274 



PARKS AND PLEASURE-GROUNDS. 



walls will be found insufficient ; and as no consider- 

 able addition can be made to their height, nor indeed, 

 if added, would prove effectual, the object aimed at 

 must be attained by planting trees and shrubs, which 

 will have to grow for several years before they afford 

 the desired shelter. As the size of villa residences 

 increases, the difficulties in regard to privacy dimin- 

 ish, as there is room for enlarged masses of trees and 

 shrubs, and the whole place naturally assumes the 

 character of a common country residence. 



(2.) The Approach. — As remarked in the previous 

 section of this chapter, small residences seldom require 

 an approach of any great length. The smaller the 

 quantity of the ground occupied in this way, the 

 greater will be the extent capable of being devoted to 

 useful and ornamental purposes. "We do not say that 

 the approach to a small residence may not be made in 

 some measure ornamental ; but in its formation, its 

 peculiar use ought to be principally kept in view, and 

 any decoration connected with it should be made sub- 

 sidiary to the adornment of the other parts of the 

 grounds. We should be disposed' to line them with 

 groups of shrubs, or to screen them with hedges of 

 evergreens, so that they should not interfere with the 

 general privacy of the place. It will be found that 

 the approach is seldom used as a walk or lounge by 

 the members of the family, even when it is not ex- 

 posed to the external world. In a former page it was 

 stated that in some admirable villas there is no ap- 

 proach, in the proper sense of the word ; that its place 

 is sometimes taken by a graveled court or covered 

 way; and without doubt the advantages of such ar- 

 rangements, if they do not supersede the necessity of 



