TREATING OF CONTRIVANCE 



ground best ; let them be five or six foot of solid 

 water at least, with sluces to let it run in and out 

 at pleasure ; keep them clean; for such water is the 

 more preferable for watering plants. 



I am against arbust and close-walkes, except trees 

 naturally closing, whereby we have both shade and 

 air. 



CHAPTER VI 



HOW TO LEVEL GROUND 



I HAVE often wished that there might be some rules 

 found, whereby this expensive work might become 

 more easy. There are two sorts of levelling, viz. the 

 horizontal and sloping : the first is best known, but 

 the last more profitable and convenient. For ex- 

 ample, I have made a plot slop four foot by two 

 hundred long, and eighteen inches by three hundred 

 and eighty foot the other way : this was not per- 

 spicuous to vulgar eyes ; yet to have made it hori- 

 zontal would have been ridiculous, as to time,paines, 

 and expenses. And in levelling the walkes about a 

 plot (which sloped naturally) so as to make them 

 correspond with the ground around, I behoved to 

 make the middle walke agree with the side ones, 

 whereupon it slops ten foot in three hundred and 

 seventy long : now if I had made this horizontal, 



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