There are many ways to read a landscape-whatever approach is taken should provide a broad overview. This may be achieved by combining on-the-ground observations with a bird's-eye perspective. To begin this process, aerial photographs should be reviewed to gain an orientation to the landscape and its setting. Aerial photographs come in different sizes and scales, and can thus portray different levels of detail in the landscape. Aerial photographs taken at a high altitude, for example, may help to reveal remnant field patterns or traces of an abandoned circulation system; or, portions of axial relationships that were part of the original design, since obscured by encroaching woodland areas. Low altitude aerial photographs can point out individual features such as the arrangement of shrub and herbaceous borders, and the exact locations of furnishings, lighting, and fence alignments. This knowledge can prove beneficial before an on-site visit.

Aerial photographs provide clues that can help orient the viewer to the landscape. The next step may be to view the landscape from a high point such as a knoll or an upper floor window. Such a vantage point may provide an excellent transition before physically entering the cultural landscape.

On ground, evidence should then be studied, including character-defining features, visual and spatial relationships. By reviewing supporting materials from historic research, individual features can be understood in a systematic fashion that show the continuum that exists on the ground today. By classifying these features and relationships, the landscape can be understood as an artifact, possessing evidence of evolving natural systems and human interventions over time.

For example, the on-site investigation of an abandoned turn-of-the-century farm complex reveals the remnant of a native oak and pine forest which was cut and burned in the mid-nineteenth century. This previous use is confirmed by a small stand of mature oaks and the presence of these plants in the emerging secondary woodland growth that is overtaking this farm complex in decline. A ring count of the trees can establish a more accurate age. By reading other character-defining features, such as the traces of old roads, remnant hedgerows, ornamental trees along boundary roads, foundation plantings, the terracing of grades and remnant fences--the visual, spatial and contextual relationships of the property as it existed a century ago may be understood and its present condition and integrity evaluated.

The findings of on-site reconnaissance, such as materials uncovered during archival research, may be considered primary data. These findings make it possible to inventory and evaluate the landscape's features in the context of the property's current condition. Character-defining features are located in situ, in relationship to each other and the greater cultural and geographic contexts.