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The Library: Residence of the late A. J. Downing.
New-York:
GE AV ILE? AND ATL EnN.
4 NSE)
RURAL ESSAYS.
BY
poe DOWNING.
EDITED, WITH A MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR.
BY
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS,
AND
A LETTER TO HIS FRIENDS,
BY
FREDERIKA BREMER.
NEW YORK:
ese Vs bE dee A TEN
No. 27 Dry STREET.
1854
Enterep, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by
GEORGE P. PUTNAM & CO,
in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Southern District of New-Xork.
JOHN F. TROW,
PRINTER AND STEREOTYPER, 4
49 Ann-street.
=
co
Pap AC B.
HIS posthumous volume completes the series of Mr.
Downing’s works. It comprises, with one or two ex-
ceptions, all his editorial papers in the ‘ Horticulturist.”
The Editor has preferred to retain their various temporary
allusions, because they serve to remind the reader of the
circumstances under which the articles were prepared.
Mr. Downing had designed a work upon the Shade-Trees of
the United States, but left no notes upon the subject.
In the preparation of the memoir, the Editor has been
indebted to a sketch in the Knickerbocker Magazine, by
Mrs. Monell, of Newburgh, to Mr. Wilder’s eulogy before
the Pomological Congress, and to an article in the ‘“ New-
York Quarterly,” by Clatence Cook, Esq.
The tribute to the genius and character of Downing
Vv PREFACE.
by Miss Bremer, although addressed to all his friends, has
the unreserved warmth of a private letter. No man has
lived in vain who has inspired such regard in such a
woman.
New-York, April, 1853.
COUN se NY DS),
we eee
PAGE
MEMOIRS : : : : 5 : " x]
» LETTER FROM MISS BREMER . ; - = < xi
HORTICULTURE.
I. Inrropuctory . : : ; : : 5 3
IJ. Hints on Frowrr-GarpDENs .
Ill. Inrivence or HorricutrurE . : : 5 és 13
TV. A Tatk wiry Fiona anp Pomona . ; ‘ 2 18
VY. A Carrer on RosEs . P : - ; ; 24
VI. A Carrer on Green-Housks ‘ ‘ A 5 35
VII. On Feminine Taste in Ruran AFFAIRS . : : 44
VIII. Economy Iv GARDENING ‘ ; ’ : = 55
IX. A Loox axpott ts : : : 5 F A 60
X. A Sprine Goss. L ‘ . 3 A 65
XI. Tue Great Discovery Iv VEGETATION . 3 : 72
XII. Srare anp Prospects or HorticutturE : 5 : 7
XIII. American vs. British Horticutture . - 2 - 83
XTY. On tee Drapery or CorraGEs AND GARDENS : ; 88
Il.
CONTENTS.
LANDSCAPE GARDENING.
. Tue Partosopny or Ruray Taste
. Tue Bravrirut In Grounp
. Hints to Rurat Ivprovers
A Few Hints on LANDSCAPE GARDENING
. On tHE Misrakes or Citizens IN Country LIFE
.
CITIZENS RETIRING TO THE CouNntTRY
. A TALK azour Pupric Parks AND GARDENS
Tur New-York Park
Puspiic CEMETERIES AND PuBLic GARDENS
How To cHoosE A Site FOR A COUNTRY-SEAT
. How TO ARRANGE Country PLAcEs
,
. Tor MANAGEMENT OF LARGE CouNTRY PLACES
Country Priacres 1n AUTUMN
A CHAPTER ON Lawns
. Mr. Tupor’s GAarpen at NagAnt
A Visit to Montgomery PLACE
RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
. A Few Worps on Rurat ARCHITECTURE
. Moran Inrrvence or Goop Hovusegs
. A FEw Worps on our Proacress In BUILDING
. CocKNEYISM IN THE CoUNTRY
On THE IMPROVEMENTS OF CouNTRY VILLAGES
. Our Country VILLAGES
. On Smece Rurat CorraGces
On THE CoLor oF Country Hovusrs
. A sHort CHAPTER ON CounTRY CHURCHES
A CHAPTER ON ScHoot-Housgs .
. How to Burtp Icz-Housss ,
. Tue Favorite Porson or AMERICA .
TREES.
Tur BEavtiFut In A TREE
How to PopuLaRizE THE TASTE FOR PLANTING
289
293
CONTENTS. vil
PAGE
UI. On Prantine Suape-TReEs ‘ : 3 : . 299
IV. Trees 1n Towns AND VILLAGES ‘ : i ° 303
V. Smape-Trees In Cites . : : - 4 eth
VI. Rare EverGreen TREES. 3 : 3 . 519
VII. A Worn rn Favor or EverGRreens = iy EAU ond.
VII. Tue Cuimnrse Macnonttas : F - , Bt)
IX. Tur Neerecrep American Prants : . f Sen sk,
X. Tue Arr or TRANSPLANTING TREES . ‘ : : 843,
XJ. On Transpiantine Larce TREES , : ‘ . 3849
XU. A Cuarrer on HEDGES : : : , : 357
XI. On toe EmptoyMent or ORNAMENTAL TREES AND Suruss IN Norra
AMERICA . p F : : - 9314
AGRICULTURE.
I, Curtivators,—Tue Great InpusrriaL Crass or AMERICA . 885
Il. Tar Nationa Iqnorance or THE AGRICULTURAL INTEREST . 390
UI. Tar Home Epucation or tue Ruray Disrricts . . . 396
IV. How 0 ENRICH THE Sor : A 404
V. A CHaprer ON AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS . : . 410
VI. A Few Worps on tur Kircuen GARDEN . : A 416
VII. A Cuar In THE Kitcuen GArpEn ; oil
VIII. Wasutneton, toe Farmer ; AQT
FRUIT.
I, A Few Worps on Fruir Cutrure : : a . 485
Il. THe Frurrs in Convention . F ‘ 5 . 442,
Il. Tae Puttosopny or Manurine Oronarps ; 5 a) 452
IVY. Tur VINEYARDS oF THE West ; 5 463
Y. On THE IMPROVEMENT OF VEGETABLE RACES ‘ : . 468
LETTERS FROM ENGLAND.
I. Warwick Castie: Kenmwortn: Srratrorp-on-AVon 5 eS
Il. Kew-Garpens: New Houses or Partrament: A NopitemMan’s
Sear. ‘ . ‘ A $ : 485
Til. Coatsworta . : b « 497
Vili CONTENTS.
PAGE
TY. Enerish Travertine: Happon Hari: Martoox: Tue Drrpy
ARBORETUM: Botanic GARDEN IN Recent’s PARK. 5106
V. Tue Istz or Wicut : é ; : : . 622
VI. Wosurn ABBEY ; 5 : : : ; 582
VII. Drormorg.—Eneuish Ramways.—Socrmty : : . 538
VIL. Tar Lonpon Parks 5 5 547
MEMOIR
MEMOTR.
NDREW JACKSON DOWNING was born at New-
burgh, upon the Hudson, on the spot where he always
lived, and which he always loved more than any other, on
the 30th of October, 1815. His father and mother were
both natives of Lexington, Massachusetts, and, upon their
marriage, removed to Orange County, New-York, where
they settled, some thirty or forty miles from Newburgh.
Presently, however, they came from the interior of the
county to the banks of the river. The father built a cot-
tage upon the highlands of Newburgh, on the skirts of
the town, and there his five children were born. He had
begun life as a wheelwright, but abandoned the trade
to become a nurseryman, and after working prosperously
in his garden for twenty-one years, died in 1822.
Andrew was born many years after the other children.
He was the child of his parents’ age, and, for that reason,
very dear. He began to talk before he could walk, when
he was only nine months old, and the wise village gossips
shook their heads in his mother’s little cottage, and pro-
phesied a bright career for the precocious child. At eleven
months that career manifestly began, in the gossips’ eyes,
by his walking bravely about the room: a handsome,
xi MEMOIR.
cheerful, intelligent child, but quiet and thoughtful, pet-
ted by the elder brothers and sister, standing sometimes
in the door, as he grew older, and watching the shadows
of the clouds chase each other over the Fishkill mountains
upon the opposite side of the river ; soothed by the uni-
versal silence of the country, while the constant occupation
of the father, and of the brother who worked with him in
the nursery, made the boy serious, by necessarily leaving
him much alone. |
In the little cottage upon the Newburgh highlands,
looking down upon the broad bay which the Hudson river
there makes, before winding in a narrow stream through
the highlands of West Point, and looking eastward across
the river to the Fishkill hills, which rise gradually from
the bank into a gentle mountain boldness, and northward,
up the river, to shores that do not obstruct the horizon,—
passed the first years of the boy’s life, thus early befriend-
ing him with one of the loveliest of landscapes. While his
father and brother were pruning and grafting their trees,
and the other brother was busily at work in the comb fac-
tory, where he was employed, the young Andrew ran alone
about the garden, playing his solitary games in the pre-
sence of the scene whose influence helped to mould his life,
and which, even so early, filled his mind with images of
rural beauty. His health, like that of most children born
in their parents’ later years, was not at all robust. The
father, watching the slight form glancing among his trees,
and the mother, aware of her boy sitting silent and
thoughtful, had many a pang of apprehension, which
was not relieved by the ominous words of the gossips
that it was “hard to raise these smart children,”—the
homely modern echo of the old Greek fancy, “‘ Whom the
gods love die young.”
MEMOIR. xill
The mother, a thrifty housekeeper and a religious wo-
man, occupied with her many cares, cooking, mending,
scrubbing, and setting things to rights, probably looked
forward with some apprehension to the future condition
of her sensitive Benjamin, even if he lived. The dreamy,
shy ways of the boy were not such as indicated the stern
stuff that enables poor men’s children to grapple with the
world. Left to himself, his will began to grow imperious.
The busy mother could not severely scold her ailing child ;
but a sharp rebuke had probably often been pleasanter to
him than the milder treatment that resulted from affec-
tionate compassion, but showed no real sympathy. It
is evident, from the tone in which he always spoke of
his childhood, that his recollections of it were not alto-
gether agreeable. It was undoubtedly clouded by a want
of sympathy, which he could not understand at the time,
but which appeared plainly enough when his genius came
into play. It is the same kind of clouded childhood that
so often occurs in literary biography, where there was great
mutual affection and no ill feeling, but a lack of that in-
stinctive apprehension of motives and aims, which makes
each one perfectly tolerant of each other.
When Andrew was seven years old, his father died,
and his elder brother succeeded to the management of the
nursery business. Andrew’s developing tastes led him to
the natural sciences, to botany and mineralogy. As he
erew older he began to read the treatises upon these favor-
ite subjects, and went, at length, to an academy at Mont-
gomery, a town not far from Newburgh, and in the same
county. Those who remember him here, speak of him as
a thoughtful, reserved boy, looking fixedly out of his large,
dark brown eyes, and carrymg his brow a little inclined
forward, as if slightly defiant. He was a poor boy, and
XIV MEMOIR.
very proud. Doubtless that indomitable will had already
resolved that he should not be the least of the men that
he and his schoolfellows would presently become. He
was shy, and made few friends among the boys. He kept
his own secrets, and his companions do not remember that
he gave any hint, while at Montgomery Academy, of his
peculiar power. Neither looking backward nor forward,
was the prospect very fascinating to his dumb, and proba-
bly a little dogged, ambition. Behind were the few first
years of childhood, sickly, left much alone in the cottage
and garden, with nothing in those around him (as he felt
without knowing it) that strictly sympathized with him ;
and yet, as always in such cases, of a nature whose devel-
opment craved the most generous sympathy: these few
years, too, cast-among all the charms of a landscape which
the Fishkill hills lifted from littleness, and the broad river
inspired with a kind of grandeur ; years, which the univer-
sal silence of the country, always so imposing to young
imaginations, and the rainbow pomp of the year, as it
came and went up and down the river-banks and over the
mountains, and the general solitude of country life, were
not very likely to enliven. Before, lay a career of hard
work in a pursuit which rarely enriches the workman, with
little apparent promise of leisure to pursue his studies or
to follow his tastes. It is natural enough, that in the
midst of such prospects, the boy, delicately organized to
appreciate his position, should have gone to his recitations
and his play in a very silent—if not stern—manner, all
the more reserved and silent for the firm resolution to
master and not be mastered. It is hard to fancy that he
was ever a blithe boy. The gravity of maturity came
early upon him. Those who saw him only in later years
can, probably, easily see the boy at Montgomery Academy,
MEMOIR, XV
by fancying him quite as they knew him, less twenty or
twenty-five years. One by one, the boys went from the
academy to college, or into business, and when Andrew
was sixteen years old, he also left the academy and return-
ed home.
He, too, had been hoping to go to college; but the
family means forbade. His mother, anxious to see him
early settled, urged him, as his elder brothers were
both doing well in business—the one as a nurseryman,
and the other, who had left the comb factory, practis-
ing ably and prosperously as a physician—to enter as
a clerk into a drygoods store. That request explains
the want of delight with which he remembered his
childhood : because it shows that his good, kind mother,
in the midst of her baking, and boiling, and darning the
children’s stockings, made no allowance—as how should
she, not being able to perceive them—for the possibly
very positive tastes of her boy. Besides, the first duty of
each member of the poor household was, as she justly con-
ceived, to get a living; and as Andrew was a delicate
child, and could not lift and carry much, nor brave the
chances of an out-door occupation, it was better that he
should be in the shelter of a store. He, however, a youth
of sixteen years, fresh from the studies, and dreams, and
hopes of the Montgomery Academy, found his first duty to
be the gentle withstanding of his mother’s wish ; and quite
‘willing to “settle,” if he could do it in his own way,
jomed his brother in the management of the nursery.
He had no doubt of his vocation. Since it was clear that
he must directly do something, his fine taste and exquisite
appreciation of natural beauty, his love of natural forms,
and the processes and phenomena of natural life, im-
mediately determined his choice. Not in vain had his
xv MEMOIR.
eyes first looked upon the mountains and the river. Those
silent companions of his childhood claimed their own in
the spirit with which the youth entered upon his _profes-
sion. To the poet’s eye began to be added the philoso-
pher’s mind ; and the great spectacle of Nature which he
had loved as beauty, began to enrich his iife as knowledge.
Yet I remember, as showing that with all his accurate
science he was always a poet, he agreed in many con-
versations that the highest enjoyment of beauty was
quite independent of use ; and that while the pleasure of
a botanist who could at once determine the family and
species of a plant, and detail all the peculiarities and fit-
ness of its structure, was very great and inappreciable,
yet that it was upon a lower level than the instinctive
delight in the beauty of the same flower. The botanist
could not have the highest pleasure in the flower if he were
not a poet. The poet would increase the variety of his
pleasure, if he were a botanist. It was this constant sub-
jection of science to the sentiment of beauty that made
him an artist, and did not leave him an artisan ; and his
science was always most accurate and profound, because
the very depth and delicacy of his feeling for beauty gave
him the utmost patience to learn, and the greatest rapidity
to adapt, the means of organizing to the eye the ideal
image in his mind.
About this time the Baron de Liderer, the Austrian
Consul General, who had a summer retreat in Newburgh,
began to notice the youth, whose botanical and mineral-
ogical tastes so harmonized with his own. Nature keeps
fresh the feelings of her votaries, and the Baron, although
an old man, made hearty friends with Downing ; and they
explored together the hills and lowlands of the neighbor-
hood, till it had no more vegetable nor mineral secrets from
MEMOIR. xvil
the enthusiasts. Downing always kept in the hall of his
house, a cabinet, containing mineralogical specimens col-
lected in these excursions. At the house of the Baron,
also, and in that of his wealthy neighbor, Edward Arm-
strong, Downing discovered how subtly cultivation refines
men as well as plants, and there first met that polished
society whose elegance and grace could not fail to charm
him as essential to the most satisfactory intercourse, while
it presented the most entire contrast to the associations of
his childhood. It is not difficult to fancy the lonely child,
playing unheeded in the garden, and the dark, shy boy, of
the Montgomery Academy, meeting with a thrill of satistac-
tion, as if he had been waiting for them, the fine gentle-
men and ladies at the Consul General’s, and the wealthy
neighbor’s, Mr. Armstrong, at whose country-seat he was in-
troduced to Mr. Charles Augustus Murray, when, for the first
time, he saw one of the class that he never ceased to honor
for their virtues and graces—the English gentleman. At
this time, also, the figure of Raphael Hoyle, an English
landscape painter, flits across his history. Congenial in
taste and feeling, and with varying knowledge, the two
young men rambled together over the country near New-
burgh, and while Hoyle caught upon canvas the colors
and forms of the flowers, and the outline of the landscape,
Downing instructed him in their history and habits, until
they wandered from the actual scene into discussions dear
to both, of art, and life, and beauty ; or the artist piqued
the imagination of his friend with stories of English
parks, and of Italian vineyards, and of cloud-capped Alps,
embracing every zone and season, as they rose,—while
the untravelled youth looked across the river to the Fish-
kill hills, and imagined Switzerland. This soon ended.
Raphael Hoyle died. The living book of travel and
xvilil MEMOIR.
romantic experience, in which the youth who had wandered
no farther than to Montgomery Academy and to the top
of the South Beacon,—the highest hill of the Fishkill
range,—had so deeply read of scenes and a life that suited
him, was closed forever.
Little record is left of these years of application, of
work, and study. The Fishkill hills and the broad river,
in whose presence he had always lived, and the quiet
country around Newburgh, which he had so thoroughly ex-
plored, began to claim some visible token of their influence.
It is pleasant to know that his first literary works were re-
cognitions of their charms. It shows the intellectual integ-
rity of the man that, despite glowing hopes and restless
ambition for other things, his first essay was written from
his experience ; it was a description of the ‘‘ Danskamer,”
or Devil’s Dancing-Ground—a point on the Hudson,
seven miles above Newburgh—published in the New-York
Mirror. A description of Beacon Hill followed.
He wrote, then, a discussion of novel-reading, and some
botanical papers, which were published in a Boston journal.
Whether he was discouraged by the ill success of these
attempts, or perceived that he was not yet sufficient mas-
ter of his resources to present them properly to the public,
does not appear, but he published nothing more for several
years. Perhaps he knew that upon the subjects to which his
natural tastes directed his studies, nothing but experience
spoke with authority. Whatever the reason of his silence,
however, he worked on unyieldingly, studying, proving,
succeeding ; finding time, also, to read the poets and the
philosophers, and to gain that familiarity with elegant
literature which always graced his own composition. Of
this period of his life, little record, but great results,
remain. With his pen, and books, and microscope, in the
MEMOIR. XIX
red house, and his pruning-knife and sharp eye in the
nursery and garden, he was learning, adapting, and tri-
umphing,—and also, doubtless, dreaming and resolving.
If any stranger wishing to purchase trees at the nursery
of the Messrs. Downing, in Newburgh, had visited that
pleasant town, and transacted business with the younger
partner, he would have been perplexed to understand why
the younger partner with his large knowledge, his remark-
able power of combination, his fine taste, his rich cultiva-
tion, his singular force and precision of expression, his evi-
dent mastery of his profession, was not a recognized
authority in it, and why he had never been heard of. For
it was remarkable in Downing, to the end, that he always
attracted attention and excited speculation. The boy of
the Montgomery Academy carried that slightly defiant
head into the arena of life, and seemed always too much a
critical observer not to challenge wonder, sometimes, even,
to excite distrust. That was the eye which in the vege-
table world had scanned the law through the appearance,
and followed through the landscape the elusive line of
beauty. It was a full, firm, serious eye. He did not
smile with his eyes as many do, but they held you as in a
grasp, looking from under their cover of dark brows.
~The young man, now twenty years old or more, and
hard at work, began to visit the noble estates upon the
banks of the Hudson, to extend his experience, and confirm
his nascent theories of art in landscape-gardening. Study-
ing in the red cottage, and working in the nursery upon
the Newburgh highlands, he had early seen that in a new,
and unworked, and quite boundless country, with every
variety of kindly climate and available soil, where fortunes
arose in a night, an opportunity was offered to Art, of |
achieving a new and characteristic triumph. To touch
XX MEMOIR.
the continent lying chaotic, in mountain, and lake, and
forest, with a finger that should develop all its resources
of beauty, for the admiration and benefit of its children,
seemed to him a task worthy the highest genius. This
was the dream that dazzled the silent years of his life
in the garden, and inspired and strengthened him in
every exertion. As he saw more and more of the results
of this spirit in the beautiful Hudson country-seats, he
was, naturally, only the more resolved. To lay out one
garden well, in conformity with the character of the sur-
rounding landscape, in obedience to the truest taste, and
to make a man’s home, and its grounds, and its accesso-
ries, as genuine works of art as any picture or statue that
the owner had brought over the sea, was, in his mind, the
first step toward the great result.
At the various places upon the river, as he visited them
from time to time, he was received as a gentleman, a scho-
lar, and the most practical man of the party, would neces-
sarily be welcomed. He sketched, he measured; “in a
walk he plucks from an overhanging bough a single leaf,
examines its color, form and structure ; inspects it with
his microscope, and, having recorded his observations, pre-
sents it to his friend, and invites him to study it, as sug-.
gestive of some of the first principles of rural architecture
and economy.” No man enjoyed society more, and none
ever lost less time. His pleasure trips from point to point
upon the river were the excursions of the honey-bee into
the flower. He returned richly laden; and the young
partner, feeling from childhood the necessity of entire self-
dependence, continued to live much alone, to be reserved,
but always affable and gentle. These travels were usually
brief, and strictly essential to his education. He was wisely
getting ready ; it would be so fatal to speak without autho-
MEMOIR. XX1
rity, and authority came only with much observation and
many years,
But, during these victorious incursions into the realms
of experience, the younger partner had himself been con-
quered. Directly opposite the red cottage, upon the
other side of the river, at Fishkill Landing, lay, under
blossoming locust trees, the estate and old family mansion
of John P. De Wint, Esq. The place had the charms of a
“moated grange,’ and was quite the contrast of the ele-
gant care and incessant cultivation that marked the grounds
of the young man in Newburgh. But the fine old place,
indolently lying in luxuriant decay, was the seat of bound-
less hospitality and social festivity. The spacious piazzas,
and the gently sloping lawn, which made the foreground of
one of the most exquisite glimpses of the Hudson, rang all
summer long with happy laughter. Under those blossom-
ing locust trees were walks that led to the shore, and the
moon hanging over Cro’ Nest recalled to all loiterers along
the bank the loveliest legends of the river. In winter the
revel shifted from the lawn to the frozen river. One such
gay household is sufficient nucleus for endless enjoyment.
