LAYING OUT OF GROUNDS. 169 



scape-ruling in the matter. The ricks, the chimney, 

 the barn-roofs, the dove-cots, the door-yard, with its 

 skirting array of shrubbery and shade trees, if only 

 order and neatness belong to them, as good economy 

 would dictate, form a charming nucleus for any 

 stretch of fields. If there be a stream whose power for 

 mechanical purposes can be made available, economy 

 dictates a location of the farm buildings near to its 

 banks : taste does the same. If there be a hill whose 

 sheltering slope will offer a warm lee from the north- 

 westers, a due regard for the comfort of laborers 

 and of beasts, to say nothing of early garden crops, 

 will dictate the occupancy of such sheltered position 

 by the group of farm buildings : taste will do the 

 same. If such slope has its rocky fastness, incapable 

 of tillage, and of little value for pasture, economy will 

 suggest that it be allowed to develop its own wanton 

 wild growth of forest : a just landscape taste will 

 suggest the same. If there be a broad stretch of 

 meadow or of marsh land, subject to occasional over- 

 flow, or by the necessity of its position not capable 

 of thorough drainage, good farming will demand that 

 it be kept in grass : good landscape gardening will 

 do the same. 



Again, such rolling hillsides as belong to most 

 farms of the East, and which by reason of their 

 declivity or impracticable nature are not readily sub- 



