THE AMATEUR GARDEN 



Speaking of walks, it was with them and 

 one drive in this grove, that I made my first 

 venture toward the artistic enhancement of my 

 acre, acre this time in the old sense that 

 ignores feet and rods. I was quite willing to 

 make it a matter of as many years as necessary 

 when pursued as play, not work, on the least 

 possible money outlay and having for its end 

 a garden of joy, not of care. By no inborn sa- 

 gacity did I discover this to be the true first 

 step, but by the trained eye of an honored and 

 dear friend, that distinguished engineer and fa- 

 mous street commissioner of New York, Colonel 

 George E. Waring, who lost his life in the sani- 

 tary regeneration of Havana. 



"Contour paths" was the word he gave me; 

 paths starting from the top of the steep broken 

 ground and bending in and out across and 

 around its ridges and ravines at a uniform de- 

 cline of, say, six inches to every ten feet, until 

 the desired terminus is reached below; much as, 

 in its larger way, a railway or aqueduct might, 

 or as cattle do when they roam in the hills. 

 Thus, by the slightest possible interference with 



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