CHAPTER XI 



i 



Practical Hints Plainly Illustrated 



How to Make Garden Paths 



IN some gardens the paths take up too much space, and do not 

 serve a useful purpose ; in others the paths are small, and not long 

 enough to afford access to, perhaps, the most interesting portion of 

 the flower garden and pleasure grounds, or to borders in the veget- 

 able garden, so as to facilitate work day by day, and enable the 

 cultivator to avoid undue treading upon soil in which crops are 

 growing. In the planning of the paths every care should be taken to 

 avoid having curves in kitchen gardens, where straight lines are sure 

 to be the best and most useful ; they enable the worker to get close 

 to the various growing crops. Furthermore, where there are straight 

 paths in a vegetable garden, the open spaces form squares and 

 parallelograms as shown in Fig. 1, on both sides of the letter c. 

 Now it is a very easy matter for the amateur to arrange his crops in 

 beds and rows running north and south across the plots (the 

 south side being the long one below A in Fig. 1) shown in the 

 accompanying sketch. 



Q. Should all paths, on the contrary, be winding in flower 

 gardens and pleasure grounds generally ? 



A. No ; where there is a terrace or long straight border on one 

 side of the flower garden, the most suitable form of path is a straight 

 one, too. The path directly in front of the dwelling-house should 

 also be a straight one if the space there be open and formally 

 planted, i.e. laid out in geometrical designs for flowers and shrubs. 



Q. Should all paths be of the same width ] 



A. No ; it would be a big mistake to make them so, even in a 

 garden of moderate size. In a very small garden, perhaps, where 

 only a couple of paths at most are required, they may be of the same 

 width, unless one is a main path and the other a side one in such 

 case the latter should be narrower, to economise space. 

 J 129 



