THE 
AMERICAN FLOWER-GARDEN 
DIRECTORY. 
ON LAYING OUT A FLOWER-GARDEN. 
The Flower-Garden is chiefly devoted to the cultivation of 
showy flowering plants, shrubs, and trees, either natives of 
this country or those of a foreign clime : it is a refined ap- 
pendage to a country seat, " suburban" villa, or city resi- 
dence ; every age has had its principles of taste, and every 
country its system of gardening. Our limits do not permit 
us to enter minutely into the details of any of these sys- 
tems; but a few hints may not be out of place to those whose 
design is the laying out or improvement of the garden. 
The Italian style is characterized by broad terraces and pa- 
rallel walks, having the delightful shade and agreeable fra- 
grance of the orange and the myrtle. Terraces may be ad- 
vantageously adopted to surmount steep declivities ; and, if 
judiciously laid out, would convert a sterile bank into a 
beautiful promenade, or choice flower-garden. 
The French partially adopt the above system, interspers- 
ing it with parterres and figures of statuary work of every 
character and description. When such is well designed and 
neatly executed, it has a lively and interesting efiect; but 
now the refined taste says these vagaries are too fantastic, 
and entirely out of place. A late writer says of Dutch gar- 
dening, that it " is rectangular formality :" they take great 
pride in trimming their trees of yew, holly, and other ever- 
