90 
WALKS AND ROADS. 
Pine walks, if made of good stuff, and tarred as suggested, will 
last from eight to ten years ; and if sufficient care is used in their 
construction, will be found very satisfactory substitutes for stone or 
gravel, even for curved lines. For straight walks they are always 
satisfactory as long as sound. In districts where stone and gravel 
are scarce and dear, they must long continue in use ; and there is 
no reason why they should not be shaped into graceful forms, 
since wood is so much more facile to work than stone. Several 
methods of preserving wood from decay are now attracting great 
attention, and it is believed that some of them will be effectual 
to so increase the durability of wood that its use for walks will be 
far more desirable than heretofore. It is essential in all walks that 
the sod shall be about an inch above the outer surface of the walk, 
so that a scythe or rolling mower may do its work unobstructed in 
passing near or over them. 
To lay out the carriage-drive and the walks in conformity to 
the paper plat that has been made, is a work requiring some 
patience and skill. There are persons whose love for beautiful 
effects in landscape-gardening is evident, who are so wanting in 
what is called a mechanical eye, as to be incompetent to lay out 
their own grounds, even with a plat before them. If you, kind 
reader, are one of those, send for the nearest good gardener to do 
the work for you ; or invite some friend or neighbor, who has 
given evidence of this talent by the making of his own place, to 
come and help you. He will not be likely to turn away from your 
appreciation of his taste and skill. If, however, your ground is 
large enough to admit of much length of walks, the labor of laying 
them out would more properly devolve upon a professional gar- 
dener — if such there be in your neighborhood. It will not, how- 
ever, be advisable to listen to all the suggestions of improvements 
that any “ professional gardener ’’ may volunteer for your guidance. 
Genuine landscape-gardeners are rare everywhere, and bear about 
the same proportion to good common gardeners that accomplished 
landscape-painters do to house-painters. The probabilities are 
that your neighborhood has some gardener competent to plat 
walks, lay turf, cut your shrubbery-beds, and do your planting ; 
but, ten chances to one, he will lay more stress on the form of some 
