88 
WALKS AND ROADS. 
steps it is desirable to have greater width than in other par.ts of 
the walk. 
The width of carriage-drives should be governed by the same 
considerations as the walks. Eight feet is the least width, and 
fourteen feet the greatest, that will be appropriate to the class of 
places for which this book is designed ; and whatever the width 
elsewhere, it should not be less than twelve feet opposite the main 
entrance steps, unless it traverses a porte-cochere. The turnway in 
front of the main entrance should be on a radius of not less than 
ten feet to the inner line of the road, and more if space permits ; 
but not to exceed a radius of twenty feet, unless the location of 
trees or the shape of the ground make it specially desirable to turn 
a larger circuit. 
Opportunities to make or lose pleasing effects are always pre- 
sented where there are trees or shrubs already grown. To conduct 
walks or roads so as to make them seem to have grown there ; to 
arrange a gateway under branches of trees or between old shrubs, 
or leading around or between them ; to have walks divide so that a 
tree shall mark their intersection ; to weave a turnway smoothly 
among old tree trunks — all such arts as these are precisely the 
small things which prove the taste, or lack of it, in the designer. 
In making the carriage-road and the walks, there is an immense 
difference in expense between excessive thoroughness and the 
“ good enough ” style. Digging out from a foot and a half to two 
feet of the soil the whole width of the road or walk, tile-draining 
on each side, then filling up with broken stone or scoriae, and 
finally covering the surface with several inches of pure gravel, 
and paving the gutters with pebbles, is the thorough style. But 
on sandy and gravelly soils we have seen excellent walks and 
roads (for light carriages) made by simply covering the ground 
with from two to three inches of good gravel or slate. The prepa- 
ration necessary for this kind of road-making being to excavate 
below the level of the 
border, so as to leave a 
rounded surface with tile 
of three to four inches 
diameter, placed in the 
Fig. 19. 
