XIV. 



A CHAPTER ON LAWNS. 



November, 1846. 



T ANDSCAPE GARDENING embraces, in the circle of its per- 

 -1J fections, many elements of beauty ; certainly not a less number 

 than the modern chemists count as the simplest conditions of mat- 

 ter. But with something of the feeling of the old philosophers, who 

 believed that earth, air, fire and water, included every thing in na- 

 ture, we like to go back to plain and simple facts, of breadth and 

 importance enough to embrace a multitude of little details. The 

 great elements then, of landscape gardening, as we understand it, 

 are TREES and GRASS. 



TREES delicate, beautiful, grand, or majestic trees pliantly 

 answering to the wooing of the softest west wind, like the willow ; 

 or bravely and sturdily defying centuries of storm and tempest, like 

 the oak they are indeed the great " princes, potentates, and peo- 

 ple," of our realm of beauty. But it is not to-day that we are per- 

 mitted to sing triumphal songs in their praise. 



In behalf of the grass the turf, the lawn, then, we ask our 

 readers to listen to us for a short time. And by this we do not 

 mean to speak of it in a moral sense, as did the inspired preacher 

 of old, when he gravely told us that " all flesh is grass ;" or in a 

 style savoring of the vanities of costume, as did Prior, when he 

 wrote the couplet, 



" Those limbs in lawn and softest silk arrayed, 

 From sunbeams guarded, and of winds afraid." 



