REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON GARDENING, 111 



sion was remodelled: l)iit the whole purchase embraced only ten acres — 

 with great diversity of surface, high and low, broken and dry, with no 

 Ijropitious line for avenue or approach. It was appropriately named 

 '• Glen Ridge." Since that time, howeyer, by successive additions, its 

 area has been increased to nearly two hundred acres. Its location is 

 about one mile from Dedham village, and nine miles from Boston. On 

 the l!i"orth, it iis flanked by C^harles River, which here expands almost to 

 a lake, the shore and estate presenting a pleasing variety of the pictu- 

 resque and beautiful, — a combination of hill-side and valley, ridge and 

 dell, wild-wood and forest, rills and runs, pines and peppcridges, oakt^, 

 beeches and birches, — giving ample material and space enough to em- 

 ploy the busiest brain for years to come. 



That portion of the property which first strikes the eye, consists of the 

 old "Fair Grounds'" of the Norfolk County Agricultural Society, whicli 

 only two years ago, before Mr. Rand's purchase, presented an uninter- 

 esting aspect, destitute of any great attractions, yet essential for access 

 to the principal estate and affording wings and supports to the same. 



To lay out and develop rightly such a domain is no slight work I 

 Years of toil and heavy outlays must be expended before its completion. 

 But in this country, where we have no law of primogeniture and no 

 entailed estates; where change alone is constant, and accumulations are 

 only for subdivisions; it matters little how extensive are the acres or 

 what may be their capabilities for ornamentation or improvement, the 

 owner feels that whatever skill he may bestow, or however well he ma}' 

 plan or plant, with reference to art, the place cannot long remain entire. 

 The policy of the law and the practice of the land will soon demand that 

 it be severed and '* cut up," to be served out to the multitude, instead of 

 being handed down, through the generations, as a sacred family retreat, 

 or for some favorite and fashionable resort for a century thereafter. 

 Hence the landscape gardener, too, will adopt the same feeling, and in a 

 greater or less degree will curb his taste and make his magic art sub- 

 servient to this great utilitarian idea. With his mind continually fixed 

 on the final availability of his operations, he will be forced to curve and 

 cut, plant and build, move and stop, looking ever to that end. 



Such being the case, it will not do to be over-exacting in our judg- 

 ments; or to require the strictest adhesion to rules of art. Where 

 •grounds are very extensive, due allowance must be made for their ulti- 

 mate use. Few men here are able to lay out and imiH'ove acres by the 

 hundred, with lakes, lawns, parks, Italian adornments and Oriental 

 palms and all the gorgeous vegetation of the tropics. — or to imitate 

 the example of Mr. Ilunnewell in giving freely a feast of such beauty to 

 the outside world. If, therefore, we should adopt such a standard for 

 comparison, few persons woxdd seek or obtain either of the " Ilunnewell 

 Prizes.'' Your Committee have supposed that the object of the giver 



