(introduction 23 



this country, where we have had not a few 

 men of taste and attainments who have left 

 their mark on our parks and country-seats, one 

 of whom, Mr. A. J. Downing, has been recently 

 worthily and happily honored by the city of 

 Newburgh in naming her principal park after 

 him. But this introduction is not the place for 

 more than a glance at the progress of the art. 

 It is enough here to say that the landscape 

 gardener of to-day, while to an extent the re- 

 sultant of all these antecedent conditions, is 

 nevertheless far beyond his predecessors in 

 attainments and also in opportunities. He and 

 his art have profited by the strides of science 

 far more than the artistic productions of his 

 predecessors have suffered. Railways, factories, 

 smoke and poisonous gases have blighted many 

 a fair landscape carefully set and adorned ; but 

 agricultural chemistry, structural and biologi- 

 cal botany, better knowledge of forestry and 

 climatology, enable the gardener of to-day to 

 overcome difficulties which were anciently at- 

 tributed to malign or providential interventions. 

 The old books are filled with the accounts 



