20 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



to, yet the taste for elegant rural improvements is advancing 

 now so rapidly, that we have no hesitation in affirming that 

 in half a century more, there will exist a greater number of 

 beautiful villas and country seats of moderate extent in the 

 Atlantic States, than in any country in Europe, England 

 alone excepted. With us, a feeling, a taste, or an improve- 

 ment, is contagious ; and once fairly appreciated and esta- 

 blished in one portion of the country, it is disseminated with 

 a celerity that is indeed wonderful, to every other portion. 

 Although, as is necessarily the case where amateurs of any 

 art are more numerous than its professors, there will be, in 

 devising and carrying plans into execution, an abundance of 

 specimens of bad taste, and perhaps a sufficient number of 

 efforts to improve without any real taste whatever, still we 

 are convinced the effect of the whole will in the end be 

 highly agreeable, as a false taste is not likely to be a perma- 

 nent one, in a community where every thing is so much the 

 subject of criticism. 



In so far as regards the literature and practice of Landscape 

 Gardening as an art, in North America, almost every thing is 

 yet before us, but little that we can refer to, having yet been 

 done. Almost all the improvements in the grounds of our 

 finest country residences, have been carried on under the 

 direction of the proprietors themselves, suggested by their 

 natural good taste, in many instances improved by the study 

 of European authors or by a personal inspection of the finest 

 places abroad. The only American work yet published 

 which treats directly of Landscape Gardening, is the Ameri- 

 can Gardener^s Calendar^ by Bernard McMahon of Phila- 

 delphia. The only practitioner of the art, of any note, was 

 the late M, Parmentier of Brooklyn, Long Island. 



M. Andre Parmentier was the brother of the celebrated 



