Sckell's Landscape-Gardening* 165 



Art. VII. The Landscape-Gardening of F. L. von Schell of Munich- 

 Translated from the German for the " Gardener's Magazine." 



(Continued from p. 102.) 



XII. Of Carriage Roads, Bridle Roads, Walks, and Paths through Defiles and 



tender Rocks. 



1 . In laying out grounds, the roads and paths cannot be accu- 

 rately staked out in situations where the disposition and form of 

 the ground require to be altered, namely, where hills or valleys 

 are to be formed, till these are completed ; as by the raising or 

 lowering of the ground the lines previously marked out must 

 be made to assume different turns, because they no longer follow 

 the line of beauty, and therefore must be altered. 



2. Nature makes no roads, they are the work of man and 

 animals. Roads formed by man would almost always be in 

 straight lines, if difficulties of many sorts did not intervene, or 

 if the object of the traveller's destination were not out of 

 sight. From these causes, curved lines and circuitous roads 

 have arisen. In a garden, therefore, when the path is made to 

 wind, merely because modern gardening rejects all straight 

 paths, and when the difficulties, or rather the reasons, which 

 gave occasion for these windings cannot be brought forward, 

 it is faulty; and those paths which are unnecessarily circuitous 

 are usually neglected for a straighter and consequently nearer 

 line. As common roads may be reckoned among the artificial 

 labours of human industry, it is therefore allowable, particu- 

 larly in gardens, to make the paths of an equal breadth and de- 

 cided outline, and to make them appear in alternate turns and 

 windings, to correspond with the line of beauty. 



3. The windings in carriage roads must not, however, occur 

 so frequently as in walks ; this will be avoided, when in the 

 former, to prevent accidents to horsemen and travellers, most 

 of the obstacles are removed, which the too frequent short turns 

 only increase, by causing the traveller to be aware too late of 

 another coming in an opposite direction ; carriage roads in 

 grounds should therefore be 15, 20, or 24 feet wide ; and walks 

 only 8, 10, or 12 feet, and the paths from 3 ft. to 4 ft. Wavy 

 lines succeeding each other too rapidly are fatiguing, and neither 

 beautiful nor agreeable, and can only be allowable in very nar- 

 row paths of from 3 ft. to 5 ft. 



A gentle curve line which proceeds uninterruptedly for a dis- 

 tance of from 1000 ft. to 2000 or 3000 feet and more, assuming the 

 form of a majestic bow, and then changes its direction, and im- 

 perceptibly assumes an opposite bend, possesses much greater 

 beauty and effect, and is also much more rational than when 

 turns are too frequent. If, therefore, for example, over the line 



m 3 



