PARK AND CEMETERY. 
141 
LANDSCAPE GARDENS.* 
“As the modern style owes its origin mainly to the 
English, so it has been developed and carried to the 
greatest perfection in the British Islands. The law of 
Primogeniture which has there so long existed, in itself, 
contributes greatly to the continued improvements and 
embellishments of those vast landed estates, that remain 
perpetually in the hands of the same family. Magnifi- 
cent buildings, added to by each succeeding generation; 
wide spread parks, clothed with a thick velvet turf, 
which in their moist atmosphere, preserves during ti>e 
greater part of the year an emerald greenness, studded 
with noble oaks and other forest trees which number 
centuries of growth and maturity; these advantages in 
the hands of the most intelligent and the wealthiest ar- 
istocracy in the world have indeed made almost an en- 
tire landscape garden of merry England. 
“In the United States it is highly improbable that 
we shall ever witness such splendid examples of land- 
scape gardening as those abroad. Here the rights of 
man are held to be equal, but if we have no enormous 
parks, and no class of men whose wealth is hereditary 
we have, on the other hand a large class of independent 
land owners, who are able to assemble around them, not 
only the useful and convenient, but the agreeable and 
beautiful in country life. 
“In America, a feeling, a taste, an improvement is 
so contagious that it is disseminated with a celerity 
that is indeed wonderful to every other portion of the 
country. 
“To attempt the smallest work in any art, without 
knowing either the capacities of that art, or the schools, 
or the modes by which it has previously been character- 
ized, is but to be groping about in a dim twilight, with- 
out the power of knowing, even should we be successful 
in our efforts, the real exce1*lence of our production. 
“Of late, professors of mrdern landscape gardening 
have generally agreed upon two species of beauty of 
which the art is capable. These are the beautiful anti 
the picturesque. Or to speak more definitely, the beauty 
characterized by simple and flowing forms. The ad- 
mirer of nature will at once call to mind examples of 
scenery distinctly expressive of each of these kinds of 
beauty. 
“By landscape gardening we untlerstand not only an 
imitation of the general forms of beauty, but an expres- 
sive, harmonious, and refined imitation. 
“Besides the beauty of form and expression we have 
to deal with the three principles, viz: unity, variety, 
and harmony. Violations of the principles of unity 
are often to be met with, and they indicate an absence 
of a correct taste in art. Looking upon a landscape we 
sometimes see a considerable part of the view laid out 
in natural forms of trees and shrubs, and perhaps in the 
middle of the same, a formal avenue leading directly to 
the house. In this example the avenue taken by itself 
may be a beautiful object, and yet, if taken with the 
natural groups of trees and shrubs the picture will not 
form a whole because it does not make a composite 
idea. For the same reason there is something u.ipleas- 
ing in the introduction of fruit trees among fine orna- 
mental trees on a lawn, or in assembling together in the 
the same bed flowering plants and culinary vegetables. 
In the arrangement of a large extent of surface where a 
‘‘Extract from a paper to the Fourth Annual Convention of the 
American Park and Out-door Art Association Ciiicago June. iQca. By 
Mrs. Cyrus It. McCormick, Lake Forest, III. 
great many forms are necessarily presented to the eye 
at once, the principle of unity will suggest that there 
should be some grand or dominant feature to which the 
others should be subortlinate. Thus, in grouping trees 
there should be some large and striking mass to which 
the others appear to belong, however, distant, instead of 
being all the same size. 
“After unity we must, carefully consider the subject 
of variety as a fertile source of beauty in landscape gar- 
dening. The different scenes jiresented to the eye 
should possess sufficient variety in the detail to keep 
alive the interest of the spectator. Harmony is the pre- 
siding principle over unity and variety, and prevents 
them from bi coming discordant. It presiqiposes con- 
trasts, but never so strong or so frequent as to produce 
discord. 
“Two or lhr*e trees and a few shrubs, vvidi a bit of 
lawn may make either an exquisite little picture or a 
disordered array of forms. If unity, variety and har- 
mony rule the composition, we shall get the same pleas- 
ures from it that we do from looking upon a beautiful 
picture. 
“There ire many persons with small country places 
who have neither room nor time to attenqrt the improve- 
ment of their ground fully after either of these two 
schools. How shall they render their places tasteful 
and agreeable in the easiest manner? By attempting 
only the simjde anti natural, and the unfailing way to 
secure this is by employing trees and grass. A soft vel- 
vet lawn, a few forest or ornamental trees well groupetl 
with universal pleasure, — they contain in themselves in 
fact, the basis of all our agreeable sensations in the 
most splendid examples of a landscape, and they are 
the most enduring sources of enjoyment in any place. 
“Landscape gardening is not solely a decorative art. 
This idea of it is illustrated time and again by people 
who first built a house and then apply to a landscape 
artist or attempt themselves to finish it off. The house 
has probably been placed in a position where it will 
subject the owner to all sorts of inconveniences, while if 
he had placed his house elsewhere, he might have se- 
cured advantages now impossible to Irim. He has ex- 
pended large sums in grubbing or burning up all that he 
considers underbrush, and has thus destroyed all the 
natural beauty of the woods, which now consists only of 
a collection of gaunt, naked looking trees; and now he 
applies to the aforesaid said artist to make the place 
look attractive by the introduction of artificial decora- 
tion. In other words the place is to be dressed up to 
look pretty. The portion of those who study to arrange 
their grounds from the outset, fixing the position of the 
buildings and adapting the roads and walks so as to se- 
cure the utmost convenience with the best possible de- 
velopment of graceful and picturesque effect, is insigni- 
ficant with those who after fixing those features beyond 
recall, then and then only confer with the landscape art- 
ist. Thus, inexperienced persons continually deceive 
themselves with the idea that no art is riquired in the 
arrangement of the grounds for the domestic use of the 
family residence beyond the exercise of intuitive skill 
and'ingenuity, and nearly everyone imagines until he 
has tried, that he can do it to suit himself much better 
than another can do it for him. Many a one finds in 
the end that he pays dearly for his error. 
“It has been the common plan to break up seemingly 
and purposely every possible stretch of lawn and vista 
by roads and paths, and no country house was supposed 
