INTRODUCTION. 13 



The term landscape-gardening is misapplied when used in 

 connection with the improvement of a few roods of suburban 

 ground ; and we disavow any claim, for this work, to treat of 

 landscape-gardening on that large scale, or in the thorough and 

 exhaustive manner in which it is handled by the masters of the art 

 in England, and by Downing for this country. Compared with the 

 English we are yet novices in the fine arts of gardening, and the 

 exquisite rural taste even among the poorer classes of England, 

 which inspired glowing eulogiums from the pen of Washington 

 Irving thirty years ago, is still as far in advance of our own as at 

 that time. British literature abounds in admirable works on all 

 branches of gardening arts. LOUDON'S energy and exhaustive in- 

 dustry seem to have collected, digested, and illustrated, almost 

 everything worth knowing in the arts of gardening. But his works 

 are too voluminous, too thorough, too English, to meet the needs 

 of American suburban life. Kemp, in a complete little volume en- 

 titled " How to lay out a Garden," has condensed all that is most 

 essential on the subject for England. But the arrangements of 

 American suburban homes of the average character differ so widely 

 from those of the English, and our climate also varies so essen- 

 tially from theirs, that plans of houses and grounds suitable there 

 are not often adapted to our wants. There is an extent and 

 thoroughness in their out-buildings, and arrangements for man- 

 servants and maid-servants and domestic animals, which the great 

 cost of labor in this country forces us to condense or dispense 

 with. Public and private examples of landscape-gardening on a 

 grand scale begin to familiarize Americans with the art. The best 

 cemeteries of our great cities are renowned even in Europe for 

 their tasteful keeping. But more than all other causes, that won- 

 derful creation, the New York Central Park, has illustrated the 

 power of public money in the hands of men of tasteful genius to re- 

 produce, as if by magic, the gardening glories of older lands. But 

 public parks, however desirable and charming, are not substitutes 

 for beautiful HOMES ; and with observation of such public works, 

 and of examples of tasteful but very costly private grounds in many 

 parts of the country, there comes an increasing need of practical 

 works to epitomize and Americanize the principles of decorative 



