1782 LANDSCAPE GARDENING 



LANDSCAPE GARDENING 



planted landscape. His ideas and his tastes were com- 

 municated to his friend and neighbor, Henry Winthrop 

 Sargent, who transmitted them to another generation, 

 and some of the most interesting and beautiful country 

 places made in America in the last sixty years owe their 

 existence to Downing's influence. It was this influence 



which has made 

 the Arnold Ar- 

 boretum what it 

 is, a natural 

 garden of great 

 beauty and not 

 a mere collection 

 of trees and 

 shrubs. It must 

 be remembered, 

 also, that when 



2070. A commanding object in the offscape. Downing died 



the only public 



grounds in the United States which could in any sense 

 be called a park was Boston Common, and that it was 

 through his knowledge and influence that Central Park 

 in New York was established in 1852; and it was Cen- 

 tral Park that led to the establishment of public parks 

 and playgrounds in every American city. 



The artistic values in some of the old places, and the 

 reasons for them, are discussed by Warren H. Manning, 

 in the remainder of this introductory article. 



"The principal lesson to be learned from a study of 

 historic private estates in America is the fact that 

 our system of land tenure does not lead, as does the 

 English method of entailment, to the holding by a 

 family of such estates for centuries. While there are 

 many houses and some large property holdings in the 

 older parts of this country that have remained in one 

 family for many generations, even back to the period 

 of the original grant or purchase, they are usually 

 not notably fine estates. There are very few, if any, of 

 such estates upon which the first acreage or the original 

 design and intent of the founder have been continued 

 in all essential details for three or four generations. 



"Mount Vernon, under the ownership of an associa- 

 tion, has been maintained much as it was designed by 

 General Washington, although the original acreage of 

 the property has been much curtailed since Washing- 

 ton's day, and the planting is now being restored. 

 Such associations as the Virginia and Massachusetts 

 societies for the preservation of antiquities, and the 

 several colonial societies have rescued, restored and 

 are maintaining many old homes with but a fragment 

 of the original estate attached. Some cities are main- 

 taining historic homesteads as public museums or in 

 Eublic parks, as New York holds the Van Cortlandt 

 omestead in Van Cortlandt Park, which includes 

 parts of the old estate diverted to other than its origi- 

 nal uses. 



"Family associations have been formed to hold the 

 ancestral homes with a small part of the original farm 

 holdings, such as the Fairbanks, Wyman, and Manning 

 associations in Massachusetts. The United States 

 Government holds Arlington, the home of Robert E. 

 Lee, with most of the land diverted to other than the 

 original use. The Pendleton house in Providence, 

 Rhode Island, and the Swett house in Portland, Maine, 

 are held as typical furnished homes of their day in asso- 

 ciation with art museums through the bequest of the 

 last owners. 



"This brief review indicates that it is the historical 

 antecedence, not the beauty of landscape and gardens, 

 that is responsible for the preservation of most of the 

 ancient homes and estates, notwithstanding that the 

 beauty of landscape determined the location and first 

 design of many of the early homes and the grounds 

 about them. 



"There are two broad distinctions to be made between 

 the notable properties of the North and of the South. 



In the South, the great estates included acres by the 

 thousands with the extensive cultivation of great fields, 

 while in the North the acres seldom ran into the hun- 

 dreds, and the cultivation was usually more intensive. 

 In the South, there was a comparatively small propor- 

 tion of the property set aside about the mansion for 

 lawns, gardens and other ornamental purposes, as 

 compared with the homes of the North. In the South, 

 the home buildings were usually broadly spread out, 

 with symmetrical wings on each side of a main central 

 structure. In this central structure, the use of the tall 

 columns of the classic order, with either a projecting 

 or a recessed portico or porch, was almost universal. 

 However, there was a marked individuality in most of 

 the buildings and a fairly well-marked distinction 

 between two types of design that have been referred 

 to as the Georgia-Colonial and the Virginia-Colonial, 

 the distinction of the latter style being due chiefly to 

 the work of Thomas Jefferson which was typified by 

 his own home, Monticello, and by his University of 

 Virginia. 



"In the North, the mansions were usually carried a 

 story or more higher than in the South. They were more 

 compact and restrained, for pilasters were used very 

 largely in the place of columns. Instead of the balance 

 of wings on either side of the main structure, the wing 

 was usually added at one side or at the rear, and 

 extended to include the various outbuildings and shops 

 with stables forming the terminus of the group, or 

 being rather closely associated with the house in a 

 group near at hand; whereas in the South the workers' 

 houses, the plantation barn,- and the shop for the wheel- 

 wright, blacksmith, the cotton press, and sheds for the 

 drying of tobacco, were in separate groups at some dis- 

 tance from the mansion. 



"Before the Revolutionary period, and for a quarter 

 of a century afterward, the English influences in the 

 design of estates, both North and South, were very 

 marked. Within this period Thomas Jefferson's 

 influence, not only in the design of buildings but also 

 in the design of grounds, was powerful in the South, 

 and especially in Virginia. At the end of this period 

 Andr6 Parmentier exerted an important influence in 

 the North, especially about New York. 



"In this colonial period and subsequent to it, there 

 was an exchange of native and exotic plant material, 

 through such men as John Bartram, Peter Collinson, 

 Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and others, 



supplemented 

 by such agen- 

 cies as the 

 Prince's Nurs- 

 eries at Flush- 

 ing, Long Island, 

 and the Winship 

 Nurseries at 

 Boston. This 

 interest was re- 

 flected in the 

 writings of A. 

 J. Downing, the 

 first notable 

 writer and prac- 

 titioner in the 

 designing of 

 landscapes, 

 whose successor, 

 Frederick Law 

 Olmsted, initi- 

 ated systems of 

 parks that pre- 

 ceded the city- 

 plan movement 

 of today. This 



2071. A good background for a landscape Period of testing 

 garden. Page 1780. exotic plants and 



