HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE. 
439 
hesitation we find ourselves compelled to say so much 
about these two places, especially our own ; but we 
have known them both from their commencement, with 
all their sins of omission and commission ; and with 
all the motives and designs for each step taken in their 
improvement, and the reason why every tree was 
planted or cut down on either place, which is a know- 
ledge we have of no other place, and more than all, as 
one was a dense wood and the other a naked field, they 
are better examples of the two styles than any other 
places we recollect, even if we had been equally 
familiar with others. 
When we purchased our own place, in 1840, we found 
a house partially built in the midst of a wood, but 
without any view, though we were aware that we had, 
or ought to have, a range of mountains on one side, the 
Hudson River on the other, a valley on the third, and 
a long range of country on the fourth ; but between us 
and these views, and all more or less around us, were 
thinly scattered houses, which were far from agreeable 
accessories to the landscape. 
We felt, after studying our position, that our plan 
ought to be to conceal these offensive objects, by plant- 
ing them out, and to open up the attractive points of 
river, valley, and mountain ; but how to do this was the 
question ! 
The trees, like all trees grown in a forest, were tall 
and spindling, hiding out with their heads what they 
should not have concealed, and opening through their 
naked stems what ought to have been hid ; our object 
therefore, was to get the branches of these trees (prin- 
cipally oaks and hickories) down near the ground, in 
order to form masses and groups, not only to hide out our 
boundaries and these objectionable houses, but also to pro- 
duce certain effects of light and shade, as the beginning 
and basis of ornamental planting. We accomplished 
this in part by topping all the trees which had any signs 
