180 Spring Worlc — The Door Yard and Latvn. [April, 



confused polka, after every new tune that every new Artist will com- 

 mand to be played, and he will obtain neither rest nor satisfaction in the 

 use of his grounds. 



To the question — why can not these men agree — and why not work on 

 the same principles, and by similar rules ? we have to answer — that 

 the true principles of Taste are not universally understood. We may 

 solve the problem of many disagreements by considering that the man of 

 good taste not only seeks to gratify his own fancy but to please others at 

 the same time, and that the person who possesses the least is the most 

 jealous of what he has, and therefore, the most obstinate in his views. 

 We should remember, also, that those Landscape Gardeners, coming from 

 different countries and forming their ideas from different celebrated 

 gardens and parks, must here bring their peculiar German, Irish, and 

 English notions into contact with each other ; no wonder that pertina- 

 cious, and even pugnacious disagreements occur. But, happily for the 

 Art in America, a bright genius here and there, towers amid the crowd, 

 exhibits the true scientific principles on which the Art is based, and 

 leads straight onward to that distinction which assuredly awaits those 

 pioneers of Taste on the new continent, who are to give to America 

 a system of Eural adornment — not English, nor French, nor German, 

 but essentially American ! 



Whatever, therefore, may be the opinion of the Landscape Gardener, 

 whatever Loudon or others may have written, let the owners of grounds 

 measure their suggestions by the rule of common sense ; let him take into 

 consideration his own position, his means, the country, its soil, its climate, 

 its native scenery, etc., and he will never become a copyist of foreign 

 grounds — he will never attempt a miniature imitation of an English earl's 

 park, on a half-dozen acres of land ; he will never make a copy of a Dutch 

 Flower Garden, with all its odd fancies and giracracks. It is Nature 

 that the gardener is required to follow, and not to adopt any foregone 

 patterns that man has cunningly devised. Let every ' country gentle- 

 man ' and farmer but study nature, and attentively observe the charming 

 scenes, the stately groves, the giant forests, the rolling rivers, the smiling 

 plains, that adorn our land ; and, with those glowing pictures and fault- 

 less patterns before his mind, he may wisely commence the work of 

 beautifying his grounds, in a manner consistent, first, with his own true 

 comfort, and second, with their picturesque beauty. Let him but com- 

 bine both, adding the exotic products of the hot house to the native forest 

 growths, and we shall soon behold most important changes in the scenery 

 around our Eural Homes. 



