36 



PARKS AND PLEASURE-GROUNDS. 



should spread over it. There is no necessity, nor con- 

 venience, in underground rooms for living purposes, 

 in the country house. For height, full two stories 

 above the surface is all that it requires ; more than 

 that gives it an ambitious look, and suggests the idea 

 of a city house in a wrong place. A broad veranda 

 on the principal front we would not omit ; it may be 

 extended around one or more of the sides, or even, in 

 a southern climate, to the opposite front, if such front 

 there be, (but not a continuous veranda around the 

 whole,) provided the style of its architecture will allow 

 it without a violation of its rules. 



A flanking and rear of wood, composed of either fruit 

 or forest trees, makes the richest background, as seen 

 from a distance; and where nature has not already fur- 

 nished the forest, a plantation of one or the other should 

 at once be commenced. By this, the house and its ap- 

 pendages become, as they should be, the eye of the 

 picture, other irrelevant and less interesting objects 

 being shut out of sight. Such, and all such advantages 

 may be comprised in the dwelling of the wealthy 

 farmer or planter of the United States, without trench- 

 ing on an economical arrangement of his family resi- 

 dence. 



Let such a composition of the park mansion be con- 

 trasted with many a modern one, designed for ex- 

 pressly the same objects, which are so often obtruded 

 upon our sight : a tall, square, castellated structure, 

 standing on a high basement, having at least two, 

 sometimes three, and, worse still, four fronts, all 

 equally approached by a carriage-way or foot-walk 

 entirely around it. The windows of each room staring 

 out upon its front, and every apartment exposed to the 



