TEXTBOOK OF LANDSCAPE GARDENING 
seats upon the common, but as a general rule such provision seems 
desirable. When seats are furnished they should be of good design, 
very substantially constructed and usually fixed in place. Seats 
should be located beside walks and not in the center of grass areas. 
Walks: Another practical problem arises in providing walks 
across the common. Many instances are known where ragged, inter- 
secting or meandering walks across a town common cut up the 
spaces, spoil the grass and seriously injure the whole effect. About 
all that can be done, however, recognizing the practical necessity 
of walks, is to reduce them to the smallest number, locate them on 
direct lines where the travel is certain to go — walk or no walk — 
and to construct them of good, clean, inconspicuous materials. 
They can then be kept tidy, at least. Any supposedly ornamental 
serpentine treatment of the walks on the common is pretty sure to 
become ridiculous. 
Grass and Trees: Careful study of the problem reduces the 
improvement of the town common to a matter of good lawn and good 
trees. Clean, open spaces of well-graded, well-mowed and well- 
kept lawn shaded by large and dignified deciduous trees certainly 
give the desired effect in ninety cases out of one hundred. Im- 
provement should begin on many commons with a regrading and 
reseeding of the lawns. Existing lawns on town commons suffer, 
in many cases, from lack of water and fertilizer. Good feeding and 
a reasonable water supply are necessary to the development of a 
lawn anywhere. The practical methods of improving grass lands 
and lawns need not be taken up here. 
The repair of injured trees, the removal of poor or crowded 
specimens, and the scientific preservation of those remaining should 
be the next undertaking. In certain places the planting of young 
trees is to be strongly recommended, especially where, in recent 
years, gypsy and brown-tail moths, the elm-leaf beetle, leaky gas 
mains or damaging electric wires have decimated the ranks of 
earlier plantings. 
As a rule, subject to only a few exceptions, the native elm and 
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