HISTORICAL NOTICES. . 25 



Style of laying out grounds, combined with a scientific 

 arrangement of plants, which excited public curiosity, and 

 contributed not a little to the dissemination of a taste for 

 the natural mode of landscape gardening. 



During M. Parmentier's residence on Long Island, he 

 was almost constantly applied to for plans for laying out 

 the grounds of country seats, by persons in various parts 

 of the Union, as well as in the immediate proximity of 

 New York. In many cases he not only surveyed the 

 demesne to be improved, but furnished the plants and 

 trees necessary to carry out his designs. Several plans 

 were prepared by him for residences of note in the South- 

 ern States ; and two or three places in Upper Canada, 

 especially near Montreal, were, we believe, laid out by his 

 own hands and stocked from his nursery grounds. In his 

 periodical catalogue, he arranged the hardy trees and 

 shrubs that flourish in this latitude in classes, according to 

 their height, etc., and published a short treatise on the 

 superior claims of the natural, over the formal or geome- 

 tric style of laying out grounds. In short, we consider M 

 Parmentier's labors and examples as having effected, 

 directly, far more for landscape gardening in America, 

 than those of any other individual whatever. 



The introduction of tasteful gardening in this country 

 is, of course, of a very recent date. But so long ago as 

 from 25 to 50 years, there were several country residences 

 highly remarkable for extent, elegance of arrangement, 

 and the highest order and keeping. Among these, we 

 desire especially to record here the celebrated seats. of 

 Chancellor Livingston, Wm. Hamilton, Esq., Theodore 

 Lyman, Esq., and Judge Peters. 



Woodlands, the seat of the Hamilton family, near 



