EDITOR'S PREFACE. 



It may appear superfluous to re-edit, in the United States, 

 a work of the kind now presented to the reader : particularly 

 if it be one of competent authority on the subjects of which 

 it professes to treat. In answer to this suggestion it may be 

 remarked, that scarce any European treatise on the manage- 

 ment of grounds, the vegetation belonging to them, or the 

 structures to be erected on them, can, in every thing, be ap- 

 plicable here. Our climates and soils; our trees, shrubs and 

 plants; our habits and tastes, all differ in various degrees 

 from those of Europe,, and Europeans, to which and to whom 

 we have hitherto chiefly looked for example and authority in 

 matters of this kind. 



Parks and Pleasure-grounds are a part of the " Institu- 

 tions" of Great Britain. Parks came into England with 

 William the Conquerer. Among his first acts of oppression 

 and injustice, he laid waste of its homes, its villages, cottages, 

 and cultivated fields, one of the richest counties, to form a 

 vast forest and hunting-ground, for the recreation of himself 



