INTR 0 D UCTIO N, 
13 
The term landscape-gardening is misapplied when used in 
connection with the improvement of a few roods of suburban 
ground ; and we disavow any claim, for this work, to treat of 
landscape-gardening on that large scale, or in the thorough and 
exhaustive manner in which it is handled by the masters of the art 
in England, and by Downing for this country. Compared with the 
English we are yet novices in the fine arts of gardening, and the 
exquisite rural taste even among the poorer classes of England, 
which inspired glowing eulogiums from the pen of Washington 
Irving thirty years ago, is still as far in advance of our own as at 
that time. British literature abounds in admirable works on all 
branches of gardening arts. Loudon’s energy and exhaustive in- 
dustry seem to have collected, digested, and illustrated, almost 
everything worth knowing in the arts of gardening. But his works 
are too voluminous, too thorough, too English, to meet the needs 
of American suburban life. Kemp, in a complete little volume en- 
titled “ How to lay out a Garden,” has condensed all that is most 
essential on the subject for England. But the arrangements of 
American suburban homes of the average character differ so widely 
from those of the English, and our climate also varies so essen- 
tially from theirs, that plans of houses and grounds suitable there 
are not often adapted to our wants. There is an extent and 
thoroughness in their out-buildings, . and arrangements for man- 
servants and maid-servants and domestic animals, which the great 
cost of labor in this country forces us to condense or dispense 
with. Public and private examples of landscape-gardening on a 
grand scale begin to familiarize Americans with the art. The best 
cemeteries of our great cities are renowned even in Europe for 
their tasteful keeping. But more than all other causes, that won- 
derful creation, the New York Central Park, has illustrated the 
power of public money in the hands of men of tasteful genius to re- 
produce, as if by magic, the gardening glories of older lands. But 
public parks, however desirable and charming, are not substitutes 
for beautiful Homes ; and with observation of such public works, 
and of examples of tasteful but very costly private grounds in many 
parts of the country, there comes an increasing need of practical 
works to epitomize and Americanize the principles of decorative 
