LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE. 29 



resources and capacities of the regions they have pene- 

 trated ; has dispelled so many erroneous ideas in regard 

 to their susceptibility of improvement for the purposes of 

 civilized habitation, and has so facilitated the means of 

 adapting them to -such purposes, that it has become a 

 task of almost equal difficulty to obtain a realizing sense 

 of the opportunities which are dawning upon us, or of the 

 responsibilities they involve. 



The vast regions yet lying undisturbed between the 

 Mississippi and the Pacific comprise such resources of 

 wealth and variety of sublime and picturesque features 

 of natural scenery as can be seen on no other portion of 

 the earth's surface, that is accessible to civilization. This 

 is the raw material which is placed in our hands to be 

 moulded into shape for the habitations of a nation, and 

 such as we create, it must essentially remain for all future 

 time. All coming generations are to inhabit the cities- 

 and towns, and go to their daily labors in the streets, and 

 seek recreation in the parks and pleasure grounds, and 

 be laid to rest in the cemeteries, the foundations of which 

 we are laying or preparing to lay, and whose essential 

 features of arrangement are immutable from the time, 

 they are first occupied. 



It may not at first sight appear that the duties and 

 responsibilities devolving upon us are materially different 

 from those which have attached to the similar work in 

 which our fathers have been engaged throughout our 

 national existence. A little reflection, however, will show 

 that the march of modern improvement has so altered 

 the relative proportion of means to ends, that the appli- 



