ECONOMIC TREATMENT OF LAND. 



A MOST important division in the work of a Landscape Gardener 

 is the economic treatment of land, whereby the money value of it 

 may be greatly enhanced, as it is made fit for divided residential 

 settlement. The exercise of sound judgment is as important a pre- 

 liminary, in devoting an estate, or given portions of a land area, to 

 building purposes as to the creation of ornamental ground subserving 

 the purposes of one grand mansion ; or to treatment for agricultural 

 uses under the best conditions. Fitness of position is a primal 

 consideration ; that is, the relation of the ground to existing routes 

 of traffic, high-roads, or railway communications, or the possible 

 creating and development of such means in the future. The formation 

 of the ground surface is of serious import in the plan, which 

 has to deal not only with general effect, but with particular parts, 

 each part possessing individual features complete in themselves, and, 

 as it were, isolated in their completeness, yet retaining their relation to 

 the whole design of which they are to be component parts. There are 

 statutory obligations to be attended to, involving work not perceptible 

 on the surface, but which, by its excellence and good engineering, 

 greatly raises the value of the estate, and is absolutely necessary 

 to it. But this consideration is paramount : that there should be 

 made with the greatest care a complete plan of the whole area to be 

 treated, showing not only the mode of dealing with it as a whole, 