From the neighboring West Point, only ten miles distant,
came gallant young officers, boating in summer, and skat-
ing in winter, to serenade under the locusts, or join the
dance upon the lawn. Whatever was young and gay was
drawn into the merry maelstrom, and the dark-haired boy
from Newburgh, now grown, somehow, to be a gentleman
of quiet and polished manners, found himself, even when in
the grasp of the scientific coils of Parmentier, Repton, Price,
Loudon, Lindley, and the rest,—or busy with knife, clay,
and grafts,—dreaming of the grange beyond the river, and
of the Marianna he had found there.
Summer lay warm upon the hills and river ; the land-
Xx MEMOIR.
scape was yet untouched by the scorching July heats ;
and on the seventh of June, 1838,—he being then in his
twenty-third year,—Downing was married to Caroline,
eldest daughter of J. P. De Wint, Esq. At this time,
he dissolved the business connection with his elder brother,
and continued the nursery by himself. There were other
changes also. The busy mother of his childhood was busy
no longer. She had now been for several years an invalid,
unable even to walk in the garden. She continued to live
in the little red cottage which Downing afterwards re-
moved to make way for a green-house. Her sons were
men now, and her daughter a woman. The necessity for
her own exertion was passed, and her hold upon life was
gradually loosened, until she died in 1839.
Downing now considered himself ready to begin the
career tor which he had so long been preparing ; and very
properly his first work was his own house, built in the gar-
den of his father, and only a few rods from the cottage
in which he was born. It was a simple house, in an Eliz-
abethan style, by which he designed to prove that a beau-
tiful, and durable, and convenient mansion, could be built
as cheaply as a poor and tasteless temple, which seemed to
be, at that time, the highest American conception of a
fine residence. In this design he entirely succeeded. His
house, which did not, however, satisfy his maturer -eye,
was externally very simple, but extremely elegant ; indeed,
its chief impression was that of elegance. Internally it
was spacious and convenient, very gracefully proportioned
and finished, and marked every where by the same spirit.
Wherever the eye fell, it detected that a wiser eye had
been before it. All the forms and colors, the style of the
furniture, the frames of the mirrors and pictures, the pat-
terns of the carpets, were harmonious, and it was a har-
MEMOIR. Xxlll
mony as easily achieved by taste as discord by vulgarity.
There was no painful conformity, no rigid monotony ,
there was nothing finical nor foppish in this elegance—it
was the necessary result of knowledge and skill. While
the house was building, he lived with his wife at her
father’s. He personally superintended the work, which
went briskly forward. Fyrom the foot of the Fishkill hills
beyond the river, other eyes superintended it, also, scan-
ning, with a telescope, the Newburgh garden and growing
house ; and, possibly, from some rude telegraph, as a white
cloth upon a tree, or a blot of black paint upon a smooth
board, Hero knew whether at evening to expect her Le-
ander.
The house was at length finished. A graceful and
beautiful building stood in the garden, higher and hand-
somer than the little red cottage—a very pregnant symbol
to any poet who should chance that way and hear the
history of the architect.
Once fairly established in his house, it became the seat
of the most gracious hospitality, and was a beautiful illus-
tration of that ‘rural home” upon whose influence Down-
ing counted so largely for the education and intelligent
patriotism of his countrymen. His personal exertions
were unremitting. He had been for some time projecting
a work upon his favorite art of Landscape Gardening, and
presently began to throw it into form. His time for liter-
ary labor was necessarily limited by his superintendence of
the nursery. But the book was at length completed, and
in the year 1841, the Author being then twenty-six years
old, Messrs. Wiley & Putnam published in New-York and
London, “A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of
Landscape Gardening, adapted to North America, with a
view to the Improvement of Country Residences. With
XXIV MEMOIR.
Remarks on Rural Architecture. By A. J. Downing.”
The most concise and comprehensive definition of Land-
scape Gardening that occurs in his works, is to be found
in the essay, “ Hints on Landscape Gardening.” “It is
an art,” he says, “‘ which selects from natural materials
that abound in any country its best sylvan features, and
by giving them a better opportunity than they could
otherwise obtain, brings about a higher beauty of de-
velopment and a more perfect expression than nature
herself offers.” The preface of the book is quite with-
out pretence. ‘‘The love of country,” says our author,
with a gravity that overtops his years, ‘‘is inseparably
connected with the love of home. Whatever, therefore,
leads man to assemble the comforts and elegancies of
life around his habitation, tends to increase local attach-
ments, and render domestic life more delightful ; thus, not
only augmenting his own enjoyment, but strengthening
his patriotism, and making him a better citizen. And
there is no employment or recreation which affords the
mind greater or more permanent satisfaction than that of
cultivating the earth and adorning our own property.
‘God Almighty first planted a garden ; and, indeed, it is
the parent of human pleasures,’ says Lord Bacon. And
as the first man was shut out from the garden, in the cul-
tivation of which no alloy was mixed with his happiness,
the desire to return to it seems to be implanted by nature,
more or less strongly, in every heart.”
This book passed to instant popularity, and became a
classic, invaluable to the thousands in every part of the
country who were waiting for the master-word which
should tell them what to do to make their homes as beau-
tiful as they wished. Its fine scholarship in the literature
and history of rural art ; its singular dexterity in stating
MEMOIR. XXV
the great principles of taste, and their application to actual
circumstances, with a clearness that satisfied the dullest
mind ; its genial grace of style, illuminated by the sense
of that beauty which it was its aim to indicate, and with a
cheerfulness which is one of the marked characteristics of
Downing as an author ; the easy mastery of the subject,
and its intrinsic interest ;—all these combined to secure
to the book the position it has always occupied. The tes-
timony of the men most competent to speak with author-
- ity in the matter was grateful, because deserved, praise.
Loudon, the editor of ‘“ Repton’s Landscape Gardening,”
and perhaps at the time the greatest living critic in the
department of rural art, at once declared it “a masterly
work ;” and after quoting freely from its pages, remarked :
“We have quoted largely from this work, because in so
doing we think we shall give a just idea of the great merit
of the author.” Dr. Lindley, also, im his ‘‘ Gardener’s
Chronicle,’ dissented from ‘“‘some minor points,” but
said : “‘ On the whole, we know of no work in which the
fundamental principles of this profession are so well or so
concisely expressed :” adding, ‘‘No English landscape
‘gardener has written so clearly, or with so much real in-
tensity.” |
The “quiet, thoughtful, and reserved boy” of the
Montgomery Academy had thus suddenly displayed the
talent which was not suspected by his school-fellows.
The younger partner had now justified the expectation he
aroused ; and the long, silent, careful years of study and
experience insured the permanent value of the results he
announced. The following year saw the publication of the
** Cottage Residences,” in which the principles of the first
volume were applied in detail. For the same reason it
achieved a success similar to the “ Landscape Gardening.”
XXV1 MEMOIR.
Rural England recognized its great value. Loudon said :
“Tt cannot fail to be of great service.” Another said :
“We stretch our arm across the ‘big water’ to tender
our Yankee coadjutor an English shake and a cordial re-
cognition.” These welcomes from those who knew what
and why they welcomed, founded Downing’s authority in
the minds of the less learned, while the simplicity of his
own statements confirmed it. From the publication of
the “Landscape Gardening” until his death, he continued
to be the chief American authority in rural art.
European honors soon began to seek the young gardener
upon the Hudson. He had been for some time in corres-
pondence with Loudon, and the other eminent men of the
profession. He was now elected corresponding member of
the Royal Botanic Society of London, of the Horticultural
Societies of Berlin, the Low Countries, &c. Queen Anne
of Denmark sent him “a magnificent ring,” in acknow-
ledgment of her pleasure in his works. But, as the
years slowly passed, a sweeter praise saluted him than the
Queen’s ring, namely, the gradual improvement of the na-
tional rural taste, and the universal testimony that it was
due to Downing. It was found as easy to live in a hand--
some house as in one that shocked all sense of propriety
and beauty. The capabilities of the landscape began to
develop themselves to the man who looked at it from his
- windows, with Downing’s books in his hand. Mr. Wilder
says that a gentleman ‘who is eminently qualified to form
an enlightened judgment,” declared that much of the im-
provement that has taken place in this country during the
last twelve years, in rural architecture and in ornamental
gardening and planting, may be ascribed to him. Another
gentleman, ‘‘ speaking of suburban cottages in the West,”
says: “I asked the origin of so much taste, and was told
MEMOIR. xxvll
it might principally be traced to ‘Downing’s Cottage Resi-
dences’ and the ‘Horticulturist.’” He was naturally elect-
ed an honorary member of most of the Horticultural Soci-
eties in the country ; and as his interest in rural life was
universal, embracing no less the soil and cultivation, than
the plant, and flower, and fruit, with the residence of the
cultivator, he received the same honor from the Agricultu-
ral Associations.
Meanwhile his studies were unremitting ; and in 1845
Wiley & Putnam published in New-York and London
“The Fruits and Fruit Trees of America,” a volume of
six hundred pages. The duodecimo edition had only lineal
drawings. The large octavo was illustrated with finely
‘colored plates, executed in Paris, from drawings made in
this country from the original fruits. It is a masterly
resumé of the results of American experience in the his-
tory, character, and growth of fruit, to the date of its pub-
lication. The fourteenth edition was published in the year
1852. .
It was in May of the year 1846 that I first saw Down-
ing. A party was made up under the locusts to cross the
river and pass the day at ‘‘ Highland Gardens,” as his place
was named. The river at Newburgh is about a mile wide,
and is crossed by a quiet country ferry, whence the view
downward toward the West Pomt Highlands, Butter Hill,
Sugar-Loaf, Cro’ Nest, and Skunnymunk, is as beautiful
a river view as can be seen upon a summer day. It wasa
merry party which crossed, that bright May morning, and
broke, with ringing laughter, the silence of the river.
Most of us were newly escaped from the city, where we
had been blockaded by the winter for many months, and
although often tempted by the warm days that came in
March, opening the windows on Broadway and ranging
XXVIli MEMOIR.
the blossoming plants in them, to believe that summer
had fairly arrived, we had uniformly found the spring to
be that laughing le which the poets insist it is not.
There was no doubt longer, however. The country was
so brilliant with the tender green that it seemed festally
adorned, and it was easy enough to believe that human
genius could have no lovelier nor loftier task than the
development of these colors, and forms, and opportunities,
into their greatest use and adaptation to human life.
“God Almighty first planted a garden, and, indeed, it is
the first of human pleasures.” Lord Bacon said it long
ago, and the bright May morning echoed it, as we crossed
the river.
I had read Downing’s books ; and they had given me
the impression, naturally formed of oae who truly said of
himself, “‘ Angry volumes of politics have we written none :
but peaceful books, humbly aiming to weave something
more into the fair garland of the beautiful and useful that
encircles this excellent old earth.”
His image in my mind was idyllic. I looked upon him
as a kind of pastoral poet. I had fancied a simple, abstracted
cultivator, gentle and silent. We left the boat and drove
to his house. The open gate admitted us to a smooth ave-
nue. We had glimpses of an Arbor-Vitz hedge,—a small
and exquisite lawn—rare and flowering trees, and bushes
beyond—a lustrous and odorous thicket—a gleam of the
river below—“a feeling” of the mountains across the
river—and were at the same moment alighting at the
door of the elegant mansion, in which stood, what ap-
peared to me a tall, slight Spanish gentleman, with thick
black hair worn very long, and dark eyes fixed upon me
with a searching glance. He was dressed simply in a cos-
tume fitted for the morning hospitalities of his house, or
MEMOIR. XX1X
for the study, or the garden. His welcoming smile was
reserved, but genuine,—his manner singularly hearty and
quiet, marked by the easy elegance and perfect savoir
faire which would have adorned the Escurial. We passed
into the library. The book-shelves were let into the wall, and
the doors covered with glass. They occupied only part of
the walls, and upon the space above each was a bracket
with busts of Dante, Milton, Petrarch, Franklin, Linneeus,
and Scott. There was a large bay window opposite the
fireplace. The forms and colors of this room were delight-
ful. It was the retreat of an elegantly cultivated gentle-
man. There were no signs of work except a writing-table,
with pens, and portfolios, and piles of letters.
Here we sat and conversed. Our host entered into
every subject gayly and familiarly, with an appreciating
deference to differences of opmion, and an evident tenacity
of his own, all the while, which surprised me, as the pecu-
liarity of the most accomplished man of the world. There
was a certain aristocratic hauteur in his manner, a constant
sense of personal dignity, which comported with the reserve
of his smile and the quiet welcome. His intellectual atti-
tude seemed to be one of curious criticism, as if he were
sharply scrutinizing all that his affability of manner drew
forth. No one had a readier generosity of acknowledgment,
and there was a negative flattery in his address and atten-
tion, which was very subtle and attractive. In all allu-
sions to rural affairs, and matters with which he was entirely
familiar, his conversation was not in the slightest degree
pedantic, nor positive. He spoke of such things with the
simplicity of a child talking of his toys. The workman,
the author, the artist, were entirely subjugated in him to
the gentleman. That was his favorite idea. The gentle-
man was the full flower, of which all the others were sug-
XXX MEMOIR.
gestions and parts. The gentleman is, to the various pow-
ers and cultivations of the man, what the tone is to the
picture, which lies in no single color, but in the harmony
of the whole. The gentleman is the final bloom of the
man. But no man could be a gentleman without original
nobleness of feeling and genuineness of character. Gentle-
ness was developed from that by experience and study, as
the delicate tinge upon precious fruits, by propitious circum-
stances and healthy growth.
In this feeling, which was a constituent of his charac-
ter, lay the secret of the appearance of hauteur that was
so often remarked in him, to which Miss Bremer al-
ludes, and which all his friends perceived, more or less dis-
tinctly. Its origin was, doubtless, twofold. It sprang
first from his exquisite mental organization, which instinct-
ively shrunk from whatever was coarse or crude, and which
made his artistic taste so true and fine. That easily ex-
tended itself to demand the finest results of men, as of
trees, and fruits, and flowers ; and then committed the
natural error of often accepting the appearance of this re-
sult, where the fact was wanting. Hence he had a natural
fondness for the highest circles of society—a fondness as
deeply founded as his love of the best possible fruits. His
social tendency was constantly toward those to whom great
wealth had given opportunity of that ameliorating culture,
—of surrounding beautiful homes with beautiful grounds,
and filling them with refined and beautiful persons, which
is the happy fortune of few. Hence, also, the fact that his
introduction to Mr. Murray was a remembered event, be-
cause the mind of the boy instantly recognized that society
to which, by affinity, he belonged ; and hence, also, that
admiration of the character and life of the English gentle-
man, which was life-long with him, and which made him,
MEMOIR. XXX1
when he went to England, naturally and directly at home
among them. From this, also, came his extreme fondness
for music, although he had very little ear ; and often when
his wife read to him any peculiarly beautiful or touching
passage from a book, he was quite unable to speak, so
much was he mastered by his emotion. Besides this deli-
cacy of organization, which makes aristocrats of all who
have it, the sharp contrast between his childhood and his
mature life doubtlessly nourished a kind of mental protest
against the hard discomforts, want of sympathy, and mis-
understandings of poverty.
I recall but one place in which he deliberately states
this imstinct of his, as an opinion. In the paper upon
‘“‘ Improvement of Vegetable Races,” April, 1852, he says :
“ We are not going to be led into a physiological digres-
sion on the subject of the mextinguishable rights of a su-
perior organization in certain men, and races of men, which
Nature every day reaffirms, notwithstanding the social-
istic and democratic theories of our politicians.” But
this statement only asserts the difference of organization.
No man was a truer American than Downing ; no man
more opposed to all kinds of recognition of that difference
in intellectual organization by a difference of social rank.
That he considered to be the true democracy which as-
serted the absolute equality of opportunity ;—and, there-
fore, he writes from Warwick Castle, a place which in
every way could charm no man more than him: “but I
turned my face at last westward toward my native land,
and with uplifted eyes thanked the good God that, though
to England, the country of my ancestors, it had been given
to show the growth of man in his highest development of
class or noble, to America has been reserved the greater
blessing of solving for the world the true problem of all
XXXII MEMOIR.
humanity,-—that of the abolition of all castes, and the re-
cognition of the divine rights of every human soul.” On
that May morning, in the library, | remember the conver-
sation, drifting from subject to subject, touched an essay
upon “Manners,” by Mr. Emerson, then recently pub-
lished ; and in the few words that Mr. Downing said, lay
the germ of what I gradually discovered to be his feeling
upon the subject. This hauteur was always evident in his
personal intercourse. In his dealings with workmen, with
publishers, with men of affairs of all kinds, the same feel-
ing, which they called “ stiffness,” coldness,’ ‘‘ pride,”
‘“‘haughtiness,” or “ reserve,” revealed itself. That first
inorning it only heightened in my mind the Spanish im-
pression of the dark, slim man, who so courteously wel-
comed us at his door.
It was May, and the magnolias were in blossom. Un-
der our host’s guidance, we strolled about” his grounds,
which, although they comprised but some five acres, were
laid out in a large style, that greatly enhanced their appar-
ent extent. The town lay at the bottom of the hill, be-
tween the garden and the water, and there was a road just
at the foot of the garden. Dut so skilfully were the trees
arranged, that all suspicion of town or road was removed.
Lying upon the lawn, standing in the door, or sitting under
the light piazza before the parlor windows, the enchanted
visitor saw only the garden ending in the thicket, which-was
so dexterously trimmed as to reveal the loveliest glimpses of
the river, each a picture in its frame of foliage, but which
was not cut low enough to betray the presence of road or
town. You fancied the estate extended to the river ; yes,
and probably owned the river as an ornament, and in-
cluded the mountains beyond. At least, you felt that
here was a man who knew that the best part of the land-
MEMOIR, XxXxiil
scape could not be owned, but belonged to every one who
could appropriate it. The thicket seemed not only to con-
ceal, but to annihilate, the town. So sequestered and sat-
isfied was the guest of that garden, that he was quite care-
less and incurious of the world beyond. I have often
passed a week there without wishing to go outside the
gate, and entirely forgot that there was any town near by.
Sometimes, at sunset or twilight, we stepped into a light
wagon, and turning up the hill, as we came out of the
grounds, left Newburgh below, and drove along roads hang-
ing over the river, or, passing Washington’s Head Quar-
ters, trotted leisurely along the shore.
Within his house it was easy to understand that the
home was so much the subject of his thought. Why did
he wish that the landscape should be lovely, and the houses
graceful and beautiful, and the fruit fine, and the flowers
perfect, but because these were all dependencies and orna-
ments of home, and home was the sanctuary of the high-
est human affection. This was the point of departure of
his philosophy. Nature must serve man. The landscape
must be made a picture in the gallery of love. Home was
the pivot upon which turned all his theories of rural art.
All his efforts, all the grasp of genius, and the cunning of
talent, were to complete, in a perfect home, the apotheosis
of love. It is in this fact that the permanence of his in-
fluence is rooted. His works are not the result of elegant
taste, and generous cultivation, and a clear intellect, only ;
but of a noble hope that inspired taste, cultivation, and
intellect. This saved him as an author from being wrecked
upon formulas. He was strictly scientific, few men in his
department more so; but he was never rigidly academical,
He always discerned the thing signified through the ex-
pression ; and, in his own art, insisted that if there was
XXXIV MEMOIR.
nothing to say, nothing should be said. He knew per-
fectly well that there is a time for discords, and a place
for departures from rule, and he understood them when
they came,—which was peculiar and very lovely in a man
of so delicate a nervous organization. This led him to be
tolerant of all differences of opinion and action, and to be
sensitively wary of injuring the feelings of those from whom
he differed. He was thus scientific in the true sense. In
his department he was wise, and we find him writing from
Warwick Castle again, thus: ‘‘ Whoever designed this
front, made up as it is of lofty towers and irregular walls,
must have been a poet as well as architect, for its com-
position and details struck me as having the proportions
and congruity of a fine scene in nature, which we feel is
not to be measured and defined by the ordinary rules of
art.”
His own home was his finest work. It was materially
beautiful, and spiritually bright with the purest lights of
affection. Its hospitality was gracious and graceful. It
consulted the taste, wishes, and habits of the guest, but
with such unobtrusiveness, that the favorite flower every
morning by the plate upon the breakfast-table, seemed to
have come there as naturally, in the family arrangements,
as the plate itself. He held his house as the steward of
his friends. His social genius never suffered a moment to
drag wearily by. No man was so necessarily devoted to
his own affairs,—no host ever seemed so devoted to. his
guests. Those guests were of the most agreeable kind, or,
at least, they seemed so in that house. Perhaps the inter-
preter of the House Beautiful, she who—in the poet’s
natural order—was as “moonlight unto sunlight,” was.
the universal solvent. By day, there were always books,
conversation, driving, working, lying on the lawn, excur-
MEMOIR, XXXV
sions into the mountains across the river, visits to beau-
tiful neighboring places, boating, botanizing, painting,—or
whatever else could be done in the country, and done in
the pleasantest way. At evening, there was music,—fine
playing and singing, for the guest was thrice welcome who
was musical, and the musical were triply musical there,—
dancing, charades, games of every kind,—never suffered to
flag, always delicately directed,—and in due season some
slight violation of the Maine Law. Mr, Downing liked the
Ohio wines, with which his friend, Mr. Longworth, kept
him supplied, and of which he said, with his calm good
sense, in the ‘ Horticulturist,” August, 1850,—‘‘ We do
not mean to say that men could not live and breathe just
as well if there were no such thing as wine known ; but
that since the time of Noah men will not be contented
with merely living and breathing; and it is therefore
better to provide them with proper and wholesome food
and drink, than to put improper aliments within their
reach.” Charades were a favorite diversion, in which sev-
eral of his most frequent guests excelled. He was always
ready to take part, but his reserve and self-consciousness
interfered with his success. His social enjoyment was
always quiet. He rarely laughed loud. He preferred
rather to sit with a friend and watch the dance or the game
from a corner, than to mingle in them. He wrote verses,
but never showed them. They were chiefly rhyming let-
ters, clever and graceful, to his wife, and her sisters, and
some intimate friends, and to a little niece, of whom he
was especially fond. One evening, after vainly endeavoring
to persuade a friend that he was mistaken in the kind of
a fruit, he sent him the following characteristic lines :
XXXV1 MEMOIR.
