10 



HINTS TO RURAL IMPROVERS. 



and villas in many parts of North America. | Granting all this, it cannot be denied 

 The vast web of railroads which now 

 interlaces the continent, though really 

 built for the purposes of trade, cannot 

 wholly escape doing some duty for the 

 Beautiful as well as the useful. Hundreds 

 and thousands, formerly obliged to live in 

 the crowded streets of cities, now find 

 themselves able to enjoy a country cottage, 

 several miles distant,— the old notions of 

 time and space being half annihilated; 

 and these suburban cottages enable the 

 busy citizen to breathe freely, and keep 

 alive his love for nature, till the time shall 

 come when he shall have wrung out of the 

 nervous hand of commerce enough means 

 to enable him to realize his ideal of the 

 " retired life" of an American landed pro- 

 prietor. 



The number of our country residences 

 which are laid out, and kept at a high 

 point of ornamental gardening, is certainly 

 not very large, though it is continually 

 increasing. But we have no hesitation in 

 saying that the aggregate sura annually 

 expended in this way for the last five 

 years, in North America, is not exceeded 

 in any country in the world save one. 



England ranks before all other countries 

 in the perfection of its landscape garden- 

 ing ; and enormous, almost incredible sums 

 have been expended by her wealthier class 

 upon their rural improvements. But the 

 taste of England is, we have good reasons 

 for believing, at its maximum ; and the 

 expenditure of the aristocracy is, of late, 

 chiefly devoted to keeping up the existing 

 style of their parks and pleasure grounds. 

 In this country, it is quite surprising how 

 rapid is the creation of new country resi- 

 dences, and how large is the asfg-resfate 

 amount continually expended in the con- 

 struction of houses and grounds, of a cha- 

 racter more or less ornamental. 



that there are also, in the United States, 

 large sums of money — many millions of 

 dollars — annually, most unwisely and inju- 

 diciously expended in these rural improve- 

 ments. While we gladly admit that there 

 has been a surprising and gratifying ad- 

 vance in taste within the last ten years, we 

 are also forced to confess that there are 

 countless specimens of bad taste, and hun- 

 dreds of examples where a more agreeable 

 and satisfactory result might have been at- 

 tained at one-half the cost. 



Is it not, therefore, worth while to in- 

 quire a little more definitely what are the 

 obstacles that lie in the way of forming 

 satisfactory, tasteful and agreeable country 

 residences ? 



The common reply to this question, when 

 directly put in the face of any signal exam- 

 ple of failure, is — "Oh, Mr. is a man 



of no taste /" There is, undoubtedly, often 

 but too much truth in this clean cut at the 

 (BSthetic capacities of the unlucky improver. 

 But it by no means follows that it is al- 

 ways true. A man may have taste, and 

 yet, if he trusts to his own pov/ers of direc- 

 tion, signally fail in tasteful improvements. 



We should say that two grand errors 

 are the fertile causes of all the failures in 

 the rural improvements of the United States 

 at the present moment. 



The first error lies in supposing that 

 good taste is a natural gift, which springs 

 lieaven-born into perfect existence — need- 

 ing no cultivation or improvement. The 

 second is in supposing that taste alone is 

 sufficient to the production of extensive or 

 complete works in architecture or landscape 

 gardening. 



A lively sensibility to the Beautiful, is a 

 natural faculty, mistaken by more than 

 half the world for good taste itself. But 

 good taste, in the true meaning of the term> 



