken ground of the upland pasture, nor, 

 on the other hand, the series of miniature railway embankments so often crowded into a 

 garden scheme. 



In those exceptional cases where interference with the natural levels of an informal 

 lawn is justified, what are therefore needed are soft flowing lines which shall help the 

 original contours instead of destroying them and which shall give a restful and refined 

 appearance to the gardens. This cannot be attained by the promiscuously arranged 

 bumpy hillocks which so many garden makers effect, but rather by the removal of those 

 subsidiary undulations which are inimical to long sweet stretches of green lawn. The 

 accompanying section (111. No. 154) through a shallow valley along which it is proposed 



FIG. 154. 



Informal 

 lawns. 



Interference 

 with natural 

 levels on 

 informal 

 lawns. 



125 



