PAEK3 AND PLEASUKE-QKOUNDS. 



The same principle holds true iu regard to the arrangement of grounds about coun 

 try houses. "The cockneyism of three-story town houses" is no more out of place in 

 the country, than is the village door-yard before a farm-house. 



But some careful farmer will ask us, " How can we aftbrd to lay out parks and 

 pleasure-grounds, and keep them in fine condition ? It would cost us more than the 

 whole labor of our farms. Only think of what an expenditure of money and labor 

 this hedging, and planting, and mowing this pleasure-ground would involve. It 

 would be all very well if we could aftbrd it ; but that we can not, and we must leave 

 it to retired gentlemen who have made their fortunes in town, and come out into the 

 country to spend them." 



But we reply. You can carry out our plan without incurring a heavy expense. 

 Hundreds of farmers in our own county of Monroe can make such a park as we pro- 

 pose, without feeling the cost. Fence ofi", with Osage Orange or Buckthorn, at a cost 

 of about twenty to twenty-five cents a rod, five to- ten acres of land immediately around 

 your dwelling. Seed it down, and it will produce good crops of hay. You can get 

 plenty of young Maples, Elms, Tulip trees, Basswoods, Ash, and other native trees, in 

 the woods, which can be taken up and planted at leisure intervals in the fall, when 

 farm labor is over, and early in spring, before it commences, and even during winter, 

 in mild weather. Until the trees are well-established, it will be necessary to cultivate 

 the soil around them. It will not be necessary to cover the whole ground with trees, 

 but merely to scatter them here and there in groups, and singly, to give it a park-like 

 character which will diftinguish it at once from the cultivated fields. A little can be 

 done now, and a little again, as leisure affords ; and in a few years the work will 

 show. Meantime the land is cropped profitably; for hay is always a paying crop, 

 and an indispensable one. The ground nearest the house may be planted with some 

 rarer trees — a portion of them evergreens. A small portion of the ground near the 

 house might be separated from the main body of the park by a wire fence, or move- 

 able hurdle fence, and kept mowed ; and if embellished with a few flowering shrubs, 

 and a few beds of flowers, all the better. But these, for economy's, sake, can very 

 well be dispensed with. When the planting is finished, and the trees fairly estab- 

 lished, the park might be pastured with sheep, as many parks are in Europe; and 

 thus it would always have a closely cut surface without the expense of mowing, and 

 the sheep would be an interesting feature in its scenery. When forest trees are not 

 within reach, we would recommend the raising of them from seed, or small plants can 

 be purchased at the nurseries for $2 or $3 per 100, which, with a couple of years' 

 growth in nursery rows, will be fit for final planting out. Only go about it, and the 

 means will not be wanting. 



Those who wish to have a plan sketched out for their guidance, can procure it at a 

 trifling expense, from Messrs. Meeiian <fe Saunders, Messrs. Copeland & Cleveland, 

 Mr, MuNN, Mr. Leuciiars, Mr. Hepp, Mr. Graef, Mr. Cook, and several other gen- 

 tlemen who devote themselves to the practice of landscape gardening, and whose cards 



e found in our advertising pages. We wish some of these gentlemen would (s, 

 us with their views on this subject. We desire to push improvements into the 



