Landscape Gardening^ 



Ilia art, for the most exquisite elaboration and perfection of this absorbing 

 idea, minor details tending to the comfort and convenience of the occu- 

 pant**, and landcapesque effect, suggested by surrounding objects, are saC' 

 rificed. To such a scrupulous modeller of human habitations, the idea of 

 enshrining a cot in ivy or any other expressive and elegant vegetation, would 

 be insupportable vandalism, a retrograde to feudal times and barbaric sen- 

 timent. As a fitting accompaniment to a house of this character, a lawn 

 is tortured into an inelegant perpetuity. A requisition is made upon a per- 

 son, notorious for his profundity and subtlety in piling misshapen rocks 

 into representations of miniature Gibralters, covered with s]iasnis of vege- 

 tation vainly endeavoring to struggle through a butterfly existence, stimu- 

 lated by limestone and three inch crevices of daily irrigated mould. This 

 individual generally makes his debut formidably armed and accoutrotl 

 witli lustrous surveying instruments, and other tools peculiar to his art- 

 professional: not forgetting a small army of ambitious young men whose 

 desire to absorb abstruse sciences compels them to do menial service, which 

 is symptoraised in chain dragging. This spreading of the science tends 

 much to create an appreciation and mystification in the individual " who 

 pays." The first effort of the brass-mounted gentleman is directed to 

 subduing hillocks, and correcting undulations, subjugating nature to a mo- 

 notonous and placid a.spect, exceedingly deferential to all potent progres- 

 sion. The landscape creator being governed in his operations by certain 

 fixed geometric rules, whose principles involve the great secret of the pro- 

 fession, and therefore cannot be transcended. He next selects from a vo- 

 luminous catalogue a list of trees and shrubs, rendered particularly at- 

 tractive, in his estimation, from the great care required in their cultivation, 

 their high price, foreign nativity, and la.stly a stilted Quixotic name. — 

 Walks and drives are made to perform circles and squares, and triangle? 

 quite amazing to the beholder, and a matter of self-gratulation to the orig- 

 inator. Trees are planted circumspectly, pertinaciously following tiie 

 walks, and characterizing their peculiarly graceful elliptics and angles. 

 Shrubs are introduced in expanse, which from their subsequent appearance, 

 for no other object than affording a gardener an opportunity of shearing 

 them annually; imparting the appearance of a huge punch bowl rever.'ied. 

 After seeding down in grass, the grounds are rendered classic by being 

 " dubbed" lawn, but which the genuine lover of nature would not recog- 

 nize as such, but for the information conveyed by a number of small sign* 

 which read, " Keep off the latony On the principle of the artist who 

 painted what he intended should represent a pig, but on showing his per- 

 formance to a friend was told it more nearly resembled a whale. No? 



