428 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



rural taste, as the late Mr. Downing exercised at the 

 time of his death. 



While, therefore, the excellence of country houses 

 has greatly increased, the improvement in country 

 places is not so evident. A great many persons are 

 either too indolent or too busy to give much attention 

 to the capabilities or wants of their places. The former 

 fall easily into the hands of an inferior class of nursery- 

 men, or job-planters, and become a ready prey to the 

 most tastless imposition, while the latter crowd into a 

 few hours a day the arrangement and adornment of 

 grounds which should require many months of thought 

 and study. 



We Americans are, as a general rule, in too great 

 a hurry " to get through." We are apt to allow our- 

 selves to go into the country without quite understand- 

 ing what we are to do there, or how we are to live, or 

 whether we have true taste and capacity for country 

 life. Most persons are satisfied while building their 

 house and attempting to arrange their grounds. The 

 first is comparatively easy, for we have only to com- 

 municate to an architect our general wishes, and it be- 

 comes his duty to carry them out ; the second is more 

 perplexing, simply because we do not know what we 

 want, or we want to have everything w r e have seen 

 that has struck us as desirable. We do not stop to 

 consider whether a certain style of planting or selection 

 of trees, harmonizes either with our house or is in 

 character with our grounds. We have an indefinite 

 idea of the pleasure certain effects gave us in other coun- 

 try places, and w r e are determined to have those effects 

 in our own, without any reference to propriety or good 

 taste, not from obstinacy, but from ignorance. We have, 

 to be sure, certain rules for planting, but the lazy are 

 too indolent, and the busy are too hurried to read or 

 study them. The suggestions of others are readily taken, 

 and the most incongruous and imperfect results necessar- 



