546 LANDSCAPE GARDENING, 



SECTION V. 



HISTORICAL NOTICES. 



IT is with great reluctance that we undertake this 

 portion of our task, from a consciousness of our entire 

 inability to do justice to the many tine places which 

 exist all over the United States, and which require a 

 greater knowledge than we have of them, as well as more 

 space and time than is allowed us, for the remainder of 

 this supplement. 



With Mr. Downing, in his first edition, this labor was 

 comparatively a light one, as, twelve or fifteen years ago, 

 there were only a few marked places in the neighbor- 

 hood of our large cities, and upon the banks of the Hud- 

 son river and Long Island sound, which were so dis- 

 tinguished and prominent as to be easily described ; of 

 this class were Col. Perkins' and Mr. Lyman's near 

 Boston ; the Manor of Livingston, Montgomery place 

 and Hyde Park, upon the Hudson ; the Bartram gar- 

 den, Stenton, Woodlawn, etc., near Philadelphia ; and 

 a few others. Since this period, however, the taste for 

 country life has advanced so rapidly, that, in and about 

 these very neighborhoods, there are, at present, scores of 

 country houses, many of them of the finest and most 

 expensive character, but all partaking more or less of 

 similar disposition and style of grounds, and a similar 

 fashion of planting. 



We have already said, in the introduction to this sup- 

 plement, that since Mr. Downing's time, though the 

 style of country houses had vastly improved, yet 

 an equal improvement was not so evident in Land- 



