14 ORNAMENTAL GARDENING. 



improvement of towns and villages have been in success- 

 ful operation. These, by planting trees and promoting 

 a love for gardening, have already produced excellent 

 results. Such societies are full of promise, and their 

 existence shows a proper public spirit. 



It is gratifying to note that instances in which persons 

 of means provide free pleasure gardens for the people are 

 becoming more numerous. The work of rural improve- 

 ment in the State of Connecticut is receiving inestimable 

 aid, from men like Mr. Henry C. Bo wen — who at bis 

 own expense, has laid out a public park of sixty acres 

 and given it to the people of Woodstock, and the Field 

 Brothers who have shown similar liberality at Haddam, 

 Conn., and some others have followed their examples. 

 In the West, Shaw of St. Louis, Wade of Cleveland, and 

 others, have by their noble liberality made entire com- 

 munities happier, liealthier, and better, and the w^orks 

 stand as monuments more enduring than stone, keeping 

 fresh for all time the memory of the worthy donors. 

 Scarcely second in any sense to such benefactors, are 

 those who throw open their magnificent private gardens 

 to the public, to be freely enjoyed under reasonable 

 restrictions. In time let us hope to see many followers 

 of these worthy examples among the thousands who are 

 favored with great wealth. 



AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE AND GARDENING. 



A taste for the beautiful developed in one field of art, is 

 also a help to others. Land owners now-a-days, as they 

 look from the modern artistically designed house to the 

 garden, are with growing frequency, asking the questions, 

 '^is not the garden as susceptible of improvement as 

 the house ? Cannot as great changes for the better be 

 worked here, over the styles of a generation ago, as are 

 being effected in our architecture ? " Extended observa- 

 tion shows that thousands of property ow^ners throughout 



