PLANNING AND PLANTING THE HOME GROUNDS. 319 



303. Planning and Planting More Extended Grounds. 

 In improving larger park-like grounds with varied hill and 

 valley, and possibilities in the way of natural or artificial 

 water views, it is always advisable to employ an experienced 

 landscape gardener. He alone will be able to give each 

 varied view its peculiar individual expression, and yet 

 combine the whole so that a walk or drive over the place 

 will present a pleasing and yet united succession of views. 

 But the open space in front of the residence, more or less 

 modified by undulations of the surface, was urged as an 

 essential element of taste by A. J. Downing and others in 

 Europe and America fifty years ago. As an example, 

 Downing gives the home seat of the Van Rensselaer family, 

 Fig. 86, and that of the Livingstons, Fig. 87. 



FIG. 86. Beaverwyck, the seat of Wm. P. Van Rensselaer, Esq. 



In Fig. 86 the planting is all back of the lawn, but in 

 Fig. 87 a single old tree is retained in the front with a 

 high stem, showing it to be a relic of the primitive forest. 



In laying out a large place, the expert will prove an 



