But to return to our choice. The five fields, f to j, are supposed to contain no great variety of surface; and the country around to be tame rather than otherwise, and in the same style as that which lies north of London, along the Edgware Road. The purchaser, we shall suppose, now employs a landscape-gardener, whose first business is to procure a plan to be made, such as fig. 106., in which the ring-fence of the five fields is shown, enclosing a space thrown into squares by dotted lines. These dotted lines are, as they ought to be in every working plan of this kind, in the exact direction of north and south, and east and west, for more convenient reference and description, and future use in marking out improvements on the ground. Before the squares are drawn on the plan, they ought previously to be marked out on the ground, and a small stake placed in every intersection of the lines; that is, at every corner of each square, as shown in the figure. The squares may be 50 ft, or 100 ft., or 200 ft, on the side, according to the extent of the plot, the inequalities of its surface, or the alterations which are to be made in it In the case before us, they are sixteen in number, exclusive of the portions of squares round the boundary; each square is 150 ft. on the side, and each contains half an acre and 22 poles.

On an estate where the surface is flat, the squares may be large; because, from the general sameness of the whole surface, the character of the ground included in one square must be very like that in all the others: hut on a very irregular surface they must he small; because each square may have a different character of surface. By having a stake with a number on it, in the corner of each square; by having these numbers in regular series from one side of the plot of ground to the other; and then by having corresponding numbers on a plan, and a memorandum-book for reference and description, it is evident that a tolerably correct idea may be conveyed of the soil, subsoil, surface, and distant views, even to a person who has not seen the estate.

297. The memorandum, or field-book may have the same numbers on two opposite pages, as in the specimen below: the one to describe the present state, and the other the intended alterations or improvements, thus: