62 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



development of the idea in the material form ; 

 and those who in the Picturesque enjoy most a certain 

 wild and incomplete harmony between the idea and the 

 forms in which it is expressed. 



As the two latter classes embrace the vfkole range 

 of modern Landscape Gardening, we shall keep distinctly 

 in View their two governing principles — ^the Beautiful and 

 the Picturesque, in treating of the practice of the art. 



There are always circumstances which must exert a 

 controlling influence over amateurs, in this country, in 

 choosing between the two. These are, fixed locality, ex- 

 nense, individual preference in the style of building, and 

 many others which readily occur to all. The great variety 

 of attractive sites in the older parts of the country, afford an 

 abundance of opportunity for either taste Within the las( 

 five years, we think the Picturesque is begmning to be pre- 

 ferred. It has, when a suitable locality offers, great advan- 

 tages for us. The raw materials of wood, water, and sur- 

 face, by the margin of many of our rivers and brooks, are 

 at once appropriated with so much effect, and so little art, 

 in the picturesque mode ; the annual tax on the purse too 

 is so comparatively little, and the charm so great ! 



While, on one hand, the residences of a country of level 

 plains usually allow only the beauty of simple and grace- 

 ful forms ; the larger demesne, with its swelling hills and 

 noble masses of wood (may we not, prospectively, say the 

 rolling prairie too ?), should always, in the hands of the 

 man of wealth, be made to display all the breadth, va- 

 riety, and harmony of both the Beautiful and the Pictu- 

 resque. 



There is no surface of ground, however bare, which has 

 not, naturally, more or less tendency to one or the other of 

 these expressions. And the improver who detects the true 



