370 Landscape Gardening 



'Tall oaks from little acorns grow" is a remarkably trite 

 aphorism, but one the truth of which no one who knows the 

 aptitude of our people or our intrinsic love of refinement and 

 elegance will underrate or gainsay. If, by such simple 

 means as we have here pointed out, our great farm on this 

 side of the Atlantic, with the water-privilege of both oceans, 

 could be made to wear a little less the air of Canada-thistle- 

 dom, and show a little more sign of blossoming like the rose, 

 we should look upon it as a step so much nearer the millen- 

 nium. In Saxony the traveller beholds with no less sur- 

 prise and delight on the road between Wiessenfels and 

 Halle quantities of the most beautiful and rare shrubs and 

 flowers growing along the foot-paths and by the sides of the 

 hedges which line the public promenades. The custom pre- 

 vails there among private individuals who have beautiful 

 gardens of annually planting some of their surplus material 

 along these public promenades for the enjoyment of those 

 who. have no gardens. And the custom is met in the same 

 beautiful spirit by the people at large, for in the main, those 

 embellishments that turn the highway into pleasure grounds 

 are respected and grow and bloom as if within the inclosures. 

 Does not this argue a civilization among these "down- 

 trodden nations" of central Europe, that would not be 

 unwelcome in this, our land of equal rights and free schools? 