“TO THE DOCTOR, ON HIS PASSION FOR THE ‘DUCHESS OF
OLDENBURGH.’”
“Dear Doctor, I write you this little effusion,
On learning you're still in that fatal delusion
Of thinking the object you love is a Duchess,
When ’tis only a milkmaid you hold in your clutches;
Why, ’tis certainly plain as the spots in the sun,
That the creature is only a fine Dutch Mignonne.
She is Dutch—there is surely no question of that,—
She’s so large and so ruddy—so plump and so fat ;
And that she’s a Mignonne—a beauty—most moving,
Is equally proved by your desperate loving ;
But that she’s a Duchess I flatly deny,
There’s such a broad twinkle about her deep eye;
And glance at the russety hue of her skin—
A lady—a noble—would think it a sin!
Ah no, my dear Doctor, upon my own honor,
I must send you a dose of the true Bella donna!”
I had expressed great delight with the magnolia, and
carried one of the flowers in my hand during our morning
stroll. At evening he handed me a fresh one, and every
day while I remained, the breakfast-room was perfumed by
the magnolia that was placed beside my plate. This deli-
cate thoughtfulness was universal with him. He knew all
the flowers that his friends especially loved ; and in his
notes to me he often wrote, “the magnolias are waiting
for you,” as an irresistible allurement—which it was very
apt to prove. Downing was in the library when I came
down the morning after our arrival. He had the air of a
man who has been broad awake and at work for several
hours. There was the same quiet greeting as before—a
gay conversation, glancing at a thousand things—and
breakfast. After breakfast he disappeared ; but if, at
any time, an excursion was proposed,—to climb some hill,
to explore some meadows rich in rhododendron, to visit
MEMOIR. XXXVll
some lovely lake,—he was quite ready, and went with the
same unhurried air that marked all his actions. Like
Sir Walter Scott, he was producing results implying close
application and labor, but without any apparent expense
of time or means. His step was so leisurely, his manner
so composed, there was always such total absence of wea-
riness in all he said and did, that it was impossible to be-
lieve he was so diligent a worker.
But this composure, this reticence} this leisurely air,
were all imposed upon his manner by his regal will. He
was under the most supreme self-control. It was so abso-
lute as to deprive him of spontaneity and enthusiasm. In
social intercourse he was like two persons: the one con-
versed with you pleasantly upon every topic, the other
watched you from behind that pleasant talk, like a senti-
nel. The delicate child, left much to himself by his
parents, naturally grew wayward and imperious. But the
man of shrewd common sense, with his way to make in the
world, saw clearly that that waywardness must be sternly
subjugated. Itwas so, and at the usual expense. What
the friend of Downing most desired in him was a frank and
unreserved flow of feeling, which should drown out that
curious, critical self-consciousness. He felt this want as
much as any one, and often playfully endeavored to supply
it. It doubtless arose, in great part, from too fine a ner-
vous organization. Under the mask of the finished man
of the world he concealed the most feminine feelings, which
often expressed themselves with pathetic intensity to the
only one in whom he unreservedly confided.
This critical reserve behind the cordial manner invested
his whole character with mystery. The long dark hair,
the firm dark eyes, the slightly defiant brow, the Spanish
mien, that welcomed us that May morning, seemed to
EXXVII1 MEMOIR.
me always afterward, the symbols of his character. A
cloud wrapped his inner life. Motives, and the deeper feel-
ings, were lost to view in that obscurity. It seemed that
within this cloud there might be desperate struggles, like
the battle of the Huns and Romans, invisible in the air, but
of which no token escaped into the experience of his friends.
He confronted circumstances with the same composed and
indomitable resolution, and it was not possible to tell whether
he were entertaining angels, or wrestling with demons, in
the secret chambers of his soul. There are passages in
letters to his wife which indicate, and they only by impli-
cation, that his character was tried and tempered by strug-
gles. ‘Those most intimate letters, however, are full of
expressions of religious faith and dependence, sometimes
uttered with a kind of clinging earnestness, as if he well
knew the value of the peace that passes understanding.
But nothing of all this appeared in his friendly inter-
course with men. He had, however, very few intimate
friends among men. His warmest and most confiding
friendships were with women. In his intercourse with
them, he revealed a rare and beautiful sense of the uses
of friendship, which united him very closely to them. To
men he was much more inaccessible. It cannot be denied
that the feeling of mystery in his character affected the im-
pression he made upon various persons. It might be called
as before, “haughtiness,” “reserve,” ‘‘ coldness,” or
“hardness,” but it was quite the same thing. It re-
pelled many who were otherwise most strongly attracted
to him by his books. In others, still, it begot a slight dis-
trust, and suspicion of self-seeking upon his part.
I remember a little circumstance, the impression of
which is strictly in accordance with my feeling of this sin-
gular mystery in his character. We had one day been
MEMOIR. XXX1X
sitting in the library, and he had told me his intention of
building a little study and working-room, adjoining the
house : ‘‘ but I don’t know,” he said, “where or how to
connect it with the house.” But I was very well convinced
that he would arrange it in the best possible manner, and
was not surprised when he afterward wrote me that he had
made a door through the wall of the library into the new
building. This door occupied just the space of one of the
book-cases let into the wall, and, by retaining the double
doors of the book-case precisely as they were, and putting
false books behind the glass of the doors, the appearance
of the library was entirely unaltered, while the whole appa-
rent book-case, doors and all, swung to and fro, at his will,
as a private door. During my next visit at his house, I
was sitting very late at night in the library, with a single
candle, thinking that every one had long since retired, and
having quite forgotten, in the perfectly familiar appearance
of the room, that the little change had been made, when
suddenly one of the book-cases flew out of the wall, turn-
ing upon noiseless hinges, and, out of the perfect darkness
behind, Downing darted into the room, while I sat staring
like a benighted guest in the Castle of Otranto. The mo-
ment, the place, and the circumstance, were entirely har-
monious with my impression of the man.
Thus, although, upon the bright May morning, I had
crossed the river to see a man of transparent and simple
nature, a lover and poet of rural beauty, a man who had
travelled little, who had made his own way into polished
and cultivated social relations, as he did into every thing
which he mastered, being altogether a self-made man—I
found the courteous and accomplished gentleman, the quiet
man of the world, full of tact and easy dignity, in whom it
was easy to discover that lover and poet, though not in the
xl MEMOIR.
form anticipated. His exquisite regard for the details of
life, gave a completeness to his household, which is nowhere
surpassed. Fitness is the first element of beauty, and
every thing in his arrangement was appropriate. It was
hard not to sigh, when contemplating the beautiful results
he accomplished by taste and tact, and at comparatively
little pecuniary expense, to think of the sums elsewhere
squandered upon an insufficient and shallow splendor.
Yet, as beauty was, with Downing, life, and not luxury,
although he was, in feeling and by actual profession, the
Priest of Beauty, he was never a Sybarite, never sentimen-
tal, never weakened by the service. In the dispositions of
most men devoted to beauty, as artists and poets, there is
a vein of languor, a leaning to luxury, of which no trace
was even visible in him. His habits of life were singularly
regular. He used no tobacco, drank little wine, and was
no gourmand. But he was no ascetic. He loved to en-
tertain Sybarites, poets, and the lovers of luxury : doubt-
less from a consciousness that he had the magic of pleasing
them more than they had ever been pleased. He enjoyed
the pleasure of his guests. The various play of different
characters entertained him. Yet with all his fondness for
fine places, he justly estimated the tendency of their in-
fluence. He was not enthusiastic, he was not seduced
into blindness by his own preferences, but he main-
tained that cool and accurate estimate of things and ten-
dencies which always made his advice invaluable. Is there
any truer account of the syren influence of a superb
and extensive country-seat than the following from the
paper: “A Visit to Montgomery Place.” “It is not, we
are sure, the spot for a man to plan campaigns of con-
quest, and we doubt, even, whether the scholar whose am-
bition it is
MEMOIR. xli
“to scorn delights,
And live laborious days,”
would not find something in the air of this demesne so
soothing as to dampen the fire of his great purposes, and
dispose him to believe that there is more dignity in repose,
than merit in action.”
So, certainly, I believed, as the May days passed, and
found me still lingering in the enchanted garden.
In August, 1846, “The Horticulturist” was com-
menced by Mr. Luther Tucker, of Albany, who invited
Mr. Downing to become the editor, in which position he
remained, writing a monthly leader for it, until his
death. These articles are contained in the present vol-
ume. Literature offers no more charming rural essays,
They are the thoughtful talk of a country gentleman, and
scholar, and practical workman, upon the rural aspects
and interests of every month in the year. They insinuate
instruction, rather than directly teach, and in a style mel-
low, mature, and cheerful, adapted to every age and every
mood. By their variety of topic and treatment, they are,
perhaps, the most complete memorial of the man. Their
genial simplicity fascinated all kinds of persons.
’ I? ogee ne
Wild; /*
af % “, '
‘Mer a I ar sire
, a ae
i ;
‘ P iy vay ‘ er
RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
A FEW WORDS ON RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
July, 1850.
O one pretends that we have, as yet, either a national architec-
ture or national music in America; unless our Yankee clap-
board house be taken as a specimen of the first, and “Old Susannah”
of the second fine art. But there is, on the other hand, perhaps,
no country where there is more building or more “musicianing,”
such as they are, at the present moment. And as a perfect taste in
arts is no more to be expected in a young nation, mainly occupied
with the practical wants of life, than a knowledge of geometry is
in an infant school, we are content with the large promise that we
find in the present, and confidently look forward for fulfilment to
the future.
In almost every other country, a few landlords own the land,
which a great many tenants live upon and cultivate. Hence the
general interest in building is confined to a comparatively small class,
improvements are made in a solid and substantial way, and but little
change takes place from one generation to another in the style of
the dwelling and the manner of living.
But in this country we are, comparatively, all landlords. In the
country, especially, a large part of the rural population own the land
they cultivate, and build their own houses. Hence it is a matter of
206 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
no little moment to them, to avail themselves of every possible im-
provement in the manner of constructing their dwellings, so as to
secure the largest amount of comfort, convenience, and beauty, for
the moderate sum which an American landholder has to spend.
While the rural proprietors of the other continent are often content
to live in the same houses, and with the same inconveniences as
their forefathers, no one in our time and country, who has any of
the national spirit of progress in him, is satisfied unless, in building
a new house, he has some of the “modern improvements” in it.
This is a good sign of the times; and when we see it coupled
with another, viz. the great desire to make the dwelling agreeable
and ornamental as well as comfortable, we think there is abundant
reason to hope, so far as the country is concerned, that something
like a national taste will come in due time.
What the popular taste in building seems to us to require, just
now, is not so much impulse as right direction. There are number-
less persons who have determined, in building their new home in
the country, that they “will have something pretty ;” but precisely
what character it shall have, and whether there is any character,
beyond that of a “pretty cottage” or a “splendid, house,” is not
perhaps very clear to their minds.
We do not make this statement to find fault with the condition
of things; far from it. We see too much good in the newly awak-
ened taste for the Beautiful, to criticize severely its want of intelli-
gence as to the exact course it should take to achieve its object—or
perhaps its want of definiteness as to what that object is—beyond
providing an agreeable home. But we allude to it to show that,
with a little direction, the popular taste now awakened in this par-
ticular department, may develop itself in such a manner as to pro-
duce the most satisfactory and beautiful results.
Fifteen years ago there was but one idea relating to a house in
the country. It must be a Grecian temple. Whether twenty feet
or two hundred feet front, it must have its columns and portico.
There might be comfortable rooms behind them or not; that was a
matter which the severe taste of the classical builder could not stoop
to consider. The roof might beso flat that there was no space
for comfortable servants’ bedrooms, or the attic so hot that the second
A FEW WORDS ON RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 207
story was uninhabitable in a midsummer’s day. But of what con-
sequence was that, if the portico were copied from the Temple of
Theseus, or the columns were miniature imitations in wood of those
of Jupiter Olympus ?
We have made a great step onward in that short fifteen years.
There is, to be sure, a fashion now in building houses in the coun-
try—almost as prevalent and despotic as its pseudo-classical prede-
cessor, but it is a far more rational and sensible one, and though
likely to produce the same unsatisfactory effect of all other fashions
—that is, to substitute sameness and monotony for tasteful individu-
ality—yet we gladly accept it as the next step onward.
We allude, of course, to the Gothic or English cottage, with
steep roofs and high gables—just now the ambition of almost every
person building in the country. There are, indeed, few things so
beautiful as a cottage of this kind, well designed and tastefully
placed. There is nothing, all the world over, so truly rural and so
unmistakably country-like as this very cottage, which has been de-
veloped in so much perfection in the rural lanes and amidst the pic-
turesque lights and shadows of an English landscape. And for this
reason, because it is essentially rural and country-like, we gladly
welcome its general naturalization (with the needful variation of the
veranda, &c., demanded by our climate), as the type of most of our
country dwellings.
But it is time to enter a protest against the absolute and indis-
eriminate employment of the Gothic cottage in every site and situ-
ation in the country—whether appropriate or inappropriate—
whether suited to the grounds or the life of those who are to in-
habit it, or the contrary.
We have endeavored, in our work on “ Country-Hovszs,” just
issued from the press, to show that rural architecture has more sig-
nificance and a deeper meaning than merely to afford a “ pretty
cottage,” or a “ handsome house,” for him who can afford to pay for
it. We believe not only that a house may have an absolute beauty
of its own, growing out of its architecture, but that it may have a
relative beauty no less interesting, which arises from its expressing
the life and occupation of those who build or inhabit it. In other
words, we think the home of every family, possessed of character
208 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
may be made to express that character, and will be most beautiful
(supposing the character good), when in addition to architectural
beauty it unites this significance or individuality.
We have not the space to go into detail on this subject here ;
and to do so would only be repeating what we have already said in
the work in question. But the most casual reader will understand
from our suggestion, that if a man’s house can be made to express
the best traits of his character, it is undeniable that a large source
of beauty and interest is always lost by those who copy each other’s
homes without reflection, even though they may be copying the
most faultless cottage ornée.
We would have the cottage, the farm-house, and the larger
country-house, all marked by a somewhat distinctive character of
their own, so far as relates to making them complete and individual
of their kind; and believing as we do, that the beauty and force
of every true man’s life or occupation depend largely on his pursu-
ing it frankly, honestly, and openly, with all the individuality of his
character, we would have his house and home help to give signifi-
cance to, and dignify that daily life and occupation, by harmonizing
with them. For this reason, we think the farmer errs when he
copies the filagree work of the retired citizen’s cottage, instead of
showing that rustic strength and solidity in his house which are its
true elements of interest and beauty. For this reason, we think he
who builds a simple and modest cottage im the country, fails in at-
taining that which he aims at by copying, as nearly as his means
will permit, the parlors, folding doors, and showy furniture of the
newest house he has seen in town.
We will not do more at present than throw out these sugges-
tions, in the hope that those about to build in the country will reflect
that an entirely satisfactory house is one in which there are not only
pretty forms and details, but one which has some meaning in its
beauty, considered in relation to their own position, character, and
daily lives.
108
MORAL INFLUENCE OF GOOD HOUSES.
February, 1848.
VERY little observation will convince any one that, in the
United States, a new era, in Domestic Architecture, is already
commenced. A few years ago, and all our houses, with rare excep-
tions, were built upon the most meagre plan. A shelter from the
inclemencies of the weather; space enough in which to eat, drink
and sleep; perhaps some excellence of mechanical workmanship
in the details; these were the characteristic features of the great
mass of our dwelling-houses—and especially country houses
years ago.
A dwelling-house, for a civilized man, built with no higher
aspirations than these, we look upon with the same feelings that
inspire us when we behold the Indian, who guards himself against
heat and cold by that primitive, and, as he considers it, sufficient
costume—a blanket. An unmeaning pile of wood, or stone, serves
as a shelter to the bodily frame of man; it does the same for the
brute animals that serve him; the blanket covers the skin of the
savage from the harshness of the elements, as the thick shaggy coat
protects the beasts he hunts in the forest. But these are only mani-
festations of the grosser wants of life; and the mind of the civilized
and cultivated man as naturally manifests itself in fitting, appro-
priate, and beautiful forms of habitation and costume, as it does in
fine and lofty written thought and uttered speech.
Hence, as society advances beyond that condition, in which the
primary wants of human nature are satisfied, we naturally find that
14
a few
210 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
literature and the arts flourish. Along with great orators and in
spired poets, come fine architecture, and tasteful grounds and gardens.
Let us congratulate ourselves that the new era is fairly com-
menced in the United States. We by no means wish to be under-
stood, that all our citizens have fairly passed the barrier that separates
utter indifference, or peurile fancy, from good taste. There are, and
will be, for a long time, a large proportion of houses built without
any definite principles of construction, except those of the most
downright necessity. But, on the other hand, we are glad to per-
ceive a very considerable sprinkling over the whole country—from
the Mississippi to the Kennebec—of houses built in such a manner,
as to prove at first glance, that the ideal of their owners has risen
above the platform of mere animal wants: that they perceive the
intellectual superiority of a beautiful design over a meaningless and
uncouth form ; and that a house is to them no longer a comfortable
shelter merely, but an expression of the intelligent life of man, in a
state of society where the soul, the intellect, and the heart, are all
awake, and all educated.
There are, perhaps, few persons who have examined fully the
effects of a general diffusion of good taste, of well being, and a love
of order and proportion, upon the community at large. There are,
no doubt, some who look upon fine houses as fostering the pride of
the few, and the envy and discontent of the many; and—in some
transatlantic countries, where wealth and its avenues are closed to all
but a few—not without reason. But, in this country, where integ-
rity and industry are almost always rewarded by more than the
means of subsistence, we have firm faith in the moral effects of the
fine arts. We believe in the bettering influence of beautiful cottages
and country houses—in the improvement of human nature necessa-
rily resulting to all classes, from the possession of lovely gardens
and fruitful orchards,
We do not know how we can present any argument of this
matter, if it requires one, so good as one of that long-ago distin-
guished man—Dr. Dwight. He is describing, in his Travels in
America, the influence of good architecture, as evinced in its effects
on the manners and character of the inhabitants in a town in New
England :
MORAL INFLUENCE OF GOOD HOUSES. 211
“There is a kind of symmetry in the thoughts, feelings, and efforts
of the human mind. Its taste, intelligence, affections, and conduct,
are so intimately related, that no preconcertion can prevent them
from being mutually causes and effects. The first thing powerfully
operated upon, and, in its turn, proportionately operative, is the taste.
The perception of beauty and deformity, of refinement and gross-
ness, of decency and vulgarity, of propriety and indecorum, is the
first thing which influences man to attempt an escape from a grov-
elling, brutish character ; @ character in which morality is chilled,
or absolutely frozen. In most persons, this perception is awakened
by what may be called the exterior of society, particularly by the
mode of building. Uncouth, mean, ragged, dirty houses, constitut-
ing the body of any town, will regularly be accompanied by coarse,
grovelling manners. The dress, the furniture, the mode of living,
and the manners, will all correspond with the appearance of the
buildings, and will universally be, in every such case, of a vulgar
and debased nature. On the inhabitants of such a town, it will be
difficult, if not impossible, to work a conviction that intelligence is
either necessary or useful. Generally, they will regard both learn-
ing and science only with contempt. Of morals, except in the
coarsest form, and that which has the least influence on the heart,
they will scarcely have any apprehensions. The rights enforced by
municipal law, they may be compelled to respect, and the corres-
ponding duties they may be necessitated to perform ; but the rights
and obligations which lie beyond the reach of magistracy, in which
the chief duties of morality are found, and from which the chief
enjoyments of society spring, will scarcely gain even their passing
notice. They may pay their debts, but they will neglect almost
every thing of value in the education. of their children.
“The very fact, that men see good houses built around them,
will, more than almost any thing else, awaken in them a sense of
superiority in those by whom such houses are inhabited. The same
sense is derived, in the same manner, from handsome dress, furni-
ture, and equipage. The sense of beauty is necessarily accompa-
nied by a perception of the superiority which it’ possesses over de-
formity ; and is instinctively felt to confer this superiority on those
who can call it their own, over those who cannot.
212 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
“This, I apprehend, is the manner in which coarse society is
first started towards improvement ; for no objects, but those which
are sensible, can make any considerable impression on coarse
minds.”
The first motive which leads men to build good houses is, no
doubt, that of increasing largely their own comfort and happiness.
But it is easy to see that, in this country, where so many are able
to achieve a home for themselves, he who gives to the public a
more beautiful and tasteful model of a habitation than his neigh-
bors, is a benefactor to the cause of morality, good order, and the
improvement of society where he lives. To place before men rea-
sonable objects of ambition, and to dignify and exalt their aims,
cannot but be laudable in the sight of all. And in a country where
it is confessedly neither for the benefit of the community at large,
nor that of the succeeding generation, to amass and transmit great
fortunes, we would encourage a taste for beautiful and appropriate
architecture, as a means of promoting public virtue and the general
good.
