376 



THE GARDENERS' MONTHLY 



[December, 



instructed as well as their good schools afforded, 

 but much better perhaps by an exceptionally in- 

 telligent father. There were no Prangs in those 

 days to introduce .drawing into school systems. 

 His love for the pencil was natural, and it became 

 noted among the boys and girls for its attempts on 

 portraits and natural scenery. As early as twenty, 

 one he became enamored of landscape gardening 

 and rural architecture, and in 1852 was engaged by 

 a gentleman in Toledo to lay out a large block, 

 which is yet considered the best specimen of gar- 

 denesque work in Toledo. In order to still further 

 excel in this beautiful ^rt, he spent a summer as 

 student with the celebrated Andrew Jackson 

 Downing, at Newburg, on the Hudson, and an- 

 other with Downing and Vaux, this firm having 

 taken in general architecture with landscape 

 gardening. A year and a half was then spent 

 among the famous old buildings, parks, and gar- 

 dens of Europe, and on his return he established 

 himself in his profession at Toledo. But the field 

 seemed too poor for his ambition to excel, and he 

 relinquished the attempt for that of a dealer in real 

 estate. 



In 1866, while busy in the improvement of a 

 modest suburban house, he became impressed 

 with the need of just such a work as finally cul- 

 minated in the production of fae beautiful book to 

 which we have just referred. In 1859 he made a 

 trip to South America, and in Chili met with the 

 lady whom he had known in Paris, wlio was 

 henceforth to be his partner for life, and where he 

 was married in i860. 



Mr. Scott's father took a great interest in the 

 establishment of a university in Toledo, and the 

 son entered warmly into his father's project, and 

 1873 was spent in Europe studying the schools of 

 art and trade in order to work these branches 

 into the regular university plan. There is no 

 place for the magnificent gardens and palaces of 

 the old world in connection with the private citi- 

 zen in our country, and yet these famous works 

 of art are great educators. Mr. Scott's idea 

 always has been to make our schools and colleges 

 their counterparts here. 



Studies in political economy and general litera- 

 ture have somewhat drawn our author from the 

 tasks he has shown himself so well fitted to ac- 

 complish. The biographies of eminent men in 

 the American edition of " Chambers' Encyclo- 

 paedia " are from his pen, and more recently the 

 banking system of America has secured his at- 

 tention in the Nort h American Review ; but as 

 he has not yet reached " three-score," there is 



time enough left for him to return to his early 

 love. 



Since the above was sent to press, we have the 

 following additional notes supplied by a friend 

 more intimately acquainted with the work of Mr. 

 Scott than the writer of this : 



"Mr. S. has been much of a traveler, having 

 been twice in Europe, in California, the Rocky 

 Mountain country, South America and the 

 Hawaiin Islands. Since 1879 much of his time in 

 summer, has been spent in Utah and Idaho Terri- 

 tories. In the latter, in 1880, his explorations in 

 a mining region just opened among the lofty Saw 

 Tooth Mountains of Central Idaho resulted in the 

 publication by him of the first approximately cor- 

 rect map that had ever been made of the sources 

 of four of the principal rivers of that Territory, two 

 of which had before been represented on the gov- 

 ernment maps of that Territory as sixty miles 

 away from where Mr. Scott located their sources. 



" During the last twelve years the following 

 essays from his pen show the direction of his 

 thinking: 'The Palaces of America,' published in 

 the Radical Review, of Boston, in 1873 ; ' Sugges- 

 tions Concerning a National Currency,' the same 

 year ; ' National Works,' a plea for the Erie Canal 

 to become a National and free canal, to be con- 

 trolled by the United States, 1877; 'Pictures on 

 Grass,' and editing a paper, in 1878; 'Property 

 without a Price,' 1879 ; a very considerable por- 

 tion of the biographical and monetary articles in 

 the American addition to 'Chambers' Encyclo- 

 picdia,' published by John B. Alden.of New York, 

 in 1882, under the title of ' The Library of Useful 

 Knowledge ; " and the same year a lecture on the 

 ' National Banking System,' read in New York 

 city in 188 1, and recently condensed in part for 

 the North American Review ; essays on 'Progress 

 in Suffrage' and 'Climates,' read before clubs in 

 Toledo within the past two years, are among the 

 later papers that have appeared as occasion, and 

 not a literary profession, called them out. His 

 beautiful book. ' Suburban Home Grounds.' is 

 about to be issued again under the title of ' Beau- 

 tiful Homes,' by J. B. Alden & Co., of New York." 



Tnii Grounds of Geokge W. Childs, Biiyn 

 Mawr, near Philadelphia. — Landscape garden- 

 ing, as a fine art, met with a severe check in America 

 by the sudden death of Andrew Jackson Downing 

 over a quarter of a century ago. There may have 

 been men in the profession as highly cultured and 

 as equal in ability as he, but none seemed to have 

 the power to transmit enthusiasm to others to such 



