■73 



ON THE PROGRESS AND PRINCIPLES OF ORNAMENTAL 

 GARDENING. 



(Continued from page 60.) 



Before entering upon any of the details of Architectural Gardening, it will 

 be more convenient to conclude my observations upon the Landscape style, which 

 I shall do by treating of the application of that style to a place of much greater 

 extent than the one supposed in my last article. But I shall still confine myself 

 exclusively to Landscape by supposing the building, though of much increased 

 dimensions, to be devoid of all architectural pretensions, of any description, being 

 constructed in the simplest cottage style. I have selected such a building in 

 order to avoid speaking of fountains, terraces, &c, &c, which would be equally 

 inapplicable in this as the former instance, until I treat of another style of 

 residence, to which they will form necessary adjuncts. We will imagine, then, a 

 cottage residence of some extent, but rustic character, situated upon a gentle 

 acclivity, full five hundred yards from the public road, and in the midst of a 

 finely undulating country. For a building of this character, surrounded with 

 grounds such as those about to be described, a like situation is of the greatest 

 advantage. In the first place, the savannah-like effect, which is the great point 

 to be attained, is nearly sure to result from such a disposition of ground, with 

 very little assistance from art ; in the second place, such inequalities afford 

 natural causes for avoiding straight lines in the walks and approaches ; and in 

 the last place, such a country is generally intersected with numerous brooks and 

 streams, which may, with great facility and small expense, be pent into rapids, 

 conducted to abrupt falls, or spread out into a lake — advantages of the first import- 

 ance in forming a landscape garden or small park. 



Another natural advantage to be sought is, plenty of fine full-grown timber, 

 for where new plantings alone are to furnish all the foliage effects, many years 

 must elapse before the place arrives at a moderate degree of fullness and richness 

 of effect, and full half a century or more before the fine effects of full-grown trees 

 can be expected. 



Without much gardening science, the advantages of fine timber were fully 

 appreciated by the attendants of Catherine of Russia, who, previous to a projected 

 visit of the Empress to a castle in the desert part of the country, caused full- 

 grown trees to be carefully taken up, and carried a great distance, to be planted 

 in the naked domain ; so that the Empress, on her arrival, was much surprised 

 to find a park and gardens, crowded with luxuriant foliage, where she had 

 expected an empty waste. Whether the transplanting was permanently success- 

 ful I have no means of knowing ; but, at all events, it would be far too expensive 

 an experiment for any but a royal exchequer, and therefore such advantages 

 ought to be secured by selecting an already well-tempered piece of ground. I 



