546 
LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
SECTION Y. 
HISTORICAL NOTICES. 
It is with great reluctance that we undertake this 
portion of our task, from a consciousness of our entire 
inability to do justice to the many line places which 
exist all over the United States, and which require a 
greater knowledge than we have of them, as well as more 
space and time than is allowed us, for the remainder of 
this supplement. 
With Mr. Downing, in his first edition, this labor was 
comparatively a light one, as, twelve or fifteen years ago, 
there were only a few marked places in the neighbor- 
hood of our large cities, and upon the banks of the Hud- 
son river and Long Island sound, which were so dis- 
tinguished and prominent as to be easily described ; of 
this class were Col. Perkins’ and Mr. Lyman’s near 
Boston ; the Manor of Livingston, Montgomery place 
and Hyde Park, upon the Hudson ; the Bartram gar- 
den, Stenton, Woodlawn, etc., near Philadelphia; and 
a few others. Since this period, however, the taste for 
country life has advanced so rapidly, that, in and about 
these very neighborhoods, there are, at present, scores of 
country houses, many of them of the finest and most 
expensive character, but all partaking more or less of 
similar disposition and style of grounds, and a similar 
fashion of planting. 
We have already said, in the introduction to this sup- 
plement, that since Mr. Downing’s time, though the 
style of country houses had vastly improved, yet 
an equal improvement was not so evident in Land- 
