ORIGINAL PREFACE 



BY A. J. D. 



A taste for rural improvements of every description is 

 advancing silently, but with great rapidity in this country. 

 While yet in the far west the pioneer constructs his rude 

 hut of logs for a dwelling, and sweeps away with his axe 

 the lofty forest trees that encumber the ground, in the 

 older portions of the Union, bordering the Atlantic, we 

 are surrounded by all the luxuries and refinements that 

 belong to an old and long cultivated country. Within the 

 last ten years, especially, the evidences of the growing 

 wealth and prosperity of our citizens have become apparent 

 in the great increase of elegant cottage and villa residences 

 on the banks of our noble rivers, along our rich valleys, 

 and wherever nature seems to invite us by her rich and 

 varied charms. 



In all the expenditure of means in these improvements, 

 amounting in the aggregate to an immense sum, profes- 

 sional talent is seldom employed in Architecture or Land- 

 scape Gardening, but almost every man fancies himself an 

 amateur, and endeavors to plan and arrange his own resi- 

 dence. With but little practical knowledge, and few cor- 

 rect principles for his guidance, it is not surprising that we 

 witness much incongruity and great waste of time and 

 money. Even those who are familiar with foreign works 

 on the subject in question labor under many obstacles in 

 practice, which grow out of the difference in our soil and 

 climate, or our social and political position. 



These views have so often presented themselves to me <>f 

 late, and have been so frequently urged by persons desiring 

 advice, that I have ventured to prepare the present vol- 

 ume, in the hope of supplying, in some degree. I lie desidera- 

 tum so much felt at present. While we have treatises, in 

 abundance, on the various departments of the arts and 



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