Cement paths are unsympathetic in color and liable to crack due to frost. To guard against cracking a good proportion of sand should be used in mixture, and the path should be laid on a concrete basis at least six inches thick. Cement may be colored with iron oxide (red ochre) to give it a warmer and more genial hue.

Brick Paths are the best ones to use in a garden and are preferable to gravel. Its only drawback being is its lack of flexibility, which makes it unfit for use in curved lines. Its advantages are the ease with which it may be kept free from weeds, its durability, good color, and the opportunity it offers for artistic effect.

In gardening, the old order of things die hard, and gardeners are shy of adopting anything savoring of novelty. However, the brick path is the fashion of today, as bricks match so well with nature as well as artistic accents such as wall water fountains.

You will find it in many old gardens, its cheery red surface worn into hollows, but ever dry owing to the porous nature of its material. If you decide upon a brick path, be careful to obtain bricks of a kind which are not impervious to water.

They may readily be tested by plunging one into a pail of water and noting the speed with which the surface water disappears after it has been lifted out again. In point of cost, brick paths do not compare unfavorably with gravel, but much depends upon the price of each material ruling in the district.

A rubble foundation is prepared as for a gravel path, and dressed over with finer material, over which is put a layer of finely screened gravel or builder's sand, which must be raked to a level surface. The good appearance of brick paths would be marred if any perceptible camber were given to the surface, but on level ground there may be half an inch difference of levelness between the sides and the center of a three-foot path.

The bricks should be laid flat upon the sand without mortar or cement, pressed down firmly and into close contact, and kept in true line by the use of a stretched cord. It is best to begin by laying the marginal bricks on one side from end to end, and to select the side which comes against turf, as that helps to keep the bricks in place.

All bricks are more or less curved in the burning process. You can easily detect the concave side by glancing along the edge. This side should be laid downward. Otherwise the bricks will acquire a tendency to rock and become loose.

Having laid the path margin on one side, and making sure it is straight and true from end to end, you can build the center up to it. Before you proceed, though, you must have some idea of how you are going to lay the rest of the bricks. They may be laid in parallel lines or breaking joints, which is the simplest plan, and produce a neat if not ambitious effect, or a pattern may be worked out on some such lines. It is not desirable to adopt a pattern which involves much cutting of bricks, because of the difficulty of making neat joints with the cut ends.

If you lay the center part well, the marginal line of bricks will lie neatly along its free side and complete the path. In bedding the bricks upon their seating the sand may be added to or removed, as the situation requires, bringing the upper surface of the bricks to the general level.

The principal precaution needed is to bed each brick firmly, so that no subsequent subsidence of individual bricks can occur. If you prefer, you can lay the marginal bricks on edge, to stand about two inches above the level of the center, but that practice is not conducive to efficient drainage.