GARDENS AND GARDENING. 
11 
walks in order as it is the beds, and, unless they are well 
kept, the whole design will have a slipshod look. When 
good gravel can be obtained that will pack, the walks can 
be kept in order with comparatively little labor; but this 
is not generally to be had, and perhaps the next best thing 
is some of the different asphalts. ” 
It should be remembered that a path is not for orna¬ 
ment, but for convenience—as a means to an end, and 
that end is the getting somewhere. It does not add, there¬ 
fore, to the pedestrian’s satisfaction that, in its attempts 
to be “undulating,” it should wriggle like a serpent, or 
lead him to quite a different part of the grounds from 
where he wished to go. Beauty in a path consists pri¬ 
marily of a look of naturalness; and a retired, rural-look¬ 
ing place is sadly spoiled by attempts at gravel walks. 
“Where wild-flowers and blossoming shrubs, free songs 
of birds, the murmur of the brook, or the plash of water on 
the bank of pond or river, fills us with a feeling of soli¬ 
tude, we dislike any appearance of man’s labor or artificial 
improvement. If our way lies through a thickly settled 
country, where artificial life is constantly forced upon us, 
where all walks are formal and graveled, all gardens trim 
and hedged, fences straight, and trees in formal lines, it is 
an additional pleasure to come upon a spot where nature 
seems hardly to have been disturbed, where the path we 
follow seems to have been made by loose cattle, or is a 
broad road too little used to be regularly made, and so left 
to wind in and out to avoid a standing tree or a projecting 
rock.” 
This is very pretty reading, but the “loose-cattle” 
theory for paths would scarcely be convenient or agreeable 
in ordinary cases ; it is not necessary, however, to avoid it 
by going to the opposite extreme of stiffness. A curved 
path is more pleasing than a straight one, provided it has 
a reason for being. The planting of a group of trees or 
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