PREFACE. 
IX 
piness. 11 In the midst of the continual movement which 
agitates a democratic community,” says the most philosophi- 
cal writer who has yet discussed our institutions, “ the tie 
which unites one generation to another, is relaxed or broken ; 
every man readily loses the trace of the ideas of his fore- 
fathers, or takes no care about them.” 
The love of country is inseparably connected with the 
love of home. Whatever, therefore, leads man to assemble 
the comforts and elegancies of life around his habitation, 
tends to increase local attachments, and render domestic life 
more delightful ; thus not only augmenting his own enjoy- 
ment, but strengthening his patriotism, and making him a 
better citizen. And there is no employment or recreation 
which affords the mind greater or more permanent satisfac- 
tion, than that of cultivating the earth and adorning our own 
property. “ God Almighty first planted a garden ; and, in- 
deed, it is the parent of human pleasures,” says Lord Bacon. 
And as the first man was shut out from the garden , in the 
cultivation of which no alloy was mixed with his happiness, 
the desire to return to it seems to be implanted by nature, 
more or less strongly, in every heart. 
In Landscape Gardening the country gentleman of leisure 
finds a resource of the most agreeable nature. While there 
is no more rational pleasure than that derived from its prac- 
tice by him, who 
“ Plucks life’s roses in his quiet fields,” 
the enjoyment drawn from it, (unlike many other amuse- 
ments,) is unembittered by the after recollection of pain or 
injury inflicted on others, or the loss of moral rectitude. In 
rendering his home more beautiful, he not only contributes 
to the happiness of his own family, but improves the taste, 
and adds loveliness to the country at large. There is, 
perhaps, something exclusive in the taste for some of the 
fine arts. A collection of pictures, for example, is compara- 
tively shut up from the world, in the private gallery. But 
the sylvan and floral collections, — the groves and gardens, 
n 
