AUTHOR'S PREFACE. vii 



are: Study pictures — familiarize your taste with scenes 

 which painters would delight to copy — become acquainted 

 with the elements of the picturesque, and seek to realize the 

 resulting ideas in and about your residence. Most gentlemen 

 of liberal education know something of pictures; but there 

 are few who would not disclaim such a special culture in 

 the fine arts, as would fit them to apply the principles of 

 painting to the improvement of their grounds. To prescribe 

 such a course is virtually to require a professional education, 

 or to impose the amateur labor of half a lifetime. The ob- 

 ject of the present work is to preserve a plain and direct 

 method of statement, to be intelligible to all who have had 

 an ordinary education, and to give directions which, it is 

 hoped, will be found to be practical by those who have an 

 adequate knowledge of country affairs. 



The author earnestly disclaims all intention of detracting 

 from the acknowledged merit of his illustrious predecessors. 

 He has been willing to sit at the feet of Wheatley, Price and 

 Gilpin. He has learned much from their writings. His aim, 

 in this volume, has been to popularize their principles, and to 

 simplify and extend their processes in practice. He has, how- 

 ever, sedulously avoided those redundant and often merely con- 

 troversial discussions by which some of their literary works are 

 encumbered. At the same time he is convinced that Land- 

 scape-gardening, like the other fine arts, is of a progressive 

 nature; and that its ascertained principles compose a fabric 



