2 26 Landscape Gardening 



and sides will be a good safeguard against loss though it will 

 not be needed where the subsoil is naturally a stiff clay. 

 And as few places would yield any other resource, it will be 

 well to keep the water in the lowest part of the land (as it 

 should be in point of taste also) and drain the whole of the 

 ground, excepting the kitchen garden, into it. A mod- 

 erate supply, in all but the very driest weather, will thus be 

 provided. 



Where anything in the way of a small stream passes 

 through a place, and is not at all sluggish in its course, it 

 may be rendered additionally interesting by having its fall 

 broken here and there with masses of rock and, where such a 

 plan would not interfere with the general landscape, it can 

 be covered in and darkened by plantations at various points, 

 so as to allow small shady walks, banks of ferns, etc., by its 

 side. When it takes a tortuous direction, walks of this 

 description may cross it, by means of a few stones or a rough 

 little arch, in different parts, and pass away from it for a 

 few yards, to return again to its side in the next bend of 

 its course. 



If the position for a sheet of water be skillfully chosen, 

 advantage will be taken of any natural stream that flows 

 through the property, and by throwing a dam across the 

 hollow along which it winds, a lake may be formed in a very 

 inartificial manner and at a light expense. This is precisely 

 the case with regard to the piece of water depicted in fig. 6i, 

 which has been designed for the park of Sir Robert Gerard, 

 Bart., at Garswood, Lancashire. There is a natural con- 

 cavity in the ground within view of the mansion and adjoin- 

 ing a small rivulet which flows from a northwesterly in a 

 southeasterly direction, and by damming up this stream at 

 the southern end a very little excavation would produce a 

 sheet of water of the outline shown in the engraving and 



