240 AUGUST. 



heavenly hosts of night, and clothing the face of the land- 

 scape in perpetual bloom and verdure. Seldom do we 

 behold a parterre that equals in beauty those half-wild 

 spots where, after a partial clearing of the forest, Nature 

 has been left to herself a sufficient time to recover from 

 the effects of art and to rear those plants which are best 

 fitted for the soil and the season. 



Let the lover of flowers and landscapes who would 

 learn to gather round his dwelling all those rural beauties 

 that will meet and blend in harmony receive his lesson 

 from Nature in her own wilds. Let him look upon her 

 countenance before it has been disfigured by a barbarous 

 art, to acquire his ideas of beauty and propriety, and he 

 will never mar her features by adding gems that do not 

 harmonize with their native expression, plucked from 

 the bosom of a foreign clime. Then, although he may 

 not sit under the shade of the palm or the myrtle, or 

 roam among sweet-scented orange-groves, in the climate 

 of northern fruits and northern flowers, he needs no for- 

 eign trees or shrubbery to decorate his grounds or to 

 adapt them to his pleasures. In a forest of his own 

 native pines he may find an arbor in summer and a 

 shelter in winter as odoriferous as a grove of cinnamon 

 and myrtle ; and the fruits of his own orchards will yield 

 him a repast more savory than the products of the 

 Indies. 



