58 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



of the farmer and his calling. This last stage has become a part of the life 

 of New England, it has spread itself over many of the beautiful hills and 

 valleys of New York, and Michigan must feel its influence. I was surprised 

 at a recent gathering of New England farmers to hear a spirited commen- 

 dation of all efforts towards rural adornment, and that, too, for the sake of 

 the pure adornment itself. 



Landscape gardening is not planting a fine tree or making a gravel walk ; 

 a picture is not a canvas or a paint-brush. The most important part of 

 landscape gardening lies under a man's hat. Two men view the same land- 

 scape: one sees a half dozen trees which will make ten cords of stovewood; 

 the other sees a picture. Poetry, music, sculpture, painting, landscape 

 gardening, are essentially the same and yet entirely unlike. They exist in 

 the mind as the ideals of beauty, — beauty of expression, not of form. So far 

 they are alike. They differ in the manner of communication. Poetry is 

 communicated in words, music in sound, sculpture in the expression of 

 form painting in combinations of form and colors on canvas, and landscape 

 gardening, which combines much of the ideal of them all, endeavors to 

 express itself in the arrangement of natural objects. Landscape gardening, 

 therefore, becomes the most real of the ideal. There must be an apprecia- 

 tion in the mind before any picture or any landscapes can give us pleasure. 

 "Everything the individual sees without him corresponds to his state of 

 mind," says Emerson. The artist and the landscape gardener care not so 

 much for the exact form of the landscape, or the kinds of objects which 

 enliven it, as for its expression, the impression it conveys to the beholder. 

 If the scene is gloomy, why is it gloomy? If gay, why is it gay? Victor 

 Hugo, in his last written utterances, recognized this vital truth: "Form to 

 the sculptor is all and yet nothing. It is nothing without mind; with the 

 idea it is everything. 



As we should expect, there have been in vogue two methods of dealing 

 with nature in reference to ornamental gardening. She has been imitated 

 and interpreted. Here lies an important difference with we must grasp. 

 It is the difference between success and failure. Yonder field is a pleasant 

 landscape ; in the vale is a brook, winding its way through banks of ferns 

 and thorns, while beyond are clumps of prickly ash, red with clustered 

 berries and half hiding the crest of a knoll u[)on which the maples are 

 bedecking themselves in autumn colors. The imitator is a literalist. The 

 scene pleases him, and he endeavors to reproduce it exactly upon his 

 grounds. " He holds the mirror up to nature." He must have the brook, the 

 ferns and the thorns, he must build his knoll and plant his prickly ashes and 

 his maples. The interpreter is an economist — he feels the force of the stoic's 

 adage: "How many things there are which Diogenes can do without." 

 He studies the gay scene before him, he reads its expression, he notices 

 the cut and the colors of nature's frock. He finds that the expression does 

 not depend upon the brook or the bank, or the ashes; he has learned that 

 the scene is gay because of bright colors and no deep shadows. Then he need 

 build no knolls, need dig no brooks, need not even plant the ashes and the 

 maples, for the other trees may do as well. So, with Emerson, the landscape 

 gardener comes to " value the expression of nature and not nature itself," to 

 "give the gloom of gloom and the sunshine of sunshine." . 



We have now mastered the first and the greatest difficulty in landscape 

 gardening; in fact, iu all fine art. But if we would ornament correctly we 



