386 RELATIONS OF TREES TO ORNAMENT. 



obtained at great price, are imprisoned, and make a noisy 

 confusion of musical sounds, a brilliant counterfeit of 

 the aviary of nature on the other farm, showing that 

 taste, like fashion, admires the counterfeit of many a 

 thing which it contemns. 



The ridges and elevations of his farm, so beautiful when 

 covered with trees and their native embroidery, have been 

 entirely cleared of their undergrowth, and of all the trees 

 except a few of handsome size and proportions. The 

 ground beneath them has been thoroughly spaded and 

 smoothed, a crop of lawn grass has been sown there, and 

 is kept short and velvety by a mowing-machine. Here 

 are no rustic wood-paths ; in the place of them nicely 

 smoothed gravel-walks pursue a serpentine course in the 

 " line of beauty " up hill and down and along the grassy 

 plain in many tasteful circumgyrations. When a copious 

 shower falls upon the hills of this model estate, where the 

 surface is wholly cleared and smoothed, the water rushes 

 down their slopes in forcible torrents, inundating all the 

 plain below, and forming great gullies on the hillsides and 

 heaps of sand and gravel at their base. My philosophic 

 neighbor's farm escapes all these evils. Not even the 

 little ground-sparrow is disturbed in her nest by the most 

 violent thunder- showers. 



If you were to pass over the grounds of my aesthetic 

 neighbor, you would be affected everywhere with a sense 

 that nature is subdued. In strict accordance with the 

 rules of the "natural system" of landscape-gardening, 

 everything has been done for the eye and the admiration, 

 and nothing for the comfort and delight, of the visitor. 

 While walking in his grounds, you are affected with a 

 quasi feeling of grandeur. You can look upon a wide 

 space from almost any point of view. This does not give 

 you a sense of freedom; but the niceness and trimness 

 of the grounds cause you a painful feeling of restraint. 



