P fi E F A C E. 
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 surrounded 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, pro- 
fessional talent is seldom employed in Architecture or 
Landscape Gardening, but almost every man fancies 
himself an amateur, and endeavors to plan and arrange his 
own residence. With but little practical knowledge, and 
few correct principles for his guidance, it is not surprising 
that w*e witness much incongruity and great waste of time 
and money. Even those who are familiar with foreign 
works on the subject in question labor 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 
late, and have been so frequently urged by persons 
desiring advice, that I have ventured to prepare the present 
volume, in the hope of supplying, in some degree, the 
