IV EDITOR'S PREFACE. 



and his retainers. His noblemen followed the royal example, 

 and a great part of England was parceled out into wide do- 

 mains — the spoils of the conquered Saxons — and appropri- 

 ated to themselves, in ranges of park and cultivated lands. 

 Hunting was their pastime — war, agriculture and legislation 

 their employment. Through succeeding centuries, becoming 

 more refined and domestic in their pursuits, they studied the 

 improvement and cultivation of their estates; and, retaining 

 their attachment to the soil, which they held by hereditary 

 title, the planting and preservation of their trees, and the 

 decoration of their gardens, became with them a passion, as 

 well as a duty. It is so with their descendants in the present 

 day. It has become a national taste in England, and has 

 spread into Scotland and Ireland, until no country in the 

 world can equal Great Britain in the luxuriance and beauty — 

 the costliness and splendor — the extent and the wealth of 

 her Parks and Pleasure-grounds. Few, indeed, can indulge 

 in such extent of luxury as the parks of the aristocracy dis- 

 play; yet the taste for rural embellishment extends among 

 all classes of the people, from the royal mistress of Windsor, 

 Osborne, and Balmoral, to the humble cottager upon his mea- 

 ger allotment by the hedge-row. 



It is not so in America. We have broad lands, and a pas- 

 sion for lands ; but not a passion to improve and embellish 

 them for domestic occupation, as they have in England. Yet 

 we are learning this, and we wish to learn more. Our taste 



