50 SUBURBAN GARDENS 
to calculate how the work of leveling will im- 
prove God-given conditions. Even those who 
are most truly lovers of nature, of rocks and 
woods and wilderness, fall into the same line 
of thought when it comes to a consideration of 
domestic grading; and the suburban place ad- 
justed to its site, when that site is the least bit 
unruly, is the rarest of rarities. 
Already the rule which I would establish in 
handling grades is apparent I think, without 
being formulated, but if it is to be a rule it must 
be expressed. I have always called it follow- 
ing the “lead” of the land. After all this is 
what we are bound to do, in the long run. We 
may stir up a little dust here and scratch off a 
little there, but from the great lead of the 
land, rising and dipping or stretching off to the 
horizon as level as the sea, we can never, actu- 
ally, get away. And it is a waste of energy and 
time — and beauty — to try. 
Approach your individual problem without 
preconceived ideas to befog its real demands 
as well as its real possibilities. Then you will 
be able to conceive a design or scheme for it 
that will be actually a part of it, and of it 
alone, uninfluenced by this or that that has ap- 
pealed to the fancy somewhere, sometime. If 
creation has whimsically tilted the ground ap- 
