552 



PARADISE IN Tin: COUNTRY. 



the spirited suggestions which follow. — 

 Ed. Horticulturist.] 



Landscape-gardening is a pleasant sub- 

 ject to expand into an imaginative article, 

 and I am not surprised that men, sitting 

 amid hot editorials in a ciiy (the monlii of 

 July,) find a certain facility in creating 

 woods and walks, planting hedges and 

 hniiding conservatories. So may the brain 

 be refreshed, I well know, even with the 

 smell of printing ink in the nostrils. But 

 Inndr^cnpe gardening, as within the reach of 

 the small fanner people, is quite another 

 thing, and to be managed (as brain-garden- 

 ing need not be, to be sure) with economy 

 and moderation. Tell us in the quarterlies, 

 if you will, what a man may do with a 

 thousand acres and plenty of monev ; but 

 tve will endeavor to show what mav be done 

 with fifty acres and a spare hour in the eve- 

 ning — hy the tasteful farmer, or the trades- 

 man retired on small means. These own 

 their fifty acres (more or less,) up to the 

 sky and down to the bottom of their " dig- 

 gings," and as nature lets the tree grow and 

 tlie flower expand for man, without refer- 

 ence to bis account at tlie bank, they have it 

 m their power to embellish, and most com- 

 monly, they have also the inclination. Be- 

 ginners, however, at this, as at most other 

 things, are at the mercy of injudicious 





counsel, and few books can be more expen- 

 sively misapplied, than the treatises on land- 

 scape-gardening. 



The most intense and sincere lovers of the 

 country, are citizens who have fled to rural 

 life in middle age, and old travellers who 

 are weary, heart and foot, and long for shel- 

 ter and rest. Both these classes of men 

 are ornamental in their tastes — the first be- 

 cause the countr3'is his passion, heightened 

 by abstinence ; and the latter, because he 

 reniembers the secluded and sweet spots he 

 has crossed in travel, and yearns for some- 

 thing that resembles them, of his own. To 

 begin at the br-ginning, I will suppose such 

 a man as either of these, in search of land 

 to purchase and build upon. His means 

 are moderate. 



Leaving the climate and productiveness 

 of soil out of the (piestion, the main things 

 to find united, are, shade, loater, and ineqval- 

 ity of surfaa. With these three features ' 

 given by nature, any spot may be made 

 beautiful, and at very little cost ; and, for- 

 tunately for purchasers in this country, most 

 land is valued and sold with little or no re- 

 ference to these or other capabilities for em- 

 bell ishmerit. Water, in a countr}' so laced 

 with rivers, is easily found. Yet there are 

 hints worth giving, perhaps, obvious as they 

 seem, even in the selection of water. A 

 small and rapid river is preferable to a large 



