io6 THE FORMAL GARDEN IN ENGLAND v 



terrace walls, two steps ascend to grass terraces, 

 27 feet wide and 52 paces and 29 paces long 

 respectively, which run under the walls of the 

 upper gardens to right and left of the house. 

 The terrace should be made with a slight fall 

 away from the house of about i^ inches in 10 

 feet. 



The side of the terrace to the garden may 

 be formed either with brickwork or masonry, 

 or with a grass slope. Details of the first 

 will be given under the head of Garden Archi- 

 tecture. Where a grass slope is used, the 

 point to aim at is to keep the verge of the 

 terrace well defined, and to ensure this the 

 slope of the bank should form an unmistak- 

 able angle with the ground both at its top 

 and its base. A gradually curved slope is 

 useless ; it defeats the whole purpose of the 

 terrace by merging it into the garden, and 

 where the landscape gardener uses a slope he 

 makes it much too flat. Switzer gave 2^ hori- 

 zontal to I perpendicular for the slope, on the 

 ground that anything steeper than this cannot 

 be mowed or rolled. This is a useful propor- 

 tion, and admits of a staircase at the same angle 

 as the slope of the bank, with steps of 6 inches 

 rise and 1 5 inches tread ; flights of steps at a 

 steeper angle than this are unsatisfactory out of 

 doors, except under special conditions. The 

 proportion generally used by the French 

 gardeners of the seventeenth century was |- to 



