io6 Frederick Law Olmsted 



There seems to me to be a certain peculiarity in English 

 foliage, which I can but little more than allude to, not hav- 

 ing the skill to describe. You seem to see each particular 

 leaf, (instead of a confused leafiness,) more than in our trees; 

 or it is as if the face of each leaf was parallel, and more 

 equally lighted than in our foliage. It is perhaps only owing 

 to a greater density, and better filling up, and more even 

 growth of the outer twigs of the trees, than is common in our 

 drier climate. I think that our maple woods have more 

 resemblance to it than others. 



There is usually a much milder light over an EngHsh 

 landscape than an American, and the distance and shady 

 parts are more indistinct. It is rare that there is not a 

 haziness, slightly like that of our Indian summer in the 

 atmosphere, and the colours of every thing, except of the 

 foliage are less brilliant and vivacious than we are accus- 

 tomed to. The sublime or the picturesque in nature is 

 much more rare in England, except on the sea-coast, than in 

 America; but there is every where a great deal of quiet, 

 peaceful, graceful beauty, which the works of man have 

 generally added to, and which I remember but little at 

 home that will compare with. This Herefordshire reminds 

 me of the valley in Connecticut, between Middletown and 

 Springfield. The valley of the Mohawk and the upper 

 part of the Hudson, is also in some parts English-like. 



Soon after leaving Warminster, began a very different 

 style of landscape from what I have before seen: long 

 ranges and large groups of high hills with gentle and grace- 

 fully undulating slopes; broad and deep cells between and 

 within them, through which flow in tortuous channels 

 streamlets of exceedingly pure, sparkling water. These 

 hills are bare of trees, except rarely a close body of them, 

 covering a space of perhaps an acre, and evidently planted 

 by man. Within the shelter of these you will sometimes 



