62 
LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
development of the idea in the material form ; 
and those who in the Picturesque enjoy most a certain 
wild and incomplete harmony between the idea and the 
forms in which it is expressed. 
As the two latter classes embrace the whole range 
of modern Landscape Gardening, we shall keep distinctly 
in view their two governing principles — the Beautiful and 
the Picturesque, in treating of the practice of the art. 
There are always circumstances which must exert a 
controlling influence over amateurs, in this country, in 
choosing between the two. These are, fixed locality, ex- 
pense, individual preference in the style of building, and 
many others which readily occur to all. The great variety 
of attractive sites in the older parts of the country, afford an 
abundance of opportunity for either taste Within the last 
five years, we think the Picturesque is beginning to be pre- 
ferred. It has, when a suitable locality offers, great advan- 
tages for us. The raw materials of wood, water, and sur- 
face, by the margin of many of our rivers and brooks, are 
at once appropriated with so much effect, and so little art, 
in the picturesque mode ; the annual tax on the purse too 
is so comparatively little, and the charm so great ! 
While, on one hand, the residences of a country of level 
plains usually allow only the beauty of simple and grace- 
ful forms ; the larger demesne, with its swelling hills and 
noble masses of wood (may we not, prospectively, say tire 
rolling prairie too ?), should always, in the hands of the 
man of wealth, be made to display all the breadth, va- 
riety, and harmony of both the Beautiful and the Pictu- 
resque. 
There is no surface of ground, however bare, which has 
not, naturally, more or less tendency to one or the other of 
these expressions. And the improver who detects the true 
