290 MY FARM. 



am only suggesting methods which are in keeping 

 with ordinary farm economies. 



There must needs be directness in all paths com- 

 municating with out-buildings, and the exigencies of 

 economic and effective culture demand the straight 

 lines in the kitchen garden ; but when I take a friend 

 to some' pretty point of view, or a little parterre of 

 flowers dropped in the turf, we are not hurried ; the 

 dainty curves make a pleasant cheatery of the ap- 

 proach. Thus there is charming accord between the 

 best rules for landscape outlay, and the wants of the 

 country-liver ; where economy of tillage or of labor 

 demands directness, the paths should be direct ; and 

 where economy of pleasure suggests loitering, the 

 paths may loiter. And so, they loiter away through 

 pleasant wooded coppices doubting upon themselves 

 on some rocky pitch of hill short reaches, concealed 

 each one from the other blinded by thick under- 

 wood wantoning in curves, until presently from 

 under a low-branching beech tree, there bursts on 

 the eye a great view of farm, and forest, and city, 

 and sea ; always a charming view indeed, though we 

 toiled straight toward it, in broad sunshine ; but the 

 winding through the coppice, unsuspecting, busied 

 with ferns and lichens, and shut in by dark over- 

 growth against any glimpse of sky, makes it ten- 

 fold ravishing. 



