PLANTING S U U U Ji m: 11 i j<: s . 



BY WILLIAM SAUNDERS, GERMANTOWN, I'llILADELPIIIA. 



To arrange the improvements of a country residence judiciously and economically, 

 is an intercstinp; question to all who anticipate building. It is evident from the 

 many cxtrava_L'ant expenditures of frequent occurrence in the layintr out of country 

 places, that the spirit of improvement is entered into without sufficient reflection ; 

 for althtiULih it may be considered that all have their own ideas of comfort and 

 convenience in the abstract, yet few can carry into execution all the details, or 

 satisfactorily introduce and fit all the disjointed parts so as to form a complete 

 whole. 



This is more strictly applicable to the improvement of the grounds. Few are 

 their own architects, although they may have peculiar conveniences which they wish 

 embodied in the construction of their dwelling; the whole is left to the discretionary 

 approval of a competent professional person. On the contraiy, most people fancy 

 themselves perfectly qualified to lay out their grounds. In some cases we have 

 known heavy sums expended in the endeavor to secure the indiscriminate imitation 

 of some popular or approved style, altogether unsuited to the (jcnliis of the place, 

 and the ei*ror has not been found out until it was too late to derive much advantage 

 from the discoveiy. Such instances are to be regretted, inasmuch as they tend to 

 retard the general improvement of grounds under the mistaken notion that a 

 pleasing landscape cannot be developed unless at enormous expense, while the truth 

 is, that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred where heavy sums have been expended 

 in the so-called improvement of grounds, it will be found that the result is far from 

 being commensurate with the expense, and that a change of scenery is not necessarily 

 an improvement. 



The art of Landscape Gardening and the art of Landscape Painting are somewhat 

 similar in their results, although the practical application of details and mechanical 

 arrangement of materials are widely different. The gardener must not only possess a 

 high degree of refined and cultivated artistic taste, but he must also have a thorough 

 knowledge of the habits and requirements of plants, their general and special com- 

 binations, and evciy thing in connection with their culture and management. In 

 his compositions he must have an eye to future as well as immediate effect, and his 

 best efforts are liable to become tame and uninteresting from causes which he can 

 neither foresee nor remedy. The painter, on the other hand, can cull from nature 

 many of her matured and richest scenes, and so dispose of them on his canvass that 

 they fonu one complete and enchanting picture. 



That a higher degree of care and skill must be brought to bear upon the arrange- 

 ment of a place a couple of acres in extent, than in one of fifty acres, is well known 

 to all who have any acquaintance with the subject. Many persons have an idea, 

 and we have frequently heard it confidently asserted, that the same general effect 

 be produced in both, by following a similar method of arrangement 



