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LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
Lakes or ponds are the most beautiful forms in which 
water can be displayed in the grounds of a country 
residence.* They invariably produce their most pleasing 
effects when they are below the level of the house ; as, if 
above, they are lost to the view, and if placed on a level 
with the eye, the}* are seen to much less advantage. We 
conceive that they should never be introduced wdiere they 
do not naturally exist, except with the concurrence of the 
following circumstances. First, a sufficient quantity of 
running water to maintain at ail times an overflow, for 
nothing can be more unpleasant than a stagnant pool, as 
nothing is more delightful than pure, clear, limpid water ; 
and secondly, some natural formation of ground, in which 
the proposed water can be expanded, that will not only 
make it appear natural, but diminish, a hundred fold, the 
expense of formation. 
The finest and most appropriate place to form a lake, is 
m the bottom of a small valley, rather broad in proportion 
to its length. The soil there will probably be found rather 
clayey and retentive of moisture ; and the rill or brook, if 
not already running through it, could doubtless be easily 
diverted thither. There, by damming up the lower part 
of the valley with a head of greater or less height, the water 
may be thrown back so as to form the whole body of the 
lake. 
The first subject which will demand the attention, after 
the spot has been selected for the lake or pond, and the 
* Owing to the immense scale upon which nature displays this fine element 
in North America, every sheet of water of moderate or small size is almost 
universally called a pond. And many a beautiful, limpid, natural expanse, 
which in England would be thought a charming lake, is here simply a pond. 
Ths term may be equally correct, but it is by no means as elegant. 