We have said beautiful and appropriate architecture—not with-
out desiring that all our readers should feel the value of this latter
qualification as fully as we do. Among the many strivings after
architectural beauty, which we see daily made by our countrymen,
there are, of course, some failures, and only now and then examples
of perfect success. But the rock on which all novices split—and
especially all men who have thought little of the subject, and who are
satisfied with a feeble imitation of some great example from other
eountries—this dangerous rock is want of fitness, or propriety.
Almost the first principle, certainly the grand principle, which an
apostle of architectural progress ought to preach in America, is,
“keep in mind propriety.” Do not build your houses like tem-
ples, churches, or cathedrals. Let them be, characteristically, dwell-
ing-houses. And more than this; always let their individuality of
purpose be fairly avowed ; let the cottage be a cottage—the farm-
house a farm-house—the villa a villa, and the mansion a mansion.
Do not attempt to build a dwelling upon your farm after the fashion
of the town-house of your friend, the city merchant; do not at-
tempt to give the modest little cottage the ambitious air of the
MORAL INFLUENCE OF GOOD HOUSES. 213
ornate villa. Be assured that there is, if you will search for it, a
peculiar beauty that belongs to each of these classes of dwellings
that heightens and adorns it almost magically ; while, if it borrows
the ornaments of the other, it is only debased and falsified in char-
acter and expression. The most expensive and elaborate structure,
overlaid with costly ornaments, will fail to give a ray of pleasure to
the mind of real taste, if it is not appropriate to the purpose in
view, or the means or position of its occupant; while the simple
farm-house, rustically and tastefully adorned, and ministering beauty
to hearts that answer to the spirit of the beautiful, will weave a
spell in the memory not easily forgotten.
Ei
A FEW WORDS ON OUR PROGRESS IN BUILDING.
June, 1851.
YHE “Genius of Architecture,” said Thomas Jefferson, some fifty
years ago, “has shed its malediction upon America.” Jeffer-
son, though the boldest of democrats, had a secret respect and ad-
miration for the magnificent results of aristocratit. institutions in the
arts, and had so refined his taste in France, as to be shocked, past
endurance, on his return home, with the raw and crude attempts at
building in the republic.
No one, however, can accuse the Americans with apathy or want
of interest in architecture, at the present moment. Within ten years
past, the attention of great numbers has been turned to the improve-
ment and embellishment of public and private edifices ; many foreign
architects have settled in the Union; numerous works—especially
upon domestic architecture—have been issued from the press, and
the whole community, in town and country, seem at the present
moment to be afflicted with the building mania. The upper part
of New-York, especially, has the air of some city of fine houses in
all styles, rising from the earth as if by enchantment, while in the
suburbs of Boston, rural cottages are springing up on all sides, as if
the “Genius of Architecture” had sown, broadcast, the seeds of
ornée cottages, and was in a fair way of having a fine harvest in that
quarter.
There are many persons who are as discontented with this new hot-
bed growth of architectural beauty, as Jefferson was with the earlier
and ranker growth of deformity in his day. Some denounce “ faney
A FEW WORDS ON OUR PROGRESS IN BUILDING. 215
houses,”—as they call every thing but a solid square block—alto-
gether. Others have become weary of “Gothic” (without, perhaps,
ever having really seen one good specimen of the style), and suggest
whether there be not something barbarous in a lancet window to a
modern parlor; while the larger number go on building vigorously
in the newest style they can find, determined to have something, if
not better and more substantial than their neighbors, at least more
extraordinary and uncommon.
There is still another class of our countrymen who put ona
hypercritical air, and sit in judgment on the progress and develop-
ment of the building taste m this country. They disclaim every
thing foreign. They will have no Gothic mansions, Italian villas, or
Swiss cottages. Nothing will go down with them but an entirely
new “order,” as they call it, and they berate all architectural writers
(we have come in for our share) for presenting certain more or less
meritorious modifications of such foreign styles. What they de-
mand, with their brows lowered and their hands clenched, is an
“ American style of architecture!” As if an architecture sprung up
like the after-growth in our forests, the natural and immediate con-
sequence of clearing the soil. Asif a people not even indigenous to
the country, but wholly European colonists, or their descendants, a
people who have neither a new language nor religion, who wear the
fashions of Paris, and who, in their highest education, hang upon the
skirts of Greece and Rome, were likely to invent (as if it were a new
plough) an original and altogether novel and satisfactory style .of
architecture.
A little learning, we have been rightly told, is one of the articles
to be labelled “dangerous.” Our hypercritical friends prove the
truth of the saying, by expecting what never did, and never will
happen. An original style in architecture or any other of the arts,
has never yet been invented or composed outright; but all have been
modifications of previously existing modes of building. Late discov-
erers have proved that Grecian Architecture was only pérfected in
Greece—the models of their temples were found in older Egypt.*
* According to the last conclusions of the savans, Solomon’s Temple was
a pure model of Greek Architecture.
216 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
The Romans composed their finest structures out of the very ruins
of public edifices brought from Greece, and the round arch had its
rise from working with these fragments instead of masses of stone.
The Gothic arch, the origin of which has been claimed as an inven-
tion of comparatively modern art, Mr. Ruskin has proved to be of
purely Arabic origin, in use in Asia long before Gothic architecture
was known, and gradually introduced into Europe by architects from
the East. And whoever studies Oriental art, will see the elements
of Arabic architecture, the groundwork of the style, abounding in
the ruins of Indian temples of the oldest date known on the globe.
It is thus, by a little research, that we find there has never been
such a novelty as the invention of a positively new style in building.
What are now known as the Grecian, Gothic, Roman and other
styles, are only those local modifications of the styles of the older
countries, from which the newer colony borrowed them, as the cli-
mate, habits of the people, and genius of the architects, acting upon
each other through a long series of years, gradually developed into
such styles. It is, therefore, as absurd for the critics to ask for .the
American style of architecture, as it was for the English friends of a
Yankee of our acquaintance to request him (after they were on quite
familiar terms) to do them the favor to put on his savage dress and
talk a little American! This country is, indeed, too distinct in its
institutions, and too vast in its territorial and social destinies, not to
shape out for itself a great national type in character, manners and
art; but the development of the finer and more intellectual traits of
character are slower in a nation than they are in a man, and only
time can develope them healthily in either case.
In the mean time, we are in the midst of what may be called
the experimental stage of architectural taste. With the passion for
novelty, and the feeling of independence that belong to this country,
our people seem determined to try every thing. A proprietor on
the lower part of the Hudson, is building a stone castle, with all the
towers clustered together, after the fashion of the old robber strong-
holds on the Rhine. We trust he has no intention of levying toll
on the railroad that runs six trains a day under his frowning battle-
ments, or exacting booty from the river craft of all sizes forever
floating by. A noted New-Yorker has erected a villa near Bridge-
A FEW WORDS ON OUR PROGRESS IN BUILDING. OAT
port, which looks like the minareted and domed residence of a Per-
sian Shah—though its orientalism is rather put out of countenance
by the prim and puritanical dwellings of the plain citizens within
rifle shot of it. A citizen of fortune dies, and leaves a large sum to
erect a “large plain building” for a school to educate orphan boys
—which the building committee consider to mean a superb marble
temple, like that of Jupiter Olympus; a foreigner liberally bequeaths
his fortune to the foundation of an institution “for the diffusion of
knowledge among men”—and the regents erect a college in the
style of a Norman monastery—with a relish of the dark ages in it,
the better to contrast with its avowed purpose of diffusing light.
On all sides, in our large towns, we have churches built after Gothic
models, and though highly fitting and beautiful as churches, 1. e.,
edifices for purely devotional purposes—are quite useless as places
to hear sermons in, because the preacher’s voice is inaudible in at
least one-half of the church. And every where in the older parts of
the country, private fortunes are rapidly crystallizing into mansions,
villas, country-houses and cottages, in all known styles supposed to
be in any way suitable to the purposes of civilized habitations.
Without in the least desiring to apologize for the frequent viola-
tions of taste witnessed in all this fermentation of the popular feeling
in architecture, we do not hesitate to say that we rejoice in it. It
is a fermentation that shows clearly there is no apathy in the public
mind, and we feel as much confidence as the vintner who walks
through the wine cellar in full activity, that the froth of foreign affec-
tations will work off, and the impurities of vulgar taste settle down,
leaving us the pure spirit of a better national taste at last. Rome
was not built in a day, and whoever would see a national architec-
ture, must be patient till it has time to rise out of the old materials,
under the influences of a new climate, our novel institutions and
modified habits.
In domestic architecture, the difficulties that lie in the way of
achieving a pure and correct taste, are, perhaps, greater than in civil
or ecclesiastical edifices. There are so many private fancies, and
personal vanities, which seek to manifest themselves in the house of
the ambitious private citizen, and which are defended under the
shield of that miserable falsehood, “there is no disputing about
218 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
tastes.” (If the proverb read whims, it would be gospel truth.)
Hence we see numberless persons who set about building their own
house without the aid of an architect, who would not think of being
their own lawyer, though one profession demands as much study and
capacity as the other; and it is not to this we object, for we hold
that a man may often build his own house and plead his own
rights to justice satisfactorily—but it must be done in both instances,
in the simplest and most straightforward manner. If he attempts
to go into the discussion of Blackstone on the one hand, or the mys-
teries of Vitruvius and Pugin on the other, he is sure to get speedily
swamped, and commit all sorts of follies and extravagancies quite
out of keeping with his natural character.
The two greatest trials to the architect of taste, who desires to
see his country and age making a respectable figure in this branch
of the arts, are to be found in that class of travelled smatterers in
virtu, who have picked up here and there, in the tour from Liver-
pool to Rome, certain ill-assorted notions of art, which they wish
combined in one sublime whole, in the shape of their own domicil ;
and that larger class, who ambitiously imitate in a small cottage, all
that belongs to palaces, castles and buildings of princely dimensions.
The first class is confined to no country. Examples are to be
found every where, and we do not know of a better hit at the folly
of these cognoscenti, than in the following relation of experiences by
one of the cleverest of English architectural critics :
“The architect is requested, perhaps, by a man of great wealth,
nay, of established taste in some points, to make a design for a villa
in a lovely situation. The future proprietor carries him up stairs to
his study, to give him what he calls his ‘ideas and materials,’ and,
in all probability, begins somewhat thus: ‘ This, sir, is a slight note;
I made it on the spot; approach to Villa Reale, near Puzzuoli.
Dancing nymphs, you perceive ; cypresses, shell fountain. I think
IT should like something like this for the approach; classical you
perceive, sir; elegant, graceful. Then, sir, this is a sketch by an
American friend of mine; Whe-whaw-Kantamaraw’s wigwam, king
of the Cannibal Islands; I think he said, sir. Log, you ob-
serve; scalps, and boa constrictor skins; curious. Something like
this, sir, would look neat, I think, for the front door; don’t you?
A FEW WORDS ON OUR PROGRESS IN BUILDING. 219
Then the lower windows, I’m not quite decided upon; but what
would you say to Egyptian, sir? I think I should like my windows
Egyptian, with hieroglyphics, sir; storks and coffins, and appropri-
ate mouldings above; I brought some from Fountain’s Abbey the
other day. Look here, sir; angel’s heads putting their tongues out,
rolled up in cabbage leaves, with a dragon on each side riding on a
broomstick, and the devil looking out from the mouth of an alliga-
tor, sir.* Odd, I think; interesting. Then the corners may be
turned by octagonal towers, like the centre one in Kenilworth Cas-
tle; with Gothic doors, portcullis, and all, quite perfect; with cross
slits for arrows, battlements for musketry, machiolations for boiling
lead, and a room at the top for drying plums; and the conservatory
at the bottom, sir, with Virginia creepers up the towers ; door sup-
ported by sphinxes, holding scrapers in their fore paws, and having
their tails prolonged into warm-water pipes, to keep the plants safe
in winter, &c.’”
We have seen buildings in England, where such Bedlam sugges-
tions of taste have not only been made, but accepted either wholly
or partly by the architect, and where the result was, of course, both
ludicrous and absurd. There is less dictation to architects in this
country on one hand, and more independence of any class on the
other, to bring such examples of architectural salmagundies into ex-
istence—though there are a few in the profession weak enough to
prostitute their talents to any whim or caprice of the employer.
But by far the greater danger at the present moment lies in the
inordinate ambition of the builders of ornamental cottages. Not
oer awe with the simple and befitting decoration of the modest
veranda, the bracketed roof, the latticed window, and the lovely ac-
cessories of vines and flowering shrubs, the builder of the cottage ornée
in too many cases, attempts to ingraft upon his simple story of a
habitation, all the tropes and figures of architectural rhetoric which
belong to the elaborate oratory of a palace or a temple.
We have made a point of enforcing the superior charm of sim-
plicity—and the realness of the beauty which grows out of it, in
* This grotesque device is actually carved on one of the groins of Roslin
Castle, Scotland.
220 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
our late work on Country Houses. We even went so far as to give
a few examples of farm-houses studiously made simple and rural in
character, though not without a certain beauty of expression befit-
ting their locality, and the uses to which they were destined. But,
judging from some criticisms on these farm-houses in one of the
western papers, we believe it will not be an easy task to convince
the future proprietors of farm-houses and rural cottages, that truth-
ful simplicity is better than borrowed decorations, in their country
homes. Our critic wonders why farmers should not be allowed to
live in as handsome houses (confounding mere decorations with
beauty) as any other class of our citizens, if they can afford it—and.
claims for them the use of the most ornamental architecture in their
farm-houses. We have only to answer to this, that the simplest ex-
pression of beauty which grows out of a man’s life, ranks higher
for him than the most elaborate one borrowed from another’s life
or circumstances. We will add, by way of illustration, that there
is no moral or political objection, that we know, of a farmer’s wear-
ing a general’s uniform in his corn-fields, if he likes it better than
plain clothes; but to our mind, his costume—undoubtedly hand-
somer in the right place—would be both absurd and ugly, behind
the harrow.
We are glad to find, however, that our feeling of the folly of
this exaggerated pretension in cottage architecture, is gradually
finding its expression in other channels of the public press—a sure
sign that it will eventually take hold of public opinion. The fol-
lowing satire on the taste of the day in this overloaded style of
“ carpenter’s gothic,” from the pen of one of the wittiest and clever.
est of American poets, has lately appeared (as part of a longer satire
on another subject), in one of our popular magazines. But it is too
good to be lost sight of by our readers, and we recommend it to a
second perusal. A thought or two upon its moral, as applied to
the taste of the country, will help us on most essentially in this, our
experimental age of architecture.
A FEW WORDS ON OUR PROGRESS IN BUILDING. 221
THE RURAL COT OF MR. KNOTT,
BY LOWEDL.
My worthy friend, A. Gordon Knott,
From business snug withdrawn,
Was much contented with a lot
Which would contain a Tudor cot
’Twixt twelve feet square of garden-plot
And twelve feet more of lawn.
He had laid business on the shelf
To give his taste expansion,
And, since no man, retired with pelf,
The building mania can shun,
Knott being middle-aged himself,
Resolved to build (unhappy elf!)
A medieval mansion.
He called an architect in counsel ;
“T want,” said he, ‘‘a—you know what,
(You are a builder, I am Knott,)
A thing complete from chimney-pot
Down to the very groundsel ;
Here’s a half acre of good land ;
Just have it nicely mapped and planned,
And make your workmen drive on;
Meadow there is, and upland too,
And I should like a water-view,
D’ you think you could contrive one ?
(Perhaps the pump and trough would do,
If painted a judicious blue ?)
The woodland I’ve attended to;”
(He meant three pines stuck up askew,
Two dead ones and a live one.)
“A pocket-full of rocks ’twould take
To build a house of freestone,
But then it is not hard to make
What now-a-days is the stone ;
The cunning painter in a trice
Your house’s outside petrifies,
And people think it very gneiss
Without inquiring deeper ;
222 RURAL ARCHITECTURE,
My money never shall be thrown
Away on such a deal of stone,
When stone of deal is cheaper.”
And so the greenest of antiques
Was reared for Knott to dwell in;
The architect worked hard for weeks
In venting all his private peaks
Upon the roof, whose crop of leaks
Had satisfied Fluellen.
Whatever anybody had
Out of the common, good or bad,
sd Knott had it all worked well in,
A donjon keep where clothes might dry,
A porter’s lodge that was a sty,
A campanile slim and high,
Too small to hang a bell in;
All up and down and here and there,
With Lord-knows-what of round and square
Stuck on at random every where ;
It was a house to make one stare,
All corners and all gables ;
Like dogs let loose upon a bear,
Ten emulous styles staboyed with care,
The whole among them seemed to bear
And all the oddities to spare,
Were set upon the stables.
Knott was delighted with a pile
Approved by fashion’s leaders,
(Only he made the builder smile,
By asking, every little while,
Why that was called the Twodoor style,
Which certainly had three doors?)
Yet better for this luckless man
If he had put a downright ban
Upon the thing 2m limine ;
For, though to quit affairs his plan,
Ere many days, poor Knott began
Perforce accepting draughts that ran
All ways—except up chimney:
The house, though painted stone to mock,
With nice white lines round every block,
Some trepidation stood in,
A FEW WORDS ON OUR PROGRESS IN BUILDING. 223
When tempests (with petrific shock,
So to speak) made it really rock,
Though not a whit less wooden ;
And painted stone, howe’er well done,
Will not take in the prodigal sun
Whose beams are never quite at one
With our terrestrial lumber ;
So the wood shrank around the knots,
And gaped in disconcerting spots,
And there were lots of dots and rots
And crannies without number,
Where though, as you may well presume,
The wind, like water through a flume,
Came rushing in eestatie,
Leaving in all three floors, no room
That was not a rheumatic ;
And what, with points and squares and rounds,
Grown shaky on their poises,
The house at night was full of pounds,
Thumps, bumps, ereaks, seratchings, raps,—till—“ zounds,”
Cried Knott, “ this goes beyond all bounds,
I do not deal in tongues and sounds,
Nor have I let my house and grounds,
To a family of Noyeses.”
IV.
COCKNEYISM IN THE COUNTRY.
September, 1849.
HEN a farmer, who visits the metropolis once a year, stares
into the shop windows in Broadway, and stops now and then
with an indefinite curiosity at the corners of the streets, the citizens
smile, with the satisfaction of superior knowledge, at the awkward
airs of the countryman in town.
But how shall we describe the conduct of the true cockneys in
the country? How shall we find words to express our horror and
pity at the cockneyisms with which they deform the landscape?
How shall we paint, without the aid of Hogarth and Cruikshanks,
the ridiculous insults which they often try to put upon nature and
truth in their cottages and country-seats ?
The countryman in town is at least modest. He has, perhaps,
a mysterious though mistaken respect for men who live in such
prodigiously fine houses, who drive in coaches with liveried servants,
and pay thousands for the transfer of little scraps of paper, which
they call stocks.
But the true cit is brazen and impertinent in the country.
Conscious that his clothes are designed, his hat fabricated, his til-
bury built, by the only artists of their several professions on this
side of the Atlantic, he pities and despises all who do not bear the
outward stamp of the same coinage. He comes in the country to
rusticate, (that is, to recruit his purse and his digestion,) very much
as he turns his horse out to grass; as a means of gaining strength
sufficient to go back again to the only arena in which it is worth
COCKNEYISM IN THE COUNTRY. 225
while to exhibit his powers. He wonders how people can live in
the country from choice, and asks a solemn question, now and then,
about passing the winter there, as he would about a passage
through Behring’s Straits, or a pic-nic on the borders of the Dead
Sea.
But this is all very harmless. On their own ground, country
folks have the advantage of the cockneys. The scale is turned
then; and knowing perfectly well how to mow, cradle, build stone
walls and drive oxen,—undeniably useful and substantial kinds of
knowledge,—they are scarcely less amused at the fine airs and
droll ignorances of the cockney in the country, who does not know
a bullrush from a butternut, than the citizens are in town at their
ignorance of an air of the new opera, or the step of the last
redowa.
But if the cockney visitor is harmless, the cockney resident is
not. When the downright citizen retires to the country,—not
because he has any taste for it, but because it is the fashion to have
a country house,—he often becomes, perhaps for the first time in
his life, a dangerous member of society. There is always a certain
influence about the mere possessor of wealth, that dazzles us, and
makes us see things in a false light; and the cockney has wealth.
As he builds a house which costs five times as much as that of any
of his country neighbors, some of them, who take it for granted
that wealth and tastg go together, fancy the cockney house puts
their simple, modest cottages to the blush. Hence, they directly go
to imitating it in their moderate way; and so, a quiet country
neighborhood is as certainly tainted with the malaria of cockneyism,
as it would be by a ship-fever, or the air of the Pontine marshes.
The cockneyisms which are fatal to the peace of mind, and
more especially to the right feeling of persons of good sense and
propriety in the country, are those which have perhaps a real mean-
ing and value in town; which are associated with excellent houses
and people there; and which are only absurd and foolish when
transplanted, without the least reflection or adaptation, into the
wholly different and distinct condition of things in country life.
It would be too long and troublesome a task to give a catalogue
of these sins against good sense and good taste, which we every
15
226 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
day see perpetrated by people who come from town, and who, we
are bound to say, are far from always being cockneys; but who,
nevertheless, unthinkingly perpetrate these ever to be condemned
cockneyisms. Among them, we may enumerate, as illustrations,—
building large houses, only to shut up the best rooms and live in
the basement; placing the first story so high as to demand a long
flight of steps to get into the front door; placing the dining-room
below stairs, when there is abundant space on the first floor; using
the iron railings of street doors in town to porches and piazzas in
the country ; arranging suites of parlors with folding doors, precisely
like a town house, where other and far more convenient arrange-
ments could be made ; introducing plate glass windows, and ornate
stucco cornices in cottages of moderate size and cost; building
large parlors for display, and small bed-rooms for daily use; placing
the hous¢ so near the street (with acres of land in the rear) as to
destroy all seclusion, and secure all possible dust; and all the
hundred like expedients, for producing the utmost effect in a small
space in town, which are wholly unnecessary and uncalled for in the
country.
