THE LANDSCAPE BEAUTIFUL 



that his roads are imperfect. The most 

 thoroughly inconvenient system possible is 

 the rectangular layout, whether applied 

 to cities or to farming districts. City 

 builders have learned this and are trying 

 to bring city plans more to the style of 

 Washington and Paris. 



It would be a very great practiced 

 benefit to McPherson, Kan., for example, 

 if a good public thoroughfare could be 

 established running 15 miles directly 

 northwest from the town. If, then, with 

 slight deviations to avoid rough land, it 

 could be continued straight to the village 

 of Marquette, so much the better. A 

 similar diagonal road could be run to the 

 southeast of the city, another to the north- 

 east, and another to the southwest, with 

 equally good effect. For twenty years I 

 lived four miles north and four miles west 

 of McPherson. We called it eight miles to 

 town, and traveled the distance without 

 complaint three times a week. As a matter 

 of fact, we were less than six miles from 

 town as the bee flies and were wasting five 

 miles of hard work every trip. I figure that 

 at five miles a trip, three trips a week, for 

 twenty years, I traveled over 15,000 highly 



212 



