CHAPTER VII 



LANDSCAPE OBSERVATIONS FROM EUROPEAN TRAVEL 



We know from Mr. Olmsted's own words that he had a 

 particular interest in visiting parks both on his first European 

 journey of 1850, and in 1856, when he was abroad attending 

 to his publishing business and travelling also somewhat with 

 his sisters. In his Walks and Talks of an American Farmer 

 in England, first published in 1852, there are a number of 

 passages which should be quoted here, particularly as show- 

 ing the trained observation of scenery which he later brought 

 to his landscape designing, and his keen interest in the social 

 and economic aspects of rural life. ^ It is interesting to know, 

 too, that the book was illustrated by his own sketches. ^ 



* In regard to the preparations for his trip, Mr. Olmsted wrote in the Pref- 

 ace of his Walks and Talks: "With a hearty country appetite for narrative, I 

 have spent, previous to my own journey, a great many long winter evenings in 

 reading the books so frequently written by our literary tourists, upon England; 

 and although I do not recollect one of them, the author of which was a farmer, 

 or whose habits of life, professional interests, associations in society, and ordi- 

 nary standards of comparison were not altogether different from my own, I 

 remember none from which I did not derive entertainment and instruction." 

 LIST OF CUTS 

 Drawn on Wood by M. Field 

 From Sketches by the Author 



1. The School-House (vignette, title page). 



2. The English Coaster (calm). 



3. The English Coaster (squalls). 



4. The English Plough (vertical). 



5. The English Plough (horizontal). 



6. The Timber House (old farm-house). 



7. Old English Domestic Architecture (Chester, i6th century). 



8. Old English Domestic Architecture (Chester, i6th Century). 



9. The Clod Crusher. 

 ID. The Uley Cultivator. 



11. The Stage Wagon. 



12. Old English Domestic Architecture (the village schoolmaster's cottage). 



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