Practical Considerations 169 



principal front of a house, or are far enough from it not to 

 come into absolute connection with it there will sometimes 

 occur a slope, of greater or less steepness, at the base of the 

 wall, such as scarcely any ingenuity or any labor would 

 suffice to get rid of, and where it is most difficult to reconcile 

 the discrepancy between the raking ground hne and the level 

 courses of the wall or of the house. Fig. 52 will afford a hint 

 of the way in which I have dealt mth a case of that sort by 

 keeping all the ground lines, where they are in grass, exactly 

 parallel with the courses of the wall, and effecting the changes 



Fig. 52. Terrace Disguised by Plantings. 



of level in the ground at the points where patches of shrubs 

 are introduced. These shrubs, being mostly evergreen and in 

 varied groups, not only mask the breaks in the ground line 

 but blend beautifully with the wall, and, aided by a few inter- 

 mediate climbers, clothe it most picturesquely. 



The practice of employing masses of evergreens to cover 

 changes of level in grounds, to break the transition between 

 a terrace bank and a natural slope, to fill up the corners of 

 terraces and relieve the hardness and bareness of their walls, 

 and in many ways to reconcile discrepant lines in the form 

 of ground, is one which I have largely and for several years 

 adopted. And I have invariably found it of the greatest 



