HISTORICAL NOTICES. 
11 
Gardening, springs naturally from a love of country life, 
an attachment to a certain spot, and a desire to render that 
place attractive — a feeling which seems more or less 
strongly fixed in the minds of all men. But we should 
convey a false impression, were we to state that it may be 
applied with equal success to residences of every class and 
size, in the country. Lawn and trees, being its two essen- 
tial elements, some of the beauties of Landscape Gardening 
may, indeed, be shown wherever a rood of grass surface, and 
half a dozen trees are within our reach ; we may, even with 
such scanty space, have tasteful grouping, varied surface, 
and agreeably curved walks ; but our art, to appear to ad- 
vantage, requires some extent of surface — its lines should 
lose themselves indefinitely, and unite agreeably and gra- 
dually with those of the surrounding country. 
In the case of large landed estates, its capabilities may 
be displayed to their full extent, as from fifty to five hun- 
dred acres may be devoted to a park or pleasure grounds. 
Most of its beauty, and all its charms, may, however, be 
enjoyed in ten or twenty acres, fortunately situated, and 
well treated ; and Landscape Gardening, in America, com- 
bined and working in harmony as it is with our fine 
scenery, is already beginning to give us results scarcely less 
beautiful than those produced by its finest efforts abroad. 
The lovely villa residences of our noble river and lake 
margins, when well treated — even in a few acres of tasteful 
fore-ground, — seem so entirely to appropriate the whole 
adjacent landscape, and to mingle so sweetly in their out- 
lines with the woods, the valleys, and shores around them, 
that the effects are often truly enchanting. 
But if Landscape Gardening, in its proper sense, cannot 
be applied to the embellishment of the smallest cottage 