We remember few things more unpleasant than to enter a cock-
ney house in the country. As the highest ideal of beauty in the
mind of its owner is to reproduce, as nearly as possible, a fac-simile
of a certain kind of town house, one is distressed with the entire
want of fitness and appropriateness in every thing it contains. The
furniture is all made for display, not for use; and between a pro-
fusion of gilt ornaments, embroidered white satin chairs, and other
like finery, one feels that one has no rest for the sole of his foot.
We do not mean, by these remarks, to have it understood that
we do not admire really beautiful, rich and tasteful furniture, or
ornaments and decorations belonging to the interior and exterior of
houses in the country. But we only admire them when they are
introduced in the right manner and the right place. In a country
house of large size—a mansion of the first class—where there are
rooms in abundance for all purposes, and where a feeling of comfort,
luxury, and wealth, reigns throughout, there is no reason why the
most beautiful and highly finished decorations should not be seen
in its drawing-room or saloon,—always supposing them to be taste-
COCKNEYISM IN THE COUNTRY. 227
ful and appropriate ; though we confess our feeling is, that a certain
soberness should distinguish the richness of the finest mansion in the
country from that in town. Still, in a villa or mansion, where all
the details are carefully elaborated, where there is no neglect of
essentials in order to give effect to what first meets the eye, where
every thing is substantial and genuine, and not trick and tinsel,—
there one expects to see more or less of the luxury of art in its best
apartments.
But all this pleasure vanishes in the tawdry and tinsel ¢mtation
of costly and expensive furniture, to be found in cockney country
houses. Instead of a befitting harmony through the whole house,
one sees many minor comforts visibly sacrificed to produce a little
extra show in the parlor; mock “ fashionable” furniture, which, in-
stead of being really fine, has only the look of finery, usurps in the
principal room the place of the becoming, unpretending and modest
fittings that belong there; and one is constantly struck with the
effort which the cottage is continually making to look like the town
house, rather than to wear its own more appropriate and becoming
modesty of expression. |
The pith of all that should be said on this subject, hes in a few
words, viz., that true taste lies in the union of the beautiful and the
significant. Hence, as a house in the country is quite distinct in
character and uses, in many respects, from a house in town, it
should always be built and furnished upon a widely different princi-
ple. It is far better, in a country house, to have an abundance of
space, as many rooms as possible on a floor, the utmost convenience
of arrangement, and a thorough realization of comfort throughout,
than a couple of very fine apartments, loaded with showy furniture,
“in the latest style,” at the expense of the useful and convenient
every where else.
And we may add to this, that the superior charm of significance
or appropriateness is felt instantly by every one, when it is attained
—though display only imposes on vulgar minds. We have seen a
cottage where the finest furniture was of oak in simple forms, where
every thing like display was unknown, where every thing costly was
eschewed, but where you felt, at a glance, that there was a prevail-
ing taste and fitness, that gave a meaning to all, and brought all
228 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
into harmony; the furniture with the house, the house with the
grounds, and all with the life of its inmates. This cottage, we need
scarcely say, struck all who entered it with a pleasure more real and
enduring than that of any costly mansion in the land. The plea-
sure arose from the feeling that all was significant ; that the cottage,
its arrangement, its furniture, and its surroundings, were all in
keeping with the country, with each other and with their uses; and
that no cockneyisms, no imitations of city splendor, had violated
the simplicity and modesty of the country.
There must with us be progress in all things; and an American
cannot but be proud of the progress of taste in this country. But
as a great portion of the improvements, newly made in the country,
are made by citizens, and not unfrequently by citizens whose time
has been so closely occupied with business, that they have had no
opportunity to cultivate a taste for rural matters, it is not surprising
that we should continually see transplanted, as unexceptionable
things, the ideas in houses, furniture, and even in gardens, which
have been familiar to them in cities.
As, however, it is an indisputable axiom, that there are laws of
taste which belong to the country and country life, quite distinct
from those which belong to town, the citizen always runs into cock-
neyisms when he neglects these laws. And what we would gladly
insist upon, therefore, is that it is only what is appropriate and
significant in the country, (or what is equally so in town and
country,) that can be adopted, without insulting the natural grace
and freedom of umbrageous trees and green lawns.
He who comes from a city, and wishes to build himself a
country-seat, would do well to forget all that he considers the stand-
ard of excellence in houses and furniture in town, (and which are,
perhaps, really excellent there,) and make a pilgrimage of inspection
to the best country houses, villas and cottages, with their grounds,
before he lays a stone in his foundation walls, or marks a curve of
his walks. If he does this, he will be certain to open his eyes to
the fact, that, though there are good models in town, for town life,
there are far better models in the country, for country life.
Ves
ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF COUNTRY VILLAGES.
June, 1849,
“TF you, or any man of taste, wish to have a fit of the blues, let
him come to the village of I have just settled here;
and all my ideas of rural beauty have been put to flight by what I
see around me every day. Old wooden houses out of repair, and
looking rickety and dejected; new wooden houses, distressingly
lean in their proportions, chalky white in their clapboards, and
spinachy green in their blinds. The church is absolutely hideous,—
a long box of card-board, with a huge pepper-box on the top.
There is not a tree in the streets; and if it were not for fields of re-
freshing verdure that surround the place, I should have the ophthal-
mia as well as the blue-devils. Is there no way of instilling some
rudiments of taste into the minds of dwellers in remote country
places ?”
We beg our correspondent, from whose letter we quote the above
paragraph, not to despair. There are always wise and good pur-
poses hidden in the most common events of life; and we have no
doubt Providence has sent him to the village of , aS an APOS-
TLE OF TASTE, to instil some ideas of beauty and fitness into the
minds of its inhabitants.
That the aspect of a large part of our rural villages, out of New
England, is distressing to a man of taste, is undeniable. Not from
want of means; for the inhabitants of these villages are thriving,
industrious people, and poverty is very little known there. Not
from want of materials; for both nature and the useful arts are
230 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
ready to give them every thing needful, to impart a cheerful, taste-
ful, and inviting aspect to their homes; but simply from a poverty
of ideas, and a dormant sense of the enjoyment to be derived from
orderly, tasteful, and agreeable dwellings and streets, do these villa-
ges merit the condemnation of all men of taste and right feeling.
The first duty of an inhabitant of forlorn neighborhoods, like
the village of , 18 to use all possible influence to have the
streets planted with trees. To plant trees, costs little trouble or ex-
pense to each property holder; and once planted, there is some as-
surance that, with the aid of time and nature, we can at least cast
a graceful veil over the deformity of a country home, if we cannot
wholly remodel its features. Indeed, a village whose streets are bare
of trees, ought to be looked upon as in a condition not less pitiable
than a community without a schoolmaster, or a teacher of religion ;
for certain it is, when the affections are so dull, and the domestic
virtues so blunt that men do not care how their own homes and vil-
lages look, they care very little for fulfilling any moral obligations
not made compulsory by the strong arm of the law; while, on the
other hand, show us a Massachusetts village, adorned by its avenues
of elms, and made tasteful by the affection of its inhabitants, and
you also place before us the fact, that it is there where order, good
character, and virtuous deportment most of all adorn the lives and
daily conduct of its people.
Our correspondents who, like the one just quoted, are apostles
of taste, must not be discouraged by lukewarmness and opposition
on the part of the inhabitants of these GRACELESS VILLAGES. They
must expect sneers and derision from the ignorant and prejudiced ;
for, strange to say, poor human nature does not love to be shown
that it is ignorant and prejudiced ; and men who would think a cow-
shed good enough to live in, if only their wants were concerned,
take pleasure in pronouncing every man a visionary whose ideas
rise above the level of their own accustomed vision. But, as an off-
set to this, it should always be remembered that there are two great
principles at the bottom of our national character, which the apostle
of taste in the most benighted, cRACELESS VILLAGE, may safely
count upon. One of these is the principle of imitation, which will
never allow a Yankee to be outdone by his neighbors; and the
ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF COUNTRY VILLAGES. 231
other, the principle of progress, which will not allow him to stand
still when he discovers that his neighbor has really made an im-
provement.
Begin, then, by planting the first half-dozen trees in the public
streets. “They will grow,” as Sir Walter observed, “while you
sleep ;” and once fairly settled in their new congregation, so that
they get the use of their arms, and especially of their tongues, it is
quite extraordinary what sermons they will preach to those dull and
tasteless villagers. Not a breeze that blows, but you will hear these
tongues of theirs (which some look upon merely as leaves), whisper-
ing the most eloquent appeals to any passer by. There are some,
doubtless, whose auriculars are so obtuse they they do not un-
derstand this language of the trees; but let even one of these walk
home in a hot July day, when the sun that shines on the American
continent has a face brighter than California gold, and if he does
not return thanks devoutly for the cool shade of our half-dozen trees,
as he approaches them and rests beneath their cool boughs, then is
he a worse heathen than any piratical Malay of the Indian Ocean.
But even such a man is sometimes convinced, by an appeal to the
only chord that vibrates in the narrow compass of his soul,—that
of utility—when he sees with surprise a fine row of trees in a vil-
lage, stretching out their leafy canopy as a barrier to a destructive
fire, that otherwise would have crossed the street and burnt down
the other half of the best houses in the village.
_The next step to improve the GRACELESS VILLAGE, is to persuade
some of those who are erecting new buildings, to adopt more taste-
ful models. And by this we mean, not necessarily what builders
call a “fancy house,” decorated with various ornaments that are sup-
posed to give beauty to a cottage; but rather to copy some design,
or some other building, where good proportions, pleasing form, and
fitness for the use intended, give the beauty sought for, without call-
ing in the aid of ornaments, which may heighten but never create
beauty. If you cannot find such a house ready built to copy from,
procure works where such designs exist, or, still better, a rough and
cheap sketch from a competent architect, as a guide. Persuade
your neighbor, who is about to build, that even if his house is to
cost but $600, there is no economy that he can practise in the ex-
232 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
penditure of that sum so indisputable, or which he will so com:
pletely realize the value of afterwards, as $10 or $20 worth of ad-
vice, with a few pen or pencil marks, to fix the ideas, upon paper,
from an architect of acknowledged taste and judgment. Whether
the house is to look awkward and ugly, or whether it is to be com-
fortable and pleasing for years, all depend upon the zdea of that
house which previously exists in somebody's mind,—either architect,
owner, or mechanic,—whoever, in short, conceives what that house
shall be, before it becomes “a local habitation,” or has any name
among other houses already born in the hitherto GRACELESS VIL-
LAGE.
It is both surprising and pleasant, to one accustomed to watch
the development, of the human soul, to see the gradual but certain
effect of building one really good and tasteful house in a graceless
village. Just as certain as there is a dormant spark of the love of
beauty, which underlays all natures extant, in that village, so certain
will it awaken at the sight of that house. You will hear nothing
about it; or if you do, perhaps you may, at first, even hear all kinds
of facetious comments on Mr.
’s new house. But next year you
will find the old mode abandoned by him who builds a new house.
He has a new idea; he strives to make his dwelling manifest it ;
and this process goes on, till, by-and-by, you wonder what new
genius has so changed the aspect of this village, and turned its neg-
lected, bare, and lanky streets into avenues of fine foliage, and
streets of neat and tasteful houses.
It is an old adage, that “a cobbler’s family has no shoes.” We
are forced to call the adage up for an explanation of the curious
fact, that in five villages out of six in the United States, there does
not appear to have been room enough in which properly to lay out
the streets or place the houses. Why, on a continent so broad that
the mere public lands amount to an area of fifty acres for every
man, woman, and child, in the commonwealth, there should not be
found space sufficient to lay out country towns, so that the streets
shall be wide enough for avenues, and the house-lots broad enough
to allow sufficient trees and shrubbery to give a little privacy and
seclusion, is one of the unexplained phenomena in the natural his-
tory of our continent, which, along with the boulders and glaciers,
ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF COUNTRY VILLAGES. 233
we leave to the learned and ingenious Professor Agassiz. Certain
it is, our ancestors did not bring over this national trait from Eng-
land ; for in that small, and yet great kingdom, not larger than one
of our largest states, there is one city—London—which has more
acres devoted to public parks, than can be numbered for this pur-
pose in all America.
It may appear too soon to talk of village greens, and village
squares, or small parks planted with trees, and open to the common
enjoyment of the inhabitants, in the case of GRACELESS VILLAGES,
where there is yet not a shade-tree standing in one of the streets.
But this will come gradually; and all the sooner, just in proportion
as the apostles of taste multiply in various parts of the country.
Persons interested in these improvements, and who are not aware of
what has been done in some parts of New England, should imme-
diately visit New Haven and Springfield. The former city is a
bower of elms; and the inhabitants who now walk beneath spa-
cious avenues, of this finest of American trees, speak with gratitude
of the energy, public spirit and taste of the late Mr. Hillhouse, who
was the great apostle of taste for that city, years ago, when the
streets were as bare as those of the most graccless villages in the
land. And what stranger has passed through Springfield, and not
recognized immediately a superior spirit in the place, which long
since suggested and planted the pretty little square which now orna-
ments the town ?
But we should be doing injustice to the principle of progress, to
which we have already referred, if we did not mention here the
signs of the times, which we have lately noticed; signs that prove
the spirit of rural improvement is fairly awake over this broad con-
tinent. We have received accounts, within the last month, of the
doings of ornamental tree associations, lately formed in five different
states, from New Hampshire to Tennessee.* The object of these
associations is to do precisely what nobody in particular thinks it
his business to do; that is, to rouse the public mind to the impor-
* We cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of commending the public
spirit of a gentleman in one of the villages in western New York, who, by
offering a bounty for all trees planted in the village where he lives, has in-
duced many to set about the work in good earnest.
234 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
tance of embellishing the streets of towns and villages, and to
induce everybody to plant trees in front of his own premises.
While we are writing this, we have received the printed report
of one of these associations,—The Rockingham Farmers’ Club, of
Exeter, New Hampshire. The whole report is so much to the point,
that we republish it entire in our Domestic Notices of the month;
but there is so much earnest enthusiasm in the first paragraph of
the report, and it is so entirely apposite to our present remarks, that
we must also introduce it here:
“ Why are not the streets of all our villages shaded and adorned
with trees? Why are so many of our dwellings still unprotected
from the burning heat of summer, and the ‘pelting of the pitiless
storms’ of winter? Is it because in New England hearts, hurried
and pressed as they are by care and business, there is no just appre-
ciation of the importance of the subject? Or is it that failure in
the attempt, which almost every man has made, once in his life, in
this way to ornament his home, has led many to the belief that
there is some mystery, passing the comprehension of common men,
about this matter of transplanting trees? The answer may be
found, we apprehend, partly in each of the reasons suggested. Ask
your neighbor why he has not more trees about his home, and he
will tell you that they are of no great wse, and, besides, that it is
very difficult to make them grow; that he has tried it once or
twice, and they have all died. Now these, the common reasons,
are both ill-founded. It ¢s of use for every man to surround him-
self with objects of interest, to cultivate a taste for the beautiful in
all things, and especially in the works of nature. It is of use for
every family to have a home, a pleasant, happy home, hallowed by
purifying influences. It és of use, that every child should be edu-
cated, not only in sciences, and arts, and dead languages, but that
his affections and his taste should be developed and refined; that
the book of nature should be laid open to him; and that he should
learn to read her language in the flower and the leaf, written every-
where, in the valley and on the hill-side, and hear it in the songs of
birds, and the murmuring of the forest. If you would keep pure
the heart of your child, and make his youth innocent and happy,
surround him with objects of interest and beauty at home. If you
ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF COUNTRY VILLAGES. 235
would prevent a restless spirit, if you would save him from that
lowest species of idolatry, ‘the love of money,’ and teach him to
‘love what is lovely,’ adorn your dwellings, your places of worship,
your school-houses, your streets and public squares, with trees and
hedges, and lawns and flowers, so that his heart may early and ever
be impressed with the love of Him who made them all” * *
What more can we add to this eloquent appeal from the com-
mittee of a farmers’ club in a village of New Hampshire? Only
to entreat other farmers’ clubs to go and do likewise; other orna-
mental tree societies to carry on the good work of adorning the
country ; other apostles of taste not to be discouraged, but to be
unceasing in their efforts, till they see the clouds of ignorance and
prejudice dispersing; and, finally, all who live in the country and
have an affection for it, to take hold of this good work of rural im-
" provement, till not a GRACELESS VILLAGE can be found from the
Penobscot fo the Rio Grande, or a man of intelligence who is not
ashamed to be found living in such a village.
VI.
OUR COUNTRY VILLAGES.
June, 1850.
ITHOUT any boasting, it may safely be said, that the natural
features of our common country (as the speakers in Congress
call her), are as agreeable and prepossessing’ as those of any other
land—whether merry England, la belle France, or the German
fatherland. We have greater lakes, larger rivers, broader and more
fertile prairies than the old world can show; and if the Alleghanies
are rather dwarfish when compared to the Alps, there are peaks and
summits, “castle hills” and volcanoes, in our great back-bone range
of the Pacific—the Rocky Mountains—which may safely hold up
their heads along with Mont Blane and the Jungfrau.
Providence, then, has blessed this country—our country—with
“natural born” features, which we may look upon and be glad.
But how have we sought to deform the fair landscape here and there
by little, miserable shabby-looking towns and villages; not misera-
ble and shabby-looking from the poverty and wretchedness of the
inhabitants—for in no land is there more peace and plenty—but
miserable and shabby-looking from the absence of taste, symmetry,
order, space, proportion,—all that constitutes beauty. Ah, well and
truly did Cowper say,
“God made the country, but man made the town.”
For in the one, we every where see utility and beauty harmoniously
OUR COUNTRY VILLAGES. Pai |
combined, while the other presents us but too often the reverse ;
that is to say, the marriage of utility and deformity.
Some of our readers may remind us that we have already
preached a sermon from this text. No matter; we should be glad
to preach fifty ; yes, or even establish a sect,—as that seems the only
way of making proselytes now,—whose duty it should be to convert
people living in the country towns to the truce faith; we mean the
true rural faith, viz., that it is immoral and uncivilized to live in
mean and uncouth villages, where there is no poverty, or want of
intelligence in the inhabitants; that there is nothing laudable in
having a piano-forte and mahogany chairs in the parlor, where the
streets outside are barren of shade trees, destitute of side-walks, and
populous with pigs and geese.
We are bound to admit (with a little shame and humiliation,—
being a native of New-York, the “Empire State”), that there is
one part of the Union where the millennium of country towns, and
good government, and rural taste has not only commenced, but is in
full domination. We mean, of course, Massachusetts. The travel-
ler may go from one end of that State to the other, and find flourish-
ing villages, with broad streets lined with maples and elms, behind
which are goodly rows of neat and substantial dwellings, full of evi-
dences of order, comfort and taste. Throughout the whole State, no
animals are allowed to run at large in the streets of towns and vil-
lages. Hence so much more cleanliness than elsewhere; so much
more order and neatness ; so many more pretty rural lanes; so many
inviting flower-gardens and orchards—only separated from the passer-
by by a low railing or hedge, instead of a formidable board fence.
Now, if you cross the State lme into New-York—a State of far
greater wealth than Massachusetts, as long settled and nearly as pop-
ulous—you feel directly that you are in the land of “pigs and poul-
try,” in the least agreeable sense of the word. In passing through
villages and towns, the truth is still more striking, as you go to the
south and west; and you feel little or nothing of that sense, of
“how pleasant it must be to live here,” which the traveller through
Berkshire, or the Connecticut valley, or the pretty villages about
Boston, feels moving his heart within him. You are rather inclined
to wish there were two new commandments, viz.: thou shalt plant
238 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
trees, to hide the nakedness of the streets; and thou shalt not keep
pigs—except in the back yard!*
Our more reflective and inquiring readers will naturally ask, why
is this better condition of things—a condition that denotes better
citizens, better laws, and higher civilization—confined almost wholly
to Massachusetts? To save them an infinite deal of painstaking, re-
search and investigation, we will tell them in a few words. That
State is better educated than the rest. She sees the advantage, mor-
ally and socially, of orderly, neat, tasteful villages; in producing
better citizens, in causing the laws to be respected, in making homes
dearer and more sacred, in making domestic life and the enjoyment
of property to be more truly and rightly estimated.
And these are the legitimate and natural results of this kind of
improvement we so ardently desire in the outward life and appear-
ance of ruraltowns. If our readers suppose us anxious for the build-
ing of good houses, and the planting of street avenues, solely that
the country may look more beautiful to the eye, and that the taste
shall be gratified, they do us an injustice. This is only the external
sign by which we would have the country’s health and beauty
known, as we look for the health and beauty of its fair daughters in
the presence of the rose on their cheeks. But as the latter only
blooms lastingly there, when a good constitution is joined with
healthful habits of mind and body, so the tasteful appearance which
we long for in our country towns, we seek as the outward mark
of education, moral sentiment, love of home, and refined cultiva-
tion, which makes the main difference between Massachusetts and
Madagascar.
We have, in a former number, said something as to the practi-
cal manner in which “ graceless villages” may be improved. We
have urged the force of example in those who set about improving
* We believe we must lay this latter sin at the doors of our hard-working
emigrants from the Emerald Isle. Wherever they settle, they cling to their
ancient fraternity of porkers; and think it “no free country where pigs
can’t have their liberty.” Newburgh is by no means a well-planned village,
though scarcely surpassed for scenery; but we believe it may claim the
credit of being the only one among all the towns, cities and villages of New-
York, where pigs and geese have not the freedom of the streets.
OUR COUNTRY VILLAGES. 239
their own property, and shown the influence of even two or three
persons in giving an air of civilization and refinement to the streets
and suburbs of country towns. There is not a village in America,
however badly planned at first, or ill-built afterwards, that may not
be redeemed, in a great measure, by the aid of shade trees in the
streets, and a little shrubbery in the front yards, and it is never
too late or too early to project improvements of this kind. Every
spring and every autumn should witness a revival of associated
efforts on the part of select-men, trustees of corporations, and persons
of means and influence, to adorn and embellish the external condi-
tion of their towns. Those least alive to the result as regards beauty,
may be roused as to the effects of increased value given to the prop-
erty thus improved, and villages thus rendered attractive and desi-
rable as places of residence.
