48 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



" Happy is he, who in a country life 

 Shuns more perplexing toil and jarring strife : 

 Who lives upon the natal soil he loves, 

 And sits beneath his old ancestral groves." 



To this let us add the complacent feelings, with which a man 

 in old age, may look around him and behold these leafy mon- 

 archs, planted by his boyish hands, and nursed by him in his 

 youthful years, which have grown aged and venerable along 

 with him ; 



"A wood coeval with himself he sees, 

 And loves his own contemporary trees." 



In proceeding to arrange plantations for the improvement 

 and embellishment of a residence, we should, of course, be 

 guided by the extent of the grounds to be operated upon, and 

 the general character and appearance of the place itself. 



In the United States, all country residences which may be 

 considered as coming within the scope of our remarks, are in- 

 cluded under the four following denominations : mansions, 

 villas, ornamented farms, and cottage residences. 



The Qnansion, is the highest style of residence seen in this 

 country. It is distinguished by the extent of its grounds, 

 which include, not only large farm tracts, (with their appro- 

 priate buildings,) gardens and pleasure-grounds, but also a 

 wide and extensive park, covered with grass, and beautified 

 with numerous scattered groves, groups, and masses of trees, 

 in the midst of which stands the dwelling, a large and archi- 

 tectural edifice. 



The villa, which is by far the most common and generally 

 the most elegant of our country seats, contains less extent of 

 ground than the mansion : numbering in acres from twenty 

 to eighty or one hundred, of which a large portion, and often 

 the whole is devoted to ornament, in the case of small villa 



