62 Frederick Law Olmsted 



expenses by writing on rural topics for newspapers. As it 

 would have been an extravagance otherwise, however, I 

 first crossed the Atlantic in the steerage of a sailing vessel, 

 and nearly always traveled frugally. In all these tours I 

 took more interest than most travelers do in the arrangement 

 and aspect of homesteads and generally in what may be 

 called the sceneric character of what came before me. 



The word sceneric flows from my pen unbidden and I 

 venture to let it stand. Some writers of late are using scenic 

 for the purpose it serves, but this is confusing, scenic having 

 been so long used with regard exclusively to affairs of the 

 drama. 



All this time interest in certain modest practical applica- 

 tions of what I was learning of the principles of landscape 

 architecture was growing with me, — applications, I mean, for 

 example, to the choice of a neighborhood, of the position 

 and aspect of a homestead, the placing, grouping and rela- 

 tionships with the dwelling of barns, stables and minor out- 

 buildings, the planning of a laundry yard and of conveniences 

 for bringing in kitchen supplies and carrying away kitchen 

 wastes, for I had found that even in frontier log cabins a 

 good deal was lost or gained of pleasure according to the 

 ingenuity and judgment used in such matters; applications 

 also to the seemly position of a kitchen garden, of a working 

 garden for flowers to be cut for the indoor enjoyment of them, 

 to fixed outer floral and foliage decorations, to the deter- 

 mination of lines of outlook and of in-look and the removal 

 or planting accordingly of trees, screens, hedges, windbreaks 

 and so on, with some consideration of unity of foreground, 

 middle ground and background, some consideration for 

 sceneric effect from without as well as from within the field 

 of actual operations. I planted several thousand trees on 

 my own land and thinned out and trimmed with my own 

 hand with reference to future pleasing effects a small body of 

 old woodland and another of well-grown copse wood. 



Never the slightest thought till I was more than thirty 