But let us now go a step further than this. In no country, per-
haps, are there so many new villages and towns laid out every year
as in the United States. Indeed, so large is the number, that the
builders and projectors are fairly at a loss for names,—ancient and
modern history having been literally worn threadbare by the god-
fathers, until all association with great heroes and mighty deeds is
fairly beggared by this re-christening going on in our new settle-
ments and future towns, as yet only populous to the extent of six
houses. And notwithstanding the apparent vastness of our territory,
the growth of new towns and new States is so wonderful—tifteen or
twenty years giving a population of hundreds of thousands, where
all was wilderness before—that the plan and arrangement of new
towns ought to be a matter of national importance. And yet, to
judge by the manner in which we see the thing done, there has not,
in the whole duration of the republic, been a single word said, or a
single plan formed, calculated to embody past experience, or to
assist in any way the laying out of a village or town.
We have been the more struck by this fact in observing the
efforts of some companies who have lately, upon the Hudson, within
some twenty or more miles of New-York, undertaken to lay out
rural villages, with some pretension to taste and comfort; and aim,
at least, at combining the advantages of the country with easy rail-
road access to them.
240) RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
Our readers most interested in such matters as this (and, taking
our principal cities together, it is a pretty large class), will be inter-
ested to know what is the beau-ideal of these companies, who un-
dertake to buy tracts of land, lay them out in the best manner, and
form the most complete and attractive rural villages, in order to
tempt those tired of the wayworn life of sidewalks, into a neighbor-
hood where, without losing society, they can see the horizon, breathe
the fresh air, and walk upon elastic greensward.
Well, the beau-ideal of these newly-planned villages is not down
to the zero of dirty lanes and shadeless roadsides ; but it rises, we
are sorry to say, no higher than streets, lmed on each side with
shade-trees, and bordered with rows of houses. For the most part,
cottages, we presume—are to be built on fifty-feet
lots ; or if any buyer is not satisfied with that amount of elbow room,
he may buy two lots, though certain that his neighbor will still be
those houses
within twenty feet of his fence. And this is the sum total of the
rural beauty, convenience, and comfort, of the latest plan for a rural
village in the Union.* ‘The buyer gets nothing more than he has
in town, save his little patch of back and front yard, a little peep
down the street, looking one way at the river, and the other way at
the sky. So far from gaining any thing which all imhabitants of a
village should gain by the combination, one of these new villagers
actually loses; for if he were to go by himself, he would buy land
cheaper, and have a fresh landscape of fields and hills around him,
instead of houses on all sides, almost as closely placed as in the city,
which he has endeavored to fly from.
Now a rural village—newly planned in the suburbs of a great
city, and planned, too, specially for those whose circumstances will
allow them to own a tasteful cottage in such a village—should pre-
sent attractions much higher than this. It should aim at something
higher than mere rows of houses upon streets crossing each other at
right angles, and bordered with shade-trees. Any one may find as
good shade-trees, and much better houses, in certain streets of the
city which he leaves behind him; and if he is to give up fifty con-
* We say plan, but we do not mean to include in this such villages as
Northampton, Brookline, &e., beautiful and tasteful as they are. But they
are in Massachusetts !
OUR COUNTRY VILLAGES. 241
veniences and comforts, long enjoyed in town, for the mere fact of
fresh air, he had better take board during the summer months in
some snug farmhouse as before.
The indispensable desiderata in rural villages of this kind, are
the following: Ist, a large open space, common, or park, situated
in the middle of the village—not less than twenty acres ; and better,
if fifty or more in extent. This should be well planted with groups
of trees, and kept as a lawn. The expense of mowing it would be
paid by the grass in some cases ; and in others, a consideaable part
of the space might be inclosed with a wire fence, and fed by sheep
or cows, like many of the public parks in England.
This park would be the nucleus or heart of the village, and
would give it an essentially rural character. Around it should be
grouped all the best cottages and residences of the place; and this
would be secured by selling no lots fronting upon it of less than
one-fourth of an acre in extent. Wide streets, with rows of elms or
maples, should diverge from the park on each side, and upon these
streets smaller lots, but not smaller than one hundred feet front,
should be sold for smaller cottages.
In this way, we would secure to our village a permanent rural
character ; first, by the possession of a large central space, always
devoted to park or pleasure-ground, and always held as joint pro-
perty, and for the common use of the whole village ; second, by the
imperative arrangement of cottages or dwellings around it, in such
a way as to secure in all parts of the village sufficient space, view,
circulation of air, and broad, well-planted avenues of shade-trees,
After such a village was built, and the central park planted a
few years, the inhabitants would not be contented with the mere
meadow and trees, usually called a park in this country. By sub-
mitting to a small annual tax per family, they could turn the whole
park, if small, or considerable portions, here and there, if large, into
pleasure-grounds. In the latter, there would be collected, by the
combined means of the village, all the rare, hardy shrubs, trees, and
plants, usually found in the private grounds of any amateur in
America. Beds and masses of ever-blooming roses, sweet-scented
climbers, and the richest shrubs, would thus be open to the enjoy-
ment of all during the whole growing season. Those who had
16
242 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
neither the means, time, nor inclination, to devote to the culture of
private pleasure-grounds, could thus enjoy those which belonged to
all. Others might prefer to devote their own garden to fruits and
vegetables, since the pleasure-grounds, which belonged to all, and
which all would enjoy, would, by their greater breadth and magni-
tude, offer beauties and enjoyments which few private gardens can
give.
The next step, after the possession of such public pleasure-
grounds, would be the social and common enjoyment of them.
Upon the well-mown glades of lawn, and beneath the shade of the
forest-trees, would be formed rustic seats. Little arbors would be
placed near, where in midsummer evenings ices would be served to
all who wished them. And, little by little, the musical taste of the
village (with the help of those good musical folks—the German
emigrants) would organize itself into a band, which would occa-
sionally delight the ears of all frequenters of the park with popular
airs.
Do we overrate the mental and moral influences of such a com-
mon ground of entertainment as this, when we say that the inhabit-
ants of such a village—enjoying in this way a common interest in
flowers, trees, the fresh air, and sweet music, daily—would have
something more healthful than the ordinary life of cities, and more
refining and elevating than the common gossip of country villages?
“Ah! I see, Mr. Editor, you are a bit of a communist.” By no
means. On the contrary, we believe, above all things under heaven,
in the power and virtue of the zndividual home. We devote our
hfe and humble efforts to raising its condition. But people must
live in towns and villages, and therefore let us raise the condition
of towns ‘and villages, and especially of rural towns and villages, by
all possible means !
But we are republican ; and, shall we confess it, we are a little
vexed that as a people generally, we do not see how much in Amer-
ica we lose by not using the advantages of republicanism. We
mean now, for refined culture, physical comfort, and the like. Re-
publican education we are now beginning pretty well to understand
the value of ; and it will not be long before it will be hard to find a
native citizen who cannot read and write. And this comes by
OUR COUNTRY VILLAGES. 243
making every man see what a great moral and intellectual good
comes from cheerfully bearing a part in the burden of popular edu-
cation. Let us next take up popular refinement in the arts, manners,
social life, and innocent enjoyments, and we shall see what a virtuous
and educated republic can really become.
Besides this, it is the proper duty of the state—that is, the people
—to do in this way what the reigning power does in a monarchy.
If the kings and princes in Germany, and the sovereign of England,
have made magnificent parks and pleasure-gardens, and thrown
them wide open for the enjoyment of all classes of the people (the
latter, after all, having to pay for it), may it not be that our sover-
eign people will (far more cheaply, as they may) make and support
these great and healthy sources of pleasure and refinement for
themselves in America? We believe so; and we confidently wait
for the time when public parks, public gardens, public galleries, and
tasteful villages, shall be among the peculiar features of our happy
republic.
VIL.
ON SIMPLE RURAL COTTAGES.
September, 1846.
HE simple rural cottage, or the Working Man’s Cottage, deserves
some serious consideration, and we wish to call the attention
of our readers to it at this moment. The pretty suburban cottage,
and the ornamented villa, are no Jonger vague and rudimentary
ideas in the minds of our people. The last five years have produced
in the environs of all our principal towns, in the Eastern and Middle
States, some specimens of tasteful dwellings of this class, that would
be considered beautiful examples of rural architecture in any part
of the world. Our attention has been called to at least a dozen
examples lately, of rural edifices, altogether charming and in the
best taste.
In some parts of the country, the inhabitants of the suburbs of
towns appear, indeed, almost to have a mania on the subject of or-
namental cottages. Weary of the unfitness and the uncouthness of
the previous models, and inspired with some notions of rural Gothic,
they have seized it with a kind of frenzy, and carpenters, distracted
with verge-boards and gables, have, in some cases, made sad work
of the picturesque. Here and there we see a really good and well-
proportioned ornamental dwelling. But almost in the immediate
neighborhood of it, soon spring up tasteless and meagre imitations,
the absurdity of whose effect borders upon a caricature.
Notwithstanding this deplorably bad taste, rural architecture is
making a progress in the United States that is really wonderful.
Among the many failures in cottages, there are some very success-
ON SIMPLE RURAL COTTAGES. 245
ful attempts, and every rural dwelling, really well designed and ex-
ecuted, has a strong and positive effect upon the good taste of the
whole country.
There is, perhaps, a more intuitive judgment—we mean a natu-
ral and instinctive one—in the popular mind, regarding architecture,
than any other one of the fine arts. We have known many men,
who could not themselves design a good common gate, who yet felt
truly, and at a glance, the beauty of a well-proportioned and taste-
ful house, and the deformity of one whose proportions and details
were bad. Why then are there so many failures in building orna-
mental cottages ?
We imagine the answer to this lies plainly in the fact, that the
most erroneous notions prevail respecting the proper use of DECORA-
TION in rural architecture.
It is the most common belief and practice, with those whose
taste is merely borrowed, and not founded upon any clearly defined
principles, that it is only necessary to adopt the ornaments of a cer-
tain building, or a certain style of building, to produce the best effect
of the style or building in question. But so far is this from being the
true mode of attaining this result, that in every case where it is adopt-
ed, as we perceive at a glance, the result is altogether unsatisfactory.
Ten years ago the mock-Grecian fashion was at its height. Per-
haps nothing is more truly beautiful than the pure and classical
Greek temple—so perfect in its proportions, so chaste and harmo-
nious in its decorations. It is certainly not the best style for a coun-
try house; but still we have seen a few specimens in this country,
of really beautiful villas, in this style—where the proportions of the
whole, and the admirable completeness of all the parts, executed on
a fitting scale, produced emotions of the highest pleasure.
But, alas! no sooner were there a few specimens of the classical
style in the country, than the Greek temple mania became an epi-
demic. Churches, banks, and court-houses, one could very well bear
to see Vitruvianized. Their simple uses and respectable size bore
well the honors which the destiny of the day forced upon them.
But to see the five orders applied to every other building, from the
rich merchant’s mansion to the smallest and*meanest of all edifices,
was a spectacle which made even the warmest admirers of Vitruvius
246 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
sad, and would have made a true Greek believe that the gods whe
preside over beauty and harmony, had for ever abandoned the new
world !
But the Greek temple disease has passed its crisis. The people
have survived it. Some few buildings of simple forms, and conve-
nient arrangements, that stood here and there over the country, ut-
tering silent rebukes, perhaps had something to do with bringing us
to just notions of fitness and propriety. Many of the perishable
wooden porticoes have fallen down; many more will soon do so;
and many have been pulled down, and replaced by less pretending
plazzas or verandas.
Yet we are now obliged to confess that we see strong symptoms
manifesting themselves of a second disease, which is to disturb the
architectural growth of our people. We feel that we shall not be
able to avert it, but perhaps, by exhibiting a diagnosis of the symp-
toms, we may prevent its extending so widely as it might other-
wise do.
We allude to the mania just springing up for a kind of spurious ©
rural Gothic cottage. It is nothing more than a miserable wooden
thing, tricked out with flimsy verge-boards, and unmeaning gables.
It has nothing of the true character of the cottage it seeks to imi-
tate. It bears the same relation to it that a child’s toy-house does
to a real and substantial habitation.
If we inquire into the cause of these architectural abortions,
either Grecian or Gothic, we shall find that they always arise from
a poverty of ideas on the subject of style in architecture. The no-
vice in architecture always supposes, when he builds a common
house, and decorates it with the showiest ornaments of a certain
style, that he has erected an edifice in that style. He deludes him-
self in the same manner as the schoolboy who, with his gaudy paper
cap and tin sword, imagines himself a great general. We build a
miserable shed, make one of its ends a portico with Ionic columns,
and call it a temple in the Greek style. At the same time, it has
none of the proportions, nothing of the size, solidity, and perfection
of details, and probably few or none of the remaining decorations
of that style. r
So too, we now see erected a wooden cottage of a few feet in
ON SIMPLE RURAL COTTAGES. 2417
length, gothicized by the introduction of three or four pointed win-
dows, little gables enough for a residence of the first class, and a
profusion of thin, scolloped verge-boards, looking more like card or-
naments, than the solid, heavy, carved decorations proper to the
style imitated.
Let those who wish to avoid such exhibitions of bad taste, recur
to some just and correct principles on this subject.
One of the soundest maxims ever laid down on this subject, by
our lamented friend Loudon, (who understood its principles as well
as any one that ever wrote on this subject), was the following:
“ Nothing should be introduced into any cottage design, however
ornamental it may appear, that is at variance with propriety, com-
fort, or sound workmanship.”
The chiefest objection that we make to these over-decorated
cottages of very small size, (which we have now in view,) is that
the introduction of so much ornament is evidently a violation of
the principles of propriety.
It cannot be denied by the least reflective mind, that there are
several classes of dwelling-houses in every country. The mansion of
the wealthy proprietor, which is filled with pictures and statues,
ought certainly to have a superior architectural character to the
cottage of the industrious workingman, who is just able to furnish
a comfortable home for his family. While the first is allowed to
display even an ornate style of building, which his means will en-
able him to complete and render somewhat perfect—the other can-
not adopt the same ornaments without rendering a cottage, which
might be agreeable and pleasing, from its fitness and genuine sim-
phaity, offensive and distasteful through its ambitious, borrowed
decorations. :
By adopting such ornaments they must therefore violate pyro-
priety, because, architecturally, it is not fitting that the humble cot-
tage should wear the decorations of a superior dwelling, any more
than that the plain workingman should wear the same diamonds
that represent the superfluous wealth of his neighbor. In a cot-
tage of the smallest size, it is evident, also, that, if its tenant is the
owner, he must make some sacrifice of comfort to produce effect ;
and he waives the principle which demands sound workmanship,
248 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
since to adopt any highly ornamental style, the posseSsor of small
means is obliged to make those ornaments flimsy and meagre,
which ought to be substantial and carefully executed.
Do we then intend to say, that the humble cottage must be left
bald and tasteless? By no means. We desire to see every rural
dwelling in America tasteful. When the intelligence of our active-
minded people has been turned in this direction long enough, we
are confident that this country will more abound in beautiful rural
dwellings than any other part of the world. But we wish to see
the workingman’s cottage made tasteful in a simple and fit man-
ner. We wish to see him eschew all ornaments that are inappro-
priate and unbecoming, and give it a simple and pleasing character
by the use of truthful means.
For the cottage of this class, we would then entirely reject all
attempts at columns or verge-boards.* If the owner can afford it,
we would, by all means, have a veranda (piazza), however small ;
for we consider that feature one affording the greatest comfort. If
the cottage is of wood, we would even build it with strong rough
boards, painting and sanding the same.
We would, first of all, give our cottage the best proportions.
It should not be too narrow; it should not be too high. These are
the two prevailing faults with us. After giving it an agreeable pro-
portion—which is the highest source of all material beauty—we
would give it something more of character as well as comfort, by
extending the roof. Nothing is pleasanter to the eye than the
shadow afforded by a projecting eave. It is nearly impossible that
a house should be quite ugly, with an amply projecting roof: as it
is difficult to render a simple one pleasing, when it is narrow and
pinched about the eaves.
After this, we would bestow a little character by a bold and
simple dressing, or facing, about the windows and doors. The
* Of course, these remarks regarding decorations do not apply strictly
to the case of cottages for the tenants, gardeners, farmers, ete, of a large
estate. In that case, such dwellings form parts of a highly finished whole.
The means of the proprietor are sufficient to render them complete of their
kind. Yet even in this case, we much prefer a becoming simplicity in the
cottages of such a desmesne.
ON SIMPLE RURAL COTTAGES. 249
chimneys may next be attended to. Let them be less clumsy and
heavy, if possible, than usual.
This would be character enough for the simplest class of cot-
tages. We would rather aim to render them striking and expres-
sive by a good outline, and a few simple details, than by the imita-
tion of the ornaments of a more complete and highly finished style
of building.
In figs. 1 and 2, we have endeavored to give two views of a _
workingman’s cottage, of humble means.*
Whatever may be thought of the effect of these designs, (and
we assure our readers that they appear much better when built
than upon paper,) we think it will not be denied, that they have
not the defects to which we have just alluded. The style is as eco-
nomical as the cheapest mode of building; it is expressive of the
simple wants of its occupant; and it is, we conceive, not without
some tasteful character.
Last, though not least, this mode of building cottages is well
adapted to our country. The material—wood—is one which must,
yet for some years, be the only one used for small cottages. The
projecting eaves partially shelter the building from our hot sun and
violent storms; and the few simple details, which may be said to
confer something of an ornamental character, as the rafter brackets
and window dressings, are such as obviously grow out of the pri-
mary conveniences of the house—the necessity of a roof for shelter,
and the necessity of windows for light.
Common narrow siding, (2. e. the thin clap-boarding in general
use,) we would not employ for the exterior of this class of cottages
—nor, indeed, for any simple rural buildings. What we greatly
prefer, are good strong: and sound boards, from ten to fourteen
inches wide, and one to one and a fourth inches thick. These
should be tongued and grooved so as to make a close joint, and
nailed to the frame of the house in a vertical manner. The joint
should be covered on the outside with a narrow strip of inch board,
from two to three inches wide. The accompanying cut, fig. 3, a,
* We do not give the interior plan of these, at present. Our only ob-
ject now is to call attention to the exteriors of dwellings of this class.
250 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
showing a section of this mode of weather-boarding will best ex-
plain it to the reader.
We first pointed out this mode of covering, in our “ Cottage
Residences.” A great
number of gentlemen
have since adopted it,
and all express them-
selves highly gratified
with it. It is by far
the most expressive
and agreeable mode
of building in wood
for the country ; it is
stronger, equally cheap
and much more dura-
ble than the thin sid_
See img ; and it has a cha-
racter of strength and
a ;
permanence, which, to
Fig, 8. Cottage Siding and Roofing. ae eye, ART OMICIEE
thin boards never can have. When filled in with cheap soft brick,
it also makes a very warm house.
The rafters of these two cottages are stout joists, placed two feet
apart, which are allowed to extend beyond the house two feet, to
answer the purpose of brackets, for the projecting eaves. Fig. 3, b,
will show, at a glance, the mode of rafter boarding and shingling
over these rafters,so as to form the simplest and best kind of
roof.*
The window dressings, which should have a bold and simple
character, and made by nailing on the’ weather boarding stout
* The simplest mode of forming an eave gutter on a projecting roof like
this, is shown in the cut, fig. 3 atc. It consists merely of atin trough, fast
ened to the roof by its longer portion, which extends up under one layer
of shingles. This lies close upon the roof. The trough being directly over
the line of the outer face of the house, the leader d, which conveys away
the water, passes down in a straight line, avoiding the angles necessary in
the common mode.
ON SIMPLE RURAL COTTAGES. 251
strips, four inches wide, fig. 4, a, of plank, one inch and a half in
thickness. The coping piece, 6, is of the same thickness, and six
to eight inches wide, |
supported by a couple | ,
of pieces of joists, ¢,
nailed under it for
brackets.
We have tried the
effect of this kind of
exterior, using wn-
planed boards, to
which we have given
two good coats of
paint, sanding the
second coat. The ef-
fect we think much
more agreeable—be-
cause it is in better
keeping with a rustic
cottage, than when
the more expensive
mode of using planed
boards is resorted to.
Some time ago, we ventured to record our objections to white
as a universal color for country houses. We have had great satis-
faction, since that time, in seeing a gradual improvement taking
place with respect to this matter. Neutral tints are, with the best
taste, now every where preferred to strong glaring colors. Cottages
of -this class, we would always paint some soft and pleasing shade
of drab or fawn color. These are tints which, on the whole, har-
monize best with the surrounding hues of the country itself.
These two little designs are intended for the simplest cottages,
to cost from two to five hundred dollars. Our readers will not un-
derstand us as offering them as complete models of a workingman’s
cottage. They are only partial examples of our views and taste in
this matter. We shall continue the subject, from time to time,
with various other examples.
Fig. 4, Cottage Window Dressing.
WEE
ON THE COLOR OF COUNTRY HOUSES.
May, 1847.
HARLES DICKENS, in that unlucky visit to America, in
which he was treated like a spoiled child, and left it im the
humor that often follows too lavish a bestowal of sugar plums on
spoiled children, made now and then a remark in his characteristic
vein of subtle perceptions. Speaking of some of our wooden vil-
lages—the houses as bright as the greenest blinds and the whitest
weather-boarding can make them—he said it was quite impossible
to believe them real, substantial habitations. They looked “as if
they had been put up on Saturday night, and were to be taken down
on Monday morning !”
There is no wonder that any tourist, accustomed to the quiet
and harmonious color of buildings in an English landscape, should
be shocked at the glare and rawness of many of our country dwell-
ings. Brown, the celebrated English landscape gardener, used to
say of a new red brick house, that it would “ put a whole valley in a
fever!” Some of our freshly painted villages, seen in a bright sum-
mer day, might give a man with weak eyes a fit of the oph-
thalmia.
