March, 1909 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
Ke) 
\o 
The Roadway and the Grounds 
By John Carey Edwards 
BVIOUSLY if one has a house one must have 
Y a road to it; obviously also, if one has a 
country house, there must be a house road 
that is connected with the public highway 
without the grounds. Here, then, is a real 
problem for decorative treatment and de- 
velopment, not often neglected, it is true, 
but sometimes not always realized to the utmost. ‘The pub- 
lic road is, of course, public property, and is paid for and 
supported by public funds. Rural communities do not always 
rise to the requirements of the highly decorative places that 
frequently abut upon the public roads, and in such unfortu- 
nate circumstances the private owner is compelled, if he 
would possess a place completely beautiful, to maintain his 
own piece of public road in his own standard of excellence. 
There have been many instances of such pieces of road- 
making in America, and, doubtless, there will be many more, 
to the double advantage of the estates upon such roads and 
the beauty and convenience of the property owners in general. 
The public highway, whether maintained by the local au- 
thorities or by the property owner, is an integral part of 
every estate that borders upon it. This proposition is so 
self-evident that it 
would seem to re- 
quire neither argu- 
ment nor illustration 
to support it; yet it 
is not without value 
to bring together, as 
has been done on the 
adjoining pages, a 
number of views of 
estate roadways, of 
roads without and 
within the estate, as 
object lessons in 
roadway treatment, 
and as explaining, as 
illustrations alone 
can do, the very 
great decorative 
value of handsome 
road borders and 
beautiful entrance- 
ways. 
The proper in- 
closure of the estate 
grounds is a matter 
often hotly debated. 
To fence, or not to 
fence, is a question 
that has supporters 
for both sides. Shall 
there be a solid ce- 
ment wall? Or a 
wall of stone, high 
or low? Or a 
wooden fence? Or 
a boundary of 
shrubbery? Or a 
lofty fence of iron? 
Shall the treatment 
A monumental entrance and roadway 
be monumental or unpretentious? Shall the public be rigidly 
shut out, or shall it be permitted to view some of the beauties 
within? Or shall there be no inclosure at all? 
As a matter of fact the question is not one to be determined 
by any one general rule. The fencing or inclosing is a part 
of the treatment of the house grounds, an integral feature 
in the landscape effect. ‘There is, therefore, a natural and 
wide field for boundary treatment, which, in most cases, is 
really a question of personal taste rather than the following 
of any set series of rules. 
On the question of fence or no fence there is this to be 
said: the inclosure of small grounds, as in a village street, 
offers a very different problem from that which obtains in 
the inclosure of a considerable estate, embracing many acres. 
A row of small houses, each standing on a small plot of 
ground, rigidly fenced from each other and from the street, 
presents a very different problem from the large house 
standing in the midst of spacious grounds with perhaps no 
other residence in sight. It should be very clear, in the 
latter case, that no oversight can be maintained over the 
grounds in general unless there is a well defined line of 
demarcation, and no way at all of indicating individual 
ownership of large 
grounds on the high- 
way border, save by 
an inclosure of some 
sort. 
Hence for large 
estates, and often 
for small ones, we 
are likely always to 
have some inclosure 
of one kind or an- 
other; and this, as 
has already been set 
forth, is a matter de- 
pendent upon the 
whole treatment of 
the grounds and of 
the individual per- 
sonal taste shown in 
the development of 
that treatment. 
Very apparently, 
therefore, there is an 
amplitude of ways 
in which this prob- 
lem may be met and 
solved. The iillus- 
trations which ac- 
company this article 
show many of these, 
and each of them is 
full of suggestion 
and interest. A 
border of grass is, 
of course, quite uni- 
versal, since the art 
of the landscape 
gardener knows no 
more useful nor 
beautiful material. 
