134 
PLANS OF RESIDENCES 
only needs to see how pleasantly it looks and works in the keeping 
of a neat family, to be surprised that this system has not long ago 
been adopted at the north. It is not only a great economy in the 
first cost of the house and stable, but an equal economy of lot- 
room. Here is a lot of but little more than half an acre, with the 
apparent ground-room for a mansion ; with a lawn two hundred 
and twenty feet in length, a large variety of trees and shrubbery, 
an abundance of summer fruits, and a sufficient kitchen-garden for 
the use of one family ; and yet nothing is crowded. This economy 
of space is in part attributable to the compact unity of the dwelling 
and domestic offices. 
Let us now examine the ground-plan. The street in front is 
supposed to be two feet and a half below the ground-level on that 
front, and to have a wall with a stone coping level with the 
grass ; — the side-street rising so that where the carriage-road 
enters it, the two are on the same level. The coping of the 
front wall is carried around and continued up the sides of the 
main entrance-walk in a style similar to, but not quite so 
costly, as that illustrated in the vignette of Chapter IV. This 
walk is six feet wide. Street trees, if any are planted in 
front, should be placed so that the middle of the space between 
them is on the line of the middle of the walk continued, and 
should be the same distance apart as the trees of the short avenue 
on each side of the walk ; that is, twenty feet. Supposing the 
street trees are elms, we would plant at a, a, weeping Scotch elms, 
Ulmiis montana pendula ; at l>, weeping beeches ; at c, c, cut- 
leaved weeping birches. The evergreen screens on the right and 
left are to be composed principally of hemlocks. That on the 
right is intended to make an impervious screen so that the yard 
behind it on that side cannot be seen from the street. The 
flower-beds on the parlor side of the lot are designed to be the 
especial charge of the lady-florist of the house, and these ever- 
green screens will give a partial privacy to that section of the lot. 
The screens also act as boundaries of the avenue, making the 
entrance-walk a distinct and isolated feature — a shadowy arbor of 
the overarching foliage of deciduous trees, with a back-ground on 
each side of evergreen verdure. The depth of shadow in passing 
