no Frederick Law Olmsted 



inhabited, and yet so well covered with verdure, or often so 

 tastefully appropriate — quiet, cosy, ungenteel, yet elegant — 

 are the cottages, that they often add to, rather than insult 

 and destroy, the natural charm of their neighbourhood. I 

 am sorry to say, that among the later erections there are a 

 number of very strong exceptions to this remark. 



As to Mr. Olmsted's travels in 1856, we have a memo- 

 randum that he visited Rome, Genoa, Florence, Prague, 

 Leipzig, and Dresden as well as London. We have a de- 

 lightful reference to his brief Italian visit in a letter written 

 to Charles Eliot, then abroad, March 4, 1886: 



I think that you want to get hints for gardening in dry, 

 hot regions of our country from Italy, Spain and south of 

 France. You do not, it seems to me, get much of value 

 from the show villas to which you go as a matter of course. 

 But I remember modester places which struck me as de- 

 lightful, and one or two that I cannot now specify I made my 

 way into and faintly recall always when I think of what 

 should be done in California, Colorado, New Mexico, or 

 really in Georgia and Florida. I speak of a month in all 

 Italy more than thirty years ago when I had no more 

 thought of being a landscape architect than of being a 

 Cardinal. Yet my experience has been of much value to me. 



