exclusively for military excellence, and that 

 Bomctimes of more tiiaii doubtful stamp. 



To enter on the profession of a Landscape 

 Gardener, a young- man should possesB. not as 

 we are too apt to suppose, a mere knowledge 

 of reading and writing; he should have a com- 

 petent knowledge of aritlimetic, geometry, and 

 trigonometry. He must learn, as we have had 

 occasion to say before, Landscape Painting, in 

 order to comprehend the true principles of this 

 fine art, and to enable him to draw embellished 

 designs, and to represent the legitimate charac- 

 ters of landscape scenery. He ought to possess, 

 too, some knowledge of architecture, to qualify 

 him to sketch elevations. 



But it was not within our design to write a 

 dissertation on this subject. Mr. Downing has 

 supplied that desideratum with great taste and 

 ability. All we can do is to admire what he has 

 done so well, and to raise our feeble voice in favor 

 of more general and adequate provision for in- 

 struction, not only iu this, but m all the arts of de- 

 sign — arts which may displaj- themselves as well 

 in every article of clothing and furniture; in the 

 trappings alike of the soldier and his steed ; in 

 a sand-box or an ink-stand ; in the binding of a 

 book, as in the shape of a goblet ; iiJ'the fashion 

 of a garden-scat, as in the fomi of the celebrated 

 "mystic urn," about ten inches high and six 

 in its greatest diameter, for which the Duke 

 OF Portland gave one thousund guineas ! — 

 known tlu-oughout tlie world as the Portland 

 Vase. 



On a late visit to Saratoga, there was nothing 

 which so agi-eeably impressed us as the evident 

 partiality for ti-ees and flowers, which mai-ks 

 the progress of improvement at that salubrious 

 resort within tlie last fifteen years — clearly indi- 

 cating the existence of good taste on the part of 

 tlie inhabitants and the keepers of the public 

 establishments, while it manifests the general 

 growth of refinement, since these improvements 

 about the hotels are addressed, we may suppose, 

 to the taste of tlicir -visiters, and are expected to 

 form agreeable and popular attractions. 



It is not easy to measure the influence which 

 a few individuals in any town or neighborhood 

 may exercise iu disseminating a partiality for 

 such adornments of the mansion and sun-ouud- 

 ing grounds ; and whose example so likely to 

 prove efficient as that of the Pastor of a country 

 parish, whose profession natui-ally leads him to 

 look and to point to the visible works of the 

 Creator, as the most captivating and conclusive 

 proofs of His wisdom and beneficence ? And, 

 of all the productions of the organic world, what 

 so grand a.s trees ! what so sweet as flowers ! 

 80 beautiful as birds ! — and, may we not add, 

 what country has Providence so bountifully sup- 

 plied with all these as the Americas! The va- 

 nety and magnificence of our autumnal scenery 

 CiOP) 



have extorted admiration even when beheld by 

 the jaundiced eyes of tourists, as ready to find 

 'fault where none exists, as to expose the many 

 which candor must not allow us to repudiate. 



In religious history, too often stained with 

 bloody strifes, there is nothing more redeeming 

 and consolatory than tlie addiction to Horticul- 

 ture, Floriculture, and rural embellishment, al- 

 luded to in all accounts of ecclesiastical life and 

 habits in the early ages : 



"And to his own judicious pains 

 The Viair's dwelling and the whole domain 

 Owes that presiding aspect which might well 

 Attiact your notice." 



Of what these elegant pursuits owe to the 

 Clergy, there is, to go no further, abundant testi- 

 mony iu the grounds about St. Mary's Seminary 

 at Baltimore, and the Catholic College in George- 

 town, D. C, and all know that in the bloody foot- 

 prints of the conquerors of Pertx and Mexico, 

 the Roman Catholic priests followed, as plant- 

 ers of the choicest finits and vegetables of the 

 Old World. Thus did a Christian Ministry- en- 

 deavor to efface the remembrance of cruelty 

 and rapine, pei-petrated by a Christian Soldiery 

 on the unoll'ending Natives of America — who, ac- 

 according to Prescott, easily the first of Amer- 

 ican Historians, had already manifested a passion- 

 ate love of flowers, and had carried their culture 

 to a high state of excellence. The love of home 

 and the force of patriotic associations in their 

 minds were touchingly evinced in the feelings 

 which Humboldt tells us prompted the Catholic 

 Priests to call around their friends for festive 

 enjojTnent over the first bloom and earliest ripen- 

 uig of flowers and fruits which had been brought 

 with them from old Spain. 



Vegetable Physiologj', including tlie charac- 

 ter and uses of trees, has been the study, as al- 

 ready intimated, of men of the highest eminence 

 among Naturalists, and Poets, and .Statesmen; 

 and even learned Jurists have brought this sort 

 of knowledge into profes.sional ser\-ice — for 

 questions of law, as is well known, have been 

 settled by counting the concentric circles of 

 trees, to determine doubtful boundaries. Thus 

 may trees be said, almost without a figure, to 

 have spoken to the patient truth-searching Chan- 

 cellor. By tlieir means, 



■facts and events 



Timing more puncmal, unrecorded fectt 

 And misstated setting right," 



he has the better succeeded in unraveling and 

 baffling complicated schemes of fi-aud, and so 

 restored the scales of Justice to their even bal- 

 ance. 



The present Chancellor Bland, of Mary- 

 land — a great lover and connoisseur of trees, and 

 neitlier an indiftbrent or unlearned student of 

 ATegetable Physiology generally — might, we 

 know, contribute something to the stock of 



