RURAL TASTE AND ITS MISSION. 



The more rude the age, the less do we observe the indications of this love of nature. 

 The Indian was willing to leave nature as he found it, content in gazing on the stars that 

 spoke to him of the Good Spirit, in watching the stream that, like his own life, was ever 

 moving on to some mysterious land, and the trees that, wild and uncultivated, like his 

 own aspiring thoughts, were reaching upwards. On the contrary, the highly cultivated 

 and imaginative Greek made everything around him artistic, invested every tree with a 

 spiiit, and every grove with a divinity. The Roman was more practical and stern in his 

 nature, and esteemed this earth as his battle field, rather than his resting place, while 

 the oriental nations made their gardens the synonyms of repose. At the present day 

 the English seek for something stately and rare in their parks and gardens, while the 

 French cultivate what is more showy and artificial. 



We have not referred to the history of Rural Taste without a purpose. It has been 

 seen that each nation strove to embody in its parks, gardens, pleasure grounds, and dwell- 

 ings, the ideas peculiar to its own character, and the conclusion we wish to draw is, that 

 we should do something more than imitate the models which the past has left us. The 

 mission of Rural Taste in this country, is as peculiar and distinct as our institutions, and 

 we cannot adopt the standards of other countries without sacrificing our own individuali- 

 ty. We confess to little synipathj^ with the notion that our tastes in the fine arts are all 

 imported, and that we have no American connoisseurs in the principles of harmony and 

 beauty. Under monarchical forms of government, it is well to dazzle the eye and blind 

 the mind, but here we want no royal parks, or queenly gardens, but instead tiie evidence 

 of a refinement as universal as the principle of liberty. The rules of art are unquestiona- 

 bly the same in all ages, the same principles of proportion and fitness obtain under all 

 circumstances, but Taste is not absolute. There must be adaptation to the character and 

 habits of a people, in order to constitute any work of Rural Art strictly tasteful. The 

 Grecian temple was beautiful in the extreme, but it was built to worship otlier divinities 

 than the one true God. The eastern gardens were the very types of voluptuousness and 

 sensual indulgence, and as such are not suited to the spirit of our day. The magnificent 

 pleasure grounds of more modern times, are proofs of an extravagance which ill comports 

 M'ith the practical tendency of the age. We would not be understood to number our- 

 selves among those who narrow everything down to the criterion of utility and profit, but 

 we contend that Rural Art diffeis materially and essentially from Sculpture, Painting 

 and Music, in that its forms are predetermined by the nature of the soil, the climate, and 

 the occupation of the inhabitants of any given country. It is the mission of Rural Taste 

 to improve, beautify and adorn the native soil, not to re-produce the scenery and products 

 of foreign ones. 



The greatest danger which at present thieatens the interests of rural decoration in this 

 country is that of imitating to too great an extent the examples of other and older nations. 

 We plant foreign trees instead of native ones. We build Gothic or Greci.in houses, with- 

 out considering whether they are suited to our climate and wants, or harmonize with the 

 surrounding scenery. We strive to fill our parks with something rare and imported, in- 

 stead of adorning them with the equally beautiful and ornamental products of our own 

 soil. This rivalry in importing foreign plants, fruits, and flowers is too nearly akui to 

 the pedantry of those excessively travelled gentlemen who assume foreign airs, — to the 

 no small detriment of x\merican independence — to be long pursued by intelligent cultiva- 

 tors. We ought, as tillers and beautifiers of the land, to win for ourselves the treasures 

 the earnest mind and the practical hand bring forth from mother earth, 

 an old adage that " he who follows must always be behind," and so the h 