We have previously ventured a word or two against this na-
tional passion for white paint, and it seems to us a fitting moment
to look the subject boldly in the face once more.
In a country where a majority of the houses are built of wood,
the use of some paint is an absolute necessity in point of economy.
What the colors of this paint are, we consider a matter no less im-
portant in point of taste.
ON THE COLOR OF COUNTRY HOUSES. 250
Now, genuine white lead (the color nominally used for most
exteriors) is one of the dearest of paints.* It is not, therefore,
economy which leads our countrymen into such a dazzling error.
Some mistaken notions, touching its good effect, in connection with
the country, is undoubtedly at the bottom of it. “Give me,” says a re-
tired citizen, before whose eyes red brick and dusty streets have been
the only objects for years, “give me a white house with bright green
blinds in the country.” To him, white is at once the newest, clean-
est, smartest, and most conspicuous color which it is possible to
choose for his cottage or villa. Its freshness and newness he prizes
as a clown does that of his Sunday suit, the more the first day after
it comes from the tailor, with all the unsullied gloss and glitter of
gilt buttons. To possess a house which has a quiet air, as though
it might have been inhabited and well taken care of for years, is no
pleasure to him. He desires every one to know that he, Mr. Broad-
cloth, has come into the country and built a new house. Nothing
will give the stamp of newness so strongly as white paint. Besides
this, he does not wish his light to be hidden under a bushel. He
has no idea of leading an obscure life in the countay. Seclusion
and privacy are the only blue devils of his imagination. He wishes
every passer-by on the river, railroad, or highway, to see and know
that this is Mr. Broadcloth’s villa. It must be conspicwous—there-
fore it is painted WHITE.
Any one who has watched the effect of example in a country
neighborhood, does not need to be told that all the small dwellings
that are built the next season’ after Mr. Broadcloth’s new house, are
painted, if possible, a shade whiter, and the blinds a little more in-
tensely verdant—what the painters triumphantly call “ French
green.” ‘There is no resisting the fashion; those who cannot afford
paint use whitewash; and whole villages, to borrow Miss Miggs’s
striking illustration, look like “ whitenin’ and supelters.”
Our first objection to white, is, that it is too glaring and con-
* We say genuine white lead, for it is notorious that four-fifths of the
white paint sold under this name in the United States, is only an imitation
of it, composed largely of whiting. Though the first cost of the latter is lit-
tle, yet as it soon rubs off and speedily repuires renewal, it is one of the dear-
est colors in the end.
254 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
spicuous. We scarcely know any thing more uncomfortable to the
eye, than to approach the sunny side of a house in one of our bril-
liant midsummer days, when it revels in the fashionable purity of its
color. It is absolutely painful. Nature, full of kindness for man, has
covered most of the surface that «meets his eye in the country, with
a soft green hue—at once the most refreshing and most grateful to
the eye. These habitations that we have referred to, appear to be
colored on the very opposite principle, and one needs, in broad sun-
shine, to turn his eyes away to relieve them by a glimpse of the
soft and refreshing shades that every where pervade the trees, the
grass, and the surface of the earth.
Our second objection to white is, that it does not harmonize
with the country, and thereby mars the effect of rural landscapes.
Much of the beauty of landscape depends on what painters call
breadth of tone—which is caused by broad masses of colors that
harmonize and blend agreeably together. Nothing tends to destroy
breadth of tone so much as any object of considerable size, and of a
brilliant white. It stands harshly apart from all the soft shades of
the scene. Hence landscape painters always studiously avoid the
introduction of white in their buildings, and give them instead,
some neutral tint—a tint which unites or contrasts agreeably with
the color of trees and grass, and which seems to blend into other
parts of natural landscape, instead of being a discordant note in the
general harmony.
There is always, perhaps, something not quite agreeable in ob-
jects of a dazzling whiteness, when brought into contrast with other
colors. Mr. Price, in his essays on: the Beautiful and Picturesque,
conceived that very white teeth gave a silly expression to the coun-
tenance—and brings forward, in illustration of it, the well-known
soubriquet which Horace Walpole bestowed on one of his acquaint-
ances—* the gentleman with the foolish teeth.”
No one is successful in rural improvements, who does not study
nature, and take her for the basis of his practice. Now, in natural
landscape, any thing like strong and bright colors is seldom seen,
except In very minute portions, and least of all pure white—chiefly
appearing in small objects like flowers. The practical rule which
should be deduced from this, is, to avoid all those colors which na-
ON THE COLOR OF COUNTRY HOUSES. 255
ture avoids. In buildings, we should copy those that she offers
chiefly to the eye—such as those of the soil, rocks, wood, and the
bark of trees,—the materials of which houses are built. These ma-
terials offer us the best and most natural study from which harmo-
nious colors for the houses themselves should be taken.
Wordsworth, in a little volume on the Scenery of the Lakes, re-
marks that the objections to white as a color, in large spots or
masses, in landscapes, are insurmountable. He says it destroys the
gradations of distances, haunts the eye, and disturbs the repose of
nature. To leave some little consolation to the lovers of white lead,
we will add that there is one position in which their favorite color
may not only be tolerated, but often has a happy effect. We mean
in the case of a country house or cottage, deeply imbowered in trees.
Surrounded by such a mass of foliage as Spenser describes,
“Tn whose enclosed shadow there was set
A fair pavilion scarcely to be seen,”
a white building often has a magical effect. But a landscape painter
would quickly answer, if he were asked the reason of this exception
to the rule, “It is because the building does not appear white.” In
other words, in the shadow of the foliage by which it is half con-
cealed, it loses all the harshness and offensiveness of a white house
in an open site. We have, indeed, often felt, in looking at examples
of the latter, set upon a bald hill, that the building itself would, if
possible, ery out,
“‘ Hide me from day’s garish eye.”
Having entered our protest against the general use of white in
country edifices, we are bound to point out what we consider suit-
able shades of color.
We have said that one should look to nature for hints in color.
This gives us, apparently, a wide choice of shades, but as we ought
properly to employ modified shades, taken from the colors of the
materials of which houses are constructed, the number of objects
is brought within a moderate compass. Houses are not built
of grass, or leaves, and there is, therefore, not much propriety m
256 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
painting a dwelling green. Earth, stone, bricks, and wood, are the
substances that enter mostly into the structure of our houses, and
from these we would accordingly take suggestions for painting
them.
Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was full of an artistical feeling for the
union of a house with its surrounding scenery, once said, “If you
would fix upon the best color for your house, turn up a stone, or
pluck up a handful of grass by the roots, and see what is the color
of the soil where the house is to stand, and let that be your choice.”
This rule was not probably intended to be exactly carried into gene-
ral practice, but the feeling that prompted it was the same that we
are endeavoring to illustrate—the necessity of a unity of color in
the house and country about it.
We think, in the beginning, that the color of all buildings in the
country should be of those soft and quiet shades, called neutral tints,
such as fawn, drab, gray, brown, &., and that all postive colors,
such as white, yellow, red, blue, black, &c., should always be avoided ;
neutral tints being those drawn from nature, and harmonizing best
with her, and positive colors being most discordant when introduced
into rural scenery.
In the second place, we would adapt the shade of color, as far
as possible, to the expression, style, or character of the house itself,
Thus, a large mansion may very properly receive a somewhat sober
hue, expressive of dignity; while a country house, of moderate size,
demands a lighter and more pleasant, but still quiet tone; and a
small cottage should, we think, always have a cheerful and lively
tint. Country houses, thickly surrounded by trees, should always
be painted of a lighter shade than those standing exposed. And a
new house, entirely unrelieved by foliage, as it is rendered conspicu-
ous by the very nakedness of its position, should be painted several
shades darker than the same building if placed in a well wooded
site. In proportion asa house is exposed to view, let its hue be
darker, and where it is much concealed by foliage, a very light shade
of color is to be preferred.
Wordsworth remarks, in speaking of houses in the Lake coun-
try, that many persons who have heard white condemned, have erred
by adopting a cold slaty color. The dulness and dimness of hue in
ON THE COLOR OF COUNTRY HOUSES. 257
some dark stones, produces an effect quite at variance with the
cheerful expression which small houses should wear. “ The flaring
yellow,” he adds, “ runs into the opposite extreme, and is still more
censurable. Upon the whole, the safest color, for general use, is
something between a cream and a dust color.
This color, which Wordsworth recommends for general use, is the
hue of the English freestone, called Portland stone—a quiet fawn
color, to which we are strongly partial, and which harmonizes per-
haps more completely with all situations in the country than any
other that can be named. Next to this, we like a warm gray, that
is, a drab mixed with a very little red and some yellow. Browns
and dark grays are suitable for barns, stables, and outbuildings,
which it is desirable to render inconspicuous—but for dwellings, un-
less very light shades of these latter colors are used, they are apt to
give a dull and heavy effect in the country.*
A very slight admixture of a darker color is sufficient to remove
the objections to white paint, by destroying the glare of white, the
only color which reflects ad? the sun’s rays. We would advise the
use of soft shades, not much removed from white, for small cottages,
which should not be painted of too dark a shade, which would give
them an aspect of gloom in the place of glare. It is the more ne-
cessary to make this suggestion, since we have lately observed that
some persons newly awakened to the bad effect of white, have rush-
ed into the opposite extreme, and colored their country houses of
such a sombre hue that they give a melancholy character to the
whole neighborhood around them.
A species of monotony is also produced by using the same neu-
tral tint for every part of the exterior of a country house. Now
there are features, such as window facings, blinds, cornices, ete.,
which confer the same kind of expression on a house that the eyes,
eyebrows, lips, &c. of a face, do upon the human countenance. To
* Tt is very difficult to convey any proper idea of shades of color by
words, Inour “ Cottage Residences,” we have attempted to do so by a plate
showing some of the tints.) We would suggest to persons wishing to select
accurately, shades for their painter to copy, to go into a stationer’s and exa-
mine a stock of tinted papers. A great variety of shades in agreeable neu-
tral tints, will usually be found, and a selection once made, the color can be
imitated without risk of failure.
17
258 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
paint the whole house plain drab, gives it very much the same dull
and insipid effect that colorless features (white hair, pale eyebrows,
lips, d&e., &c.) do the face. A certain sprightliness is therefore al-
ways bestowed on a dwelling in a neutral tint, by painting the
bolder projecting features of a different shade. The simplest practi-
cal rule that we can suggest for effecting this, in the most. satisfac-
tory and agreeable manner, is the following: Choose paint of some
neutral tint that is quite satisfactory, and let the facings of the win-
dows, cornices, &c., be painted several shades darker, of the same
color. The blinds may either be a still darker shade than the fa-
cings, or else the darkest green.* This variety of shades will give a
building a cheerful effect, when, if but one of the shades were em-
ployed, there would be a dulness and heaviness in the appearance
of its exterior. Any one who will follow the principles we have
suggested cannot, at least, fail to avoid the gross blunders in taste
which most common house-painters and their employers have so long
been in the habit of committing in the practice of painting country
houses.
Uvedale Price justly remarked, that many people have a sort of
callus over their organs of light, as others over those of hearing ;
and as the callous hearers feel nothing in music but kettle-drums
and trombones, so the callous seers can only be moved by strong
opposition of black and white, or by fiery reds. There are, we may
add, many house-painters who appear to be equally benumbed to
any delicate sensation in shades of color. They judge of the beauty
of colors upon houses as they do in the raw pigment, and we verily
believe would be more gratified to paint every thing chrome yellow,
~ indigo blue, pure white, vermilion red, and the like, than with the —
most fitting and delicate mingling of shades to be found under the
* Thus, if the color of the house be that of Portland stone (a fawn shade),
let the window casings, cornices, ete. be painted a light brown, the color of
our common red freestone—and make the necessary shade by mixing the re-
quisite quantity of brown with the color used in the body of the house.
There is an excellent specimen of this effect in the exterior of the Delavan
House, Albany. Very dark green is quite unobjectionable as a color for the
venetian blinds, so much used in our country—as it is quite unobtrusive.
Bright green is offensive to the eye, and vulgar and flashy in effect.
ON THE COLOR OF COUNTRY HOUSES. 259
wide canopy of heaven. Fortunately fashion, a more powerful
teacher of the multitude than the press or the schools, is now setting
in the right direction. A few men of taste and judgment, in city
and country, have set the example by casting off all connection with
harsh colors. What a few leaders do at the first, from a nice sense
of harmony in colors, the many will do afterwards, when they see
the superior beauty of neutral tints, supported and enforced by the
example of those who build and inhabit the most attractive and
agreeable houses, and we trust, at no very distant time, one may have
the pleasure of travelling over our whole country, without meeting
with a single habitation of glaring and offensive color, but every
where see something of harmony and beauty.
xe
A SHORT CHAPTER ON COUNTRY CHURCHES.
January, 1851.
HAT, among all the edifices that compose a country town or
village, is that which the inhabitants should most love and
reverence,—should most respect and admire among themselves, and
should feel most pleasure in showing to a stranger?
We imagine the answer ready upon the lips of every one of
our readers in the country, and rising at once to utterance, is—the
VILLAGE CHURCH.
And yet, are our village churches winning and attractive im
their exterior and interior? Is one drawn to admire them at first
sight, by the beauty of their proportions, the expression of holy
purpose which they embody, the feeling of harmony with Gop and
man, which they suggest? Does one get to love the very stones
of which they are composed, because they so completely belong
to a building, which looks and is the home of Christian worship,
and stands as the type of all that is firmest and deepest in our
religious faith and affections ?
Alas! we fear there are very few country churches in our land
that exert this kind of spell,—a spell which grows out of making
stone, and brick, and timber, obey the will of the living soul, and
express a religious sentiment. Most persons, most committees, se-
lectmen, vestrymen, and congregations, who have to do with the
building of churches, appear indeed wholly to ignore the fact, that
the form and feature of a building may be made to express religious,
civil, domestic, or a dozen other feelings, as distinctly as the form
A SHORT CHAPTER ON COUNTRY CHURCHES. 261
and features of the human face ;—and yet this is a fact as well
known by all true architects, as that joy and sorrow, pleasure and
pain, are capable of irradiating or darkening the countenance. Yes,
and we do not say too much, when we add, that right expression
in a building for religious purposes, has as much to do with awak-
ening devotional feelings, and begetting an attachment in the heart,
as the unmistakable signs of virtue and benevolence in our fellow-
creatures, have in awakening kindred feeling in our own breasts.
We donot, of course, mean to say, that a beautiful rural
church will make all the population about it devotional, any more
than that sunshine will banish all gloom ; but it is one of the in-
fluences that prepare the way for religious feeling, and which we
are as unwise to neglect, as we should be to abjure the world and
bury ourselves like the ancient troglodytes, in caves and caverns.
To speak out the truth boldly, would be to say that the ughest
church architecture in Christendom, is at this moment to be found
in the country towns and villages of the United States. Doubtless,
the hatred which originally existed in the minds of our puritan an-
cestors, against every thing that belonged to the Romish Church, in-
cluding in one general sweep all beauty and all taste, along with
all the superstitions and errors of what had become a corrupt
system of religion, is a key to the bareness and baldness, and ab-
sence of all that is lovely to the eye in the primitive churches of
New England—which are for the most part the type-churches of
all America.
But, little by little, this ultra-puritanical spirit is wearing off.
Men are not now so blinded by personal feeling against great spi-
ritual wrongs, as to identify for ever, all that blessed boon of har-
mony, grace, proportion, symmetry and expression, which make
what we call Beauty, with the vices, either real or supposed, of any
particular creed. In short, as a people, our eyes are opening to
the perception of influences that are good, healthful, and elevating
to the soul, in all ages, and all countries—and we separate the
vices of men from the laws of order and beauty, by which the uni-
verse is governed,
The first step which we have taken to show our emancipation
from puritanism in architecture, is that of building our churches
262 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
with porticoes, in a kind of shabby imitation of Greek temples,
This has been the prevailing taste, if it is worthy of that name,
of the Northern States, for the last fifteen or twenty years.
The form of these churches is a parallelogram. A long row of
windows, square or round-headed, and cut in two by a gallery on
the inside ; a clumsy portico of Doric or Ionic columns in front,
and a cupola upon the top, (usually stuck in the only place where
a cupola should never be—that is, directly over the pediment or
portico)—such are the chef d’euvres of ecclesiastical architecture,
standing, in nine cases out of ten, as the rural churches of the
country at large.
Now, architecturally, we ought not to consider these, churches
at all. And by churches, we mean no narrow sectarian phrase—
but a place where Christians worship Gop. Indeed, many of the
congregations seem to have felt this, and contented themselves with
calling them “ meeting-houses.” If they would go a step farther,
and turn them into town imecting-houses—or at least would, in fu-
ture, only build such edifices for town meetings, or other civil pur-
poses, then the building and its purpose would be in good keeping,
one with the other.
Not to appear presumptive and partial in our criticism, let us
glance for a moment at the opposite purposes of the Grecian or
classical, and the Gothic or pointed styles of architecture—as to
what they really mean ;—for our readers must not suppose that all
architects are men who merely put together certain pretty lines and
ornaments, to produce an agreeable effect and please the popu-
lar eye.
In these two styles, which have so taken root that they are em-
ployed at the present moment, all over Europe and America, there
is something more than a mere conventional treatment of doors and
windows; the application of columns in one case, and the introduc-
tion of pointed arches in the other. In other words, there is an in-
trinsic meaning or expression involved in each, which, not to under-
stand, or vaguely to understand, is to be working blindly, or striving
after something in the dark.
The leading idea of the Greek architecture, then, is in its hori-
zontal lines—the unbroken level of its cornice, which is the “ level
A SHORT CHAPTER ON COUNTRY CHURCHES. 263
line of rationality.” Tn this line, in the regular division of spaces,
both of columns and windows, we find the elements of order, law,
and human reason, fully and completely expressed. Hence, the fit-
ness of classical architecture for the service of the state, for the town
hall, the legislative assembly, the lecture room, for intellectual or
scientific debate, and in short, for all civil purposes where the reason
of man is supreme. So, on the other hand, the leading idea of
Gothic architecture is found in its upward lines—its aspiring ten-
dencies. No weight of long cornices, or flat ceilings, can keep it
down ; upward, higher and higher, it soars, lifting every thing, even
heavy, ponderous stones, poising them in the air in vaulted ceilings,
or piling them upwards towards Heaven, in spires, and steeples, and
towers, that, in the great cathedrals, almost seem to pierce the sky.
It must be a dull soul that does not catch and feel something of this
upward tendency in the vaulted aisles, and high, open, pointed roofs
of the interior of a fine Gothic church, as well as its subdued and
mellow light, and its suggestive and beautiful forms: forms, too, that
are rendered more touching by their associations with Christian wor-
ship in so many ages, not, like the Greek edifices, by associations
with heathen devotees.
Granting that the Gothic cathedral expresses, in its lofty, aspir-
ing lines, the spirit of that true faith and devotion which leads us to
look upward, is it possible, in the narrow compass of a village
church which costs but a few hundred, or at most, a few thousand
dollars, to preserve this idea ?
We answer, yes. A drop of water is not the ocean, but it is still
a type of the infinite; and a few words of wisdom may not penetrate
the understanding so deeply as a great volume by a master of the
human heart, but they may work miracles, if fitly spoken. For it
is not the magnitude of things that is the measure of their excellence
and power; and there is space enough for the architect to awaken
devotional feelings, and lead the soul upward, so far as material form
can aid in doing this, though in a less degree, in the little chapel
that is to hold a few hundred, as in the mighty minster where thou-
sands may assemble.
And the cost too, shall not be greater; that is, if a substantial
building is to be erected, and not a flimsy frame of boards and plas-
264 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
ter. Indeed, we could quote numberless instances where the sums
expended in classical buildings, of false proportions but costly execu-
tion,* which can never raise other than emotions of pride in the hu-
man heart, would have built beautiful rural churches, which every
inhabitant of the town where they chanced to stand, would remem-
ber with feelings of respect and affection, to the end of all time.
And in truth, we would not desire to make the country chureb
other than simple, truthful, and harmonious. We would avoid all
pretensions to elaborate architectural ornament; we would depend
upon the right proportions, forms, outlines, and the true expression
Above all, we would have the country church rural and expressive,
by placing it in a spot of green lawn, surrounding it with our beau-
tiful natural shade trees, and decorating its walls (for no church
built in any but the newest settlements, where means are utterly
wanting, should be built of so perishable a material as wood)—with
chmbing plants—the ivy, or where that would not thrive, the Virginia
creeper. And so we would make the country church, in its very
forms and outlines, its walls and the vines that enwreath them, its
shady green and the elms that overhang it, as well as in the lessons
of goodness and piety that emanate from its pulpit, something to
become a part of the affections, and touch and better the hearts of
the whole country about it.
* We have seen with pain, lately, one of those great temple churches
erected in a country town on the Hudson, ata cost of $20,000. It looks
outside and inside, no more like a church, than does the Custom House.
And yet thissum would have built the most perfect of devotional edifices
for that congregation.
Plan cf a School House.
RECITAIION
ROOM
GIRL'’S SCHOOL 10 0X 13.0
ROOM
20/0 X 25:0
HALL
10,0 10/0
a;
A CHAPTER ON SCHOOL-HOUSES.
March, 1848.
F there is any one thing on which the usefulness, the true great-
ness, and the permanence, of a free government depends more
than another, it is Education.
Hence, it is not without satisfaction that we look upon our free
schools, whose rudimentary education is afforded to so many at
very small rates, or often entirely without charge. It is not without
pleasure that we perceive new colleges springing up, as large cities
multiply, and the population increases; it is most gratifying to see,
in the older portions of the country, men of wealth and intelligence
founding new professorships, and bequeathing the best of legacies to
their successors—the means of acquiring knowledge easily and
cheaply.
