28 
LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
which is there called the English or natural style, yet in 
the neighborhood of many of the capitals, especially those 
of the south of Europe, the taste for the geometric or ancient 
style of gardening still prevails to a considerable extent ; 
partially no doubt because that style admits, with more 
facility, of those classical and architectural acompaniments 
of vases, statues, busts, etc., the passion for which per- 
vades a people rich in ancient and modern sculptural works 
of art. Indeed many of the gardens on the continent are 
more striking from their numerous sculpturesque orna- 
ments, interspersed with fountains and jets-d’eau, than from 
the beauty or rarity of their vegetation, or from their ar- 
rangement. 
In the United States, it is highly improbable that we shall 
ever witness such splendid examples of landscape gardens 
as those abroad, to which we have alluded. Here the rights 
of man are held to be equal ; and if there are no enormous 
parks, and no class of men whose wealth is hereditary, there 
is, at least, what is more gratifying to the feelings of the 
philanthropist, the almost entire absence of a very poor class 
in the country ; while we have, on the other hand, a large 
class of independent landholders, who are able to assemble 
around them, not only the useful and convenient, but the 
agreeable and beautiful, in country life. 
The number of individuals among us who possess wealth 
and refinement sufficient to enable them to enjoy the plea- 
sures of a country life, and who desire in their private resi- 
dences so much of the beauties of landscape gardening and 
rural embellishment as may be had without any enor- 
mous expenditure of means, is every day increasing. And 
although, until lately, a very meagre plan of laying out the 
grounds of a residence, was all that we could lay claim 
