PARK AND CEMETERY 
93 
Outdoor Floors 
By H. A. Caparn. 
Grading is the art of making- 
doors there is but one kind of floor, 
Out of doors there are two kinds, the flat and the 
curved. With the flat or architectural floor we need 
not concern ourselves, for, as its surfaces are plane 
surfaces, and contain none but straight lines, their 
treatment resolves itself into a question of difference 
of levels, which is another story. The floors of plane 
surfaces are those of formal 
or architectural gardening, 
the floors of curved surfaces 
those of informal or natural- 
istic. When the floor in for- 
mal or informal gardening be- 
comes too steep to walk upon 
it becomes in effect a wall, a 
terrace bank, a slope separat- 
ing two different levels, and 
only incidentally comes under 
the definition of grading. 
There is no art more wide- 
ly practiced or less understood 
than this of grading. It is 
practiced wherever a building 
possesses more land than that 
on which it stands ; and it is 
seldom practiced by any one 
who understands more than 
the need for getting down 
from one level to another 
somehow. He usually does 
this by what may be termed 
the processes of rounding off 
and smoothing down. He 
generally makes a convex sur- 
face wherever he can, all ob- 
livious of the fact that, gen- 
erally speaking, a convex or 
rounded surface of ground is 
apt to be a surface of ugli- 
ness, and a concave surface is 
one of beauty, takes less mate- 
rial, and is apt to be less ex- 
pensive. Many towns where 
hills abound and streets have 
been cut on hillsides con- 
contain numberless costly lots with all the corners 
trimmed off till they look like vast and various green 
pin cushions. Lots like these are meant for terraces 
and retaining walls or sod banks, for flat surfaces and 
different levels. Whoever would learn how to devise 
them should study a flight of steps as he has never 
looked at them before, and he will find suggestions for 
the treatment of most of such problems. His treads 
may be lawn or gravel, sloping or level, plane or 
curved, and his risers straight or curved or irregular, 
sloping or pependicular, stone retaining walls or sod 
banks ; his side walls may be walls or banks or rocks, 
but the terrace is a step from one level to another. 
If one step is not enough then there can be a flight of 
them. 
The space allowed me by a good-natured editor is 
not enough for entering into details and their discus- 
sion. A whole issue of Park and Cemetery would 
not furnish room enough. But there is room enough 
for a few general principles. What shall they be, and 
where shall we get them? 
Go into the country and look at the fields and 
meadows and see the extreme beauty of line in the 
natural surfaces of the earth as expressed bv cultiva- 
outdoor floors. In- 
the flat one. 
No. 1. A BADLY GRADED LAWN. The surface is rounded from the base of the 
house to the street line, making what is derisively called a "fat roll,’’ so that the 
base of the house and planting is cut off from all points below by the continually 
receding line of the convex surface. The effect is much more marked on the ground 
than in the picture. 
No. 2. A WELL GRADED LAWN. The contours are graceful and lead naturally 
up to the house; the shadows are varied and harmonize well with the surface, and 
the whole area is visible from any point. 
