PREFACE. 
A taste for rural improvements of every description is 
advancing silently, but with great rapidity in this country. 
While yet in the far west the pioneer constructs his rude 
hut of logs for a dwelling, and sweeps away with his axe 
the lofty forest trees that encumber the ground, in the older 
portions of the Union, bordering the Atlantic, we are sur- 
rounded by all the luxuries and refinements that belong to 
an old and long cultivated country. Within the last ten 
years, especially, the evidences of the growing wealth and 
prosperity of our citizens have become apparent in the great 
increase of elegant cottage and villa residences on the banks 
of our noble rivers, along our rich valleys, and wherever 
nature seems to invite us by her rich and varied charms. 
In all the expenditure of means in these improvements^ 
amounting in the aggregate to an immense sum, professional 
talent is seldom employed in Architecture or Landscape 
Gardening, but almost every man fancies himself an ama- 
teur, and endeavours to plan and arrange his own residence. 
With but little practical knowledge, and few correct princi- 
ples for his guidance, it is not surprising that we witness 
much incongruity and great waste of time and money. 
Even those who are familiar with foreign works on the sub- 
ject in question labour under many obstacles in practice, 
which grow out of the difference in our soil and climate, or 
our social and political position. 
These views have so often presented themselves to me of 
