PREFACE 
TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
The favourable manner in which the first edition of this 
work has been received, is highly gratifying to the author ; 
and the strong interest existing, at the present moment, 
on the subject of rural improvement gives us every rea- 
son to hope that during the next twenty years, our 
advance towards a national taste in Landscape Gardening 
and Architecture, will be as rapid as it has hitherto been in 
the increase of population and general prosperity. Those, 
who have reflected how much the happy condition of a 
nation depends on the nature of its “ country homes,” will 
be able to appreciate the moral and social value of such a 
progress in taste. 
In the present edition, a large part of the first portion of the 
work has been re-written, — some modification of the princi- 
ples of the art have been introduced, — considerable new 
matter has been added, — the whole has been revised, and 
newly and more copiously illustrated, from examples now 
existing in this country,— -and the work is now offered in a 
much more complete form, than it was heretofore possible to 
present it. 
A. J. D. 
Highland Gardens, 
Newburgh, N. Y., Aug. 1844. 