There is much to keep alive this train of thought, in the very
means of acquiring education. The fertile invention of our age,
and its teachers, seems to be especially devoted to removing all
possible obstacles, and throwing all possible ight on the once diffi-
cult and toilsome paths to the temple of science. Class-books, text-
books, essays and treatises, written in clear terms, and illustrated
with a more captivating style, rob learning of half is terrors to the
beginner, and fairly allure those who do not come willingly into the
charmed circle of educated minds.
All this is truly excellent. This broad basis of education, which
is laid in the hearts of our people, which the States publicly main-
tain, which private munificence fosters, to which even men in for-
266 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
eign lands delight to contribute, must be cherished by every Ameri-
can as the key-stone of his liberty ; it must be rendered still firmer
and broader, to meet the growing strength and the growing dangers
of the country; it must be adapted to the character of our people,—
different and distinct as we believe that character to be from that
of all other nations ; and, above all, without teaching creeds or doc-
trines, it must be pervaded by profound and genuine moral feeling,
more central, and more vital, than that of any narrow sectarianism.
Well, will any of our readers believe that this train of thought
has grown out of our having just seen a most shabby and forbid-
ding-looking school-house! Truly, yes! and, as in an old picture
of Rembrandt’s, the stronger the lights, the darker also the shadows,
we are obliged to confess that, with so much to be proud of in our
system of common schools, there is nothing so beggarly and dis-
graceful as the externals of our country school-houses themselves.
A traveller through the Union, is at once struck with the gen-
eral appearance of comfort in the houses of our rural population.
But, by the way-side, here and there, he observes a small, one story
edifice, built of wood or stone in the most meagre mode,—dingy in
aspect, and dilapidated in condition. It is placed in the barest
and most forbidding site in the whole country round. If you fail
to recognize it by these marks, you can easily make it out by the
broken fences, and tumble-down stone walls that surround it; by
the absence of all trees, and by the general expression of melan-
choly, as if every lover of good order and beauty in the neighbor-
hood had abandoned it to the genius of desolation.
This condition of things is almost universal. It must, therefore,
be founded in some deep-rooted prejudices, or some mistaken idea
of the importance of the subject.
That the wretched condition of the country school-houses is ow-
ing to a general license of what the phrenologists would call the
organs of destructiveness in boys, we are well aware. But it is in
giving this license that the great error of teachers and superintend-
ents of schools lies. There is also, God be thanked, a principle of
order and a love of beauty implanted in every human mind; and
the degree to which it may be cultivated in children is quite un-
known to those who start leaving such a principle wholly out of
A CHAPTER ON SCHOOL-HOUSES. 267
sight. To be convinced of this, it is only necessary to inquire, and
it will be found that in the homes of many of the pupils of the for-
lorn-looking school-house, the utmost propriety, order, and method
reigns. Nay, even within the school-house itself, “heaven’s first
law” is obeyed, perhaps to the very letter. But to look at the ex-
terior, it would appear that the “abbot of unreason,” and not the
“school-master,” was “abroad.” The truth seems to be simply this.
The school-master does not himself appreciate the beautiful in rural
objects; and, content with doing what he conceives his duty to the
heads of his pupils, while they are within the school-house, he
abandons its externals to the juvenile “ reign of terror.”
Nothing is so convincing on these subjects as example. We
saw, last summer, in Dutchess County, New-York, a free school,
erected to fulfil more perfectly the mission of an ordinary district
school-house, which had been built by a gentleman, whose taste
and benevolence seem, like sunshine, to warm and irradiate his
whole neighborhood. It was a building simple enough, after all.
A projecting roof, with slightly ornamented brackets, a pretty
porch, neat chimney tops; its color a soft neutral tint; these were
its leading features. Buta single glance at it told, in a moment,
that the evil spirit had been cast out, and the good spirit had taken
its place. The utmost neatness and cleanliness appeared in every
part. Beautiful vines and creepers climbed upon the walls, and
hung in festoons over the windows. Groups of trees, and flowering
shrubs, were thriving within its inclosure. A bit of neat lawn sur-
rounded the building, and was evidently an object of care and re-
spect with the pupils themselves. Altogether, it was a picture of a
common district school which, compared with that we before de-
scribed, and which one every day sees, was a foretaste of the mille-
nium. If any stubborn pedagogue doubts it, let him come to us,
and we will direct him on a pilgrimage to this Mecca, which is only
eight miles from us.
It appears to us that a great error has taken deep root in the
minds of most parents and teachers, regarding the influence of or-
der and beauty on the youthful mind. Ah! it is precisely at that
age—in youth—when the heart is most sensitive, when the feelings
are more keenly alive than at any other; it is precisely at that age
268 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
that the soul opens itself most to visions of beauty—that the least
measure of harmony—the most simple notions of the graceful and
symmetrical—fill it with joy. The few yards square, in which the
child is permitted to realize his own vague ideal of a garden—does
it not fill his heart more completely than the great Versailles of
monarchs that of the mature man? Do we not forever remember
with what transport of delight we have first seen the grand old
trees, the beautiful garden, the favorite landscape, from the hill-top
of our childhood? What after pictures, however grand—however
magnificent—however perfect to the more educated eye, are ever
able to efface these first daguerreotypes, printed on the fresh pages
of the youthful soul ?
It is rather because teachers misunderstand the nature of man,
and more especially of boyhood, that we see so much to deplore in
the exteriors of the houses in which they are taught. They forget,
that in human natures there are not only intellects to acquire know-
ledge, but also hearts to feel and senses to enjoy life. They forget
that all culture is one-sided and short-sighted, which does not aim
to develop human nature completely, fully.
We have an ideal picture, that refreshes our imagination, of
common school-houses, scattered all over our wide country; not
wild bedlams, which seem to the traveller plague-spots on the fair
country landscape ; but little nests of verdure and beauty; embryo
arcadias, that beget tastes for lovely gardens, neat houses, and well
cultivated lands; spots of recreation, that are play-grounds for the
memory, for many long years after all else of childhood is crowded
out and effaced for ever.
Let some of our readers who have an influence in this matter,
try to work a little reform in their own districts. Suppose, in the first
place, the school-house itself is rendered agreeable to the eye. Sup-
pose a miniature park of elms and maples is planted about it. Sup-
pose a strip of ground is set apart for little gardens, to be given as
premiums to the successful pupils; and which they are only to hold
so long as both they and their gardens are kept up to the topmost
standard. Suppose the trees are considered to be the property and
under the protection of certain chiefs of the classes. And, suppose
A CHAPTER ON SCHOOL-HOUSES. 269
that, besides all this little arrangement for the growth of a love of
order and beauty in the youthful heart and mind, there is an ample
play-ground provided for the expenditure of youthful activity ; where
wild sports and gymnastics may be indulged to the utmost delight
of their senses, and the utmost benefit of their constitutions. Is this
Utopian? Does any wise reader think it is not worthier of the con-
sideration of the State, than fifty of the projects which will this year
come before it ?
For ourselves, we have perfect faith im the future. We believe
in the millennium of schoolboys. And we believe that our country-
men, as soon as they comprehend fully the value and importance
of external objects on the mind—on the heart—on the manners—
on the life of all human beings—will not be slow to concentrate all
beautiful, good, and ennobling influences around that primary nursery
of the intellect and sensations—the district school.
There is a strong illustration of our general acknowledgment of
this influence of the beautiful, to be found, at the present moment,
in this country more than in any other. We allude to our Rural
Cemeteries, and our Insane Asylums. It is somewhat curious, but
not less true, that no country-seats, no parks or pleasure-grounds, in
America, are laid out with more care, adorned with more taste, filled
with more lovely flowers, shrubs and trees, than some of our princi-
pal cemeteries and asylums. Is it not surprising that only when
touched with sorrow, we, as a people, most seek the gentle and re-
fining influence of nature? Ah! many a man, whose life was hard
and stony, reposes, after death, in those cemeteries, beneath a turf
covered with violets and roses; but for him, it is too late! Many a
fine intellect, overtasked and wrecked in the too ardent pursuit of
power or wealth, is fondly courted back to reason, and more quiet
joys, by the dusky, cool walks of the asylum, where peace and rural
beauty do not refuse to dwell. But, alas, too often their mission is
fruitless !
How much better, to distil these “gentle dews of heaven” into
the young heart, to implant, even in the schoolboy days, a love of
trees ; of flowers; of gardens; of the country; of home ;—of all
those pure and simple pleasures, which are, in the after life—even
270 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
if they exist only in the memory—a blessed panacea, amid the dry-
ness and dustiness of so many of the paths of life—politics—com-
merce—the professions—and all other busy, engrossing occupations,
whose cares become, else, almost a fever in the veins of our erdent,
enterprising people.
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Ornamental Ice House above ground
Ornamental Ice House above ground
XI.
HOW TO BUILD ICE-HOUSES.
December, 1846.
HE icr-House and the nor-Houss, types of Lapland and the
Tropics, are two contrivances which civilization has invented for
the comfort or luxury of man. A native of the Sandwich Islands,
who lives, as he conceives, in the most delicious climate in the world,
and sleeps away the best part of his life in that happy state which
the pleasure-loving Italians call “dolce far niente,” (sweet do no-
thing)—smiles and shudders when he hears of a region where his
familiar trees must be kept in glass houses, and the water turns, now
and then, into solid, cold crystal !
Yet, if happiness, as some philosophers have affirmed, consists
in a variety of sensations, we denizens of temperate latitudes have
greatly the advantage of him. What surprise and pleasure awaits
the Sandwich Islander, for example, like that we experience on en-
tering a spacious hot-house, redolent of blossoms and of perfume, in
mid-winter, or on refreshing our exhausted frames with one of “Thom-
son and Weller’s” vanilla creams, or that agreeable compound of
the vintage of Xeres, pounded ice, etc., that bears the humble name
of “ sherry-cobbler ;” but which, having been introduced lately from
this country into London, along with our “ American ice,” has sent
into positive ecstasies all those of the great metropolis, who depend
upon their throats for sensations.
Our business at the present moment, is with the ice-house,—as a
necessary and most useful appendage to a country residence. Abroad,
both the ice-house and the hot-house are portions of the wealthy
DD RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
o
man’s establishment solely. But in this country, the ice-house forms
part of the comforts of every substantial farmer. It is not for the sake
of ice-creams and cooling liquors, that it has its great value in his eyes,
but as a means of preserving and keeping in the finest condition,
during the summer, his meat, his butter, his delicate fruit, and, in
short, his whole perishable stock of provisions. Half a dozen cor-
respondents, lately, have asked us for some advice on the construc-
tion of an ice-house, and we now cheerfully offer all the informa-
tion in our possession.
To build an ice-house in sandy or gravelly soils, is one of the
easiest things in the world. The drainage there is perfect, the dry and
porous soil is of itself a sufficiently good non-conductor. All that it
is necessary to do, is to
dig a pit, twelve feet
square, and_as many
deep, line it with logs
or joists faced with
boards, cover it with a
simple roof on a level
with the ground, and
fill it with ice. Such
ice-houses, built with
trifling cost, and en-
tirely answering the
purpose of affording
ample supply for a —= ———
large family, oe eae Fig. 3. The common Ice-house below ground.
mon in various parts of the country.
But it often happens that one’s residence is upon a strong loamy
or cJayey soil, based upon clay or slate, or, at least, rocky in its sub-
stratum. Such a soil is retentive of moisture, and even though it
be well drained, the common ice-house, just described, will not pre-
serve ice half through the summer in a locality of that kind. The
clayey or rocky soil is always damp—it is always an excellent con-
ductor, and the ice melts in it in spite of all the usual precautions.
Something more than the common ice-house is therefore needed
HOW TO BUILD ICE-HOUSES. 278
in all such soils. “How shall it be built?” is the question which has
been frequently put to us lately.
To enable us to answer this question in the most satisfactory
manner, we addressed ourselves to Mr. N. J. Wyeth of Cambridge,
Mass., whose practical information on this subject is probably fuller
and more complete than that of any other person in the country,
he, for many years, having had the construction and management
of the enormous commercial ice-houses, near Boston—the largest
and most perfect known.*
We desired Mr. Wyeth’s hints for building an ice-house for
family use, both above ground and below ground.
In the beginning we should remark that the great ice-houses of
our ice companies are usually built above ground; and Mr. Wyeth
in his letter to us re-
OO’ marks, “we now never
build or use an tce-
house under ground ;
it never preserves ice
Pa Sneemnst ch nie) ee tte spas as well as those built
etre wah he ~ NYS
Pam et ON tree wie sabe 0 oe .
SSS SSG above ground, and
ace
sketches in explana-
‘ heey
PSN costs much more. I,
Hise ats ;
yesh however, send you di-
Pt hip , Ki
is; ' rections for the con-
eu struction of both
cil kinds, with — slight
tion.” The following
are Mr. Wyeth’s di-
rections for building:
LEA LALLA DDD AAA EPL Dg
(74 4
——— (TSS aS 1st. An ace-house
= N=) SOP a oe 3
= \=. EET IRS Beara above ground. An ice-
Fig 4, Section of the Ice-house above ground. should be built upon
house above ground
* Few of our readers are aware of the magnitude which the business of
supplying foreign countries with ice has attained in New England. Millions
of dollars worth have been shipped from the port of Boston alone, within
18
Q44 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
the plan of having a double partition, with the hollow space be
tween filled with some non-conducting substance.
“Tn the first place, the frame of the sides should be formed of
two ranges of upright joists, 6 by 4 inches; the lower ends of the
joists should be put into the ground without any sill, which is apt
to let air pass through. These two ranges of joists should be about
two feet and one-half
apart at the bottom,
: and two feet deep at
the top. At the top
these joists should be
Z mortised into the
cross-beams, which are
Fig, 5. Manner of nailing the boards to the joists. to support the upper
floor. The joists in the two ranges should be placed each opposite
another. They should then be lined or faced on one side, with
rough boarding, which need not be very tight. This boarding
should be nailed to those edges of the joists nearest each other, so
that one range of joists shall be outside the building, and the other
inside the ice-room or vault. (Fig. 5.)
“The space between these boardings or partitions should be filled
with wet tan, or sawdust, whichever is cheapest or most easily ob-
tained. ‘The reason for using wet material for filling this space is
that during winter it freezes, and until it is again thawed, little or
no ice will melt at the sides of the vault.
“The bottom of the ice vault should be filled about a foot deep with
small blocks of wood ; these are levelled and covered with wood shay-
ings, over which a strong plank floor should be laid to receive the ice.
the last eight years; and the East and West Indies, China, England, and the
South, are constantly supplied with ice from that neighborhood. Wenham
Lake is now as well known in London for its ice, as Westphalia for its hams.
This enterprise owes its success mainly to the energy of Frederick Tudor, Esq.,
of Boston. The ice-houses of this gentleman, built, we believe, chiefly by
Mr. Wyeth, are on a more gigantic scale than any others in the world. An
extra whole year’s supply is laid up in advance, to guard against the acei-
dent of a mild winter, and a railroad several miles in length, built expressly
for the purpose, conveys the ice to the ships lying in the harbor.
HOW TO BUILD ICE-HOUSES. O15
“Upon the beams above the vault, a pretty tight floor should
also be laid, and this floor should be covered several inches deep
with dry tan or sawdust. The roof of the ice-house should have
considerable pitch, and the space between the upper floor and the
roof should be ventilated by a lattice window at each gable end or
something equivalent, to pass out the warm air which will accumu-
late beneath the roof. A door must be provided in the side of the
vault to fill and discharge it ; but it should always be closed up higher
than the ice, and when not in use should be kept closed altogether.
“2d. An Ice-house below ground. This is‘only thoroughly made
by building up the sides of the pit with a good brick or stone wall, lain
inmortar. Inside of this wall set joists, and build a light wooden par-
tition against which to place the ice. A good floor should be laid
over the vault as just described, and this should also be covered with
dry tan or sawdust. In this floor the door must be cut to give ac-
cess to the ice.
“ As regards the bottom of the vault, the floor, the lattice win-
dows in the gables for ventilation, etc., the same remarks will apply
that have just been given for the ice-house above ground, with the
addition that in one of the gables, in this case, must be the door for
filling the house with ice.
“Tf the ground where ice-houses of either kind are built, is not
porous enough to let the melted ice drain away, then there should
be a waste pipe to carry it off, which should be slightly bent, so as
always to retain enough water in it to prevent the passage of air up-
wards into the ice-house.”
These plain and concise hints by Mr. Wyeth, will enable our
readers, who have failed in building ice-houses in the common way,
to remedy their defects, or to construct new ones on the improved
plan just given. The main points, it will be seen, are, to place a
sufficient non-conducting medium of tan or sawdust, if above ground,
or of wall and wood partition, if below ground, to prevent the action
of the air, or the damp soil, on the body of ice inclosed in the vault.
Mr. Wyeth has not told us how large the dimensions of an ice-
house built in either of these modes should be to provide for the
use of an ordinary family through a season ; but we will add as to
this point, that a cube of twelve or fourteen feet—that is, a house
276 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
the vault of which will measure about twelve to fourteen feet “in
the clear,” every way, will be quite large enough, if properly con-
structed. An ice-house, the vault of which is a cube of twelve feet,
will hold about fifty tons of ice. One of this size, near Boston, filled
last January, is still half full of ice, after supplying the wants of a
family all the season.
In the ice-house above
ground, the opening being
in the side, it will be best
to have a double door, one
in each partition, opposite
each other. The outer one
may be entire, but the in-
ner one should be in two
or three parts. The upper
part may be opened first,
so that only so much of
the ice may be exposed at
once, as is necessary to
reach the topmost layers.
An _ ice-house below
ground is so inconspicuous
on object, that it is easily
kept out of sight, and little
or no regard may be paid to its exterior appearance. On the con-
trary, an ice-house above ground is a building of sufficient size to
attract the eye, and in many country residences, therefore, it will be
desirable to give its exterior a neat or tasteful air.
It will frequently be found, however, that an ice-house above
ground may be very conveniently constructed under the same roof
as the wood-house, tool-house, or some other necessary out-building,
following all the necessary details just laid down, and continuing
one roof and the same kind of exterior over the whole building.
In places of a more ornamental character, where it is desirable
to place the elevated ice-house at no great distance from the dwell-
ing, it should, of course, take something of an ornamental or pictu-
resque character.
Ir
Fig. 6. Double Door of the Ice-house.
: HOW TO BUILD ICE-HOUSES. pay |
In figures 1 and 2, are shown two designs for ice-houses above
ground, in picturesque styles. Figure 1 is built in a circular form,
and the roof neatly thatched. The outside of this ice-house is
roughly weather-boarded, and then ornamented with rustic work,
or covered with strips of bark neatly nailed on in panels or devices.
Two small gables with blinds ventilate the space under the roof.
Fig. 2 is a square ice-house, with a roof projecting three or four
feet, and covered with shingles, the lower ends of which are cut so
as to form diamond patterns when laid on the roof. The rustic
brackets which support this roof, and the rustic columns of the other
design, will be rendered more durable by stripping the bark off, and
thoroughly painting them some neutral or wood tint.*
* The projecting roof will assist in keeping the building cool. In filling
the house, back up the wagon loaded with ice, and slide the squares of ice
to their places on a plank serving as an inclined plane.
»- CHE
THE FAVORITE POISON OF AMERICA.
November, 1850.
fies of the most complete and salutary reforms ever, perhaps,
made in any country, is the temperance reform of the last fif-
teen years in the United States. Every body, familiar with our man-
ners and customs fifteen or twenty years ago, very well knows that
though our people were never positively intemperate, yet ardent
spirits were, at that time, in almost as constant daily use, both in
public and private life, as tea and coffee are now ; while at the pres-
ent moment, they are seldom or never offered as a means of civility
or refreshment—at least in the older States. The result of this
higher civilization or temperance, as one may please to call it, is that
a large amount of vice and crime have disappeared from amidst the
laboring classes, while the physical as well as moral condition of
those who labor too little to be able to bear intoxicating drinks, is
very much improved.
We have taken this consolatory glance at this great and saluta-
ry reform of the habits of a whole country, because we need some-
thing to fortify our faith in the possibility of new reforms; for our
countrymen have, within the last ten years, discovered a new poison,
which is used wholesale, both in public and private, all over the
country, till the national health and constitution are absolutely im-
paired by it.
“ A national poison? Do you mean slavery, socialism, abolition,
mormonism?” Nothing of the sort. “Then, perhaps, tobacco,
patent medicines, or coffee?” Worse than these. It is a foe more
THE FAVORITE POISON OF AMERIOA. 249
insidious than these ; for, at least, one very well knows what one is
about when he takes copious draughts of such things. Whatever
his own convictions may be, he knows that some of his fellow crea-
tures consider them deleterious.
But the national poison is not thought dangerous. Far from it.
On the contrary, it is made almost synonymous with domestic com-
fort. Old and young, rich and poor, drink it in with avidity, and
without shame. The most tender and delicate women and children
are fondest of it, and become so accustomed to it, that they gradu-
ally abandon the delights of bright sunshine, and the pure air of
heaven, to take it in large draughts. What matter if their cheeks
become as pale as the ghosts of Ossian ; if their spirits forsake them,
and they become listless and languid! Ave they not well housed
and comfortable? Ayre not their lives virtuous, and their affairs
prosperous? Alas, yes! But they are not the less guilty of poison-
ing themselves daily, though perhaps unconscious of it all the
time.
The national poison that we allude to, is nothing less than the
vitiated air of close stoves, and the unventilated apartments which
accompany them !
“ Stoves ”—exclaim a thousand readers in the same breath—
“stoves poisonous? Nonsense! they are perfectly healthy, as well
as the most economical, convenient, labor-saving, useful, and indis-
pensable things in the world. Besides, are they not real Yankee
inventions? In what country but this is there such an endless va-
riety of stoves—cooking stoves, hall stoves, parlor stoves, air-tight
stoves, cylinders, salamanders, etc.? Why, it is absolutely the na-
tional invention—this stove—the most useful result of universal
Yankee ingenuity.”
We grant it all, good friends and readers; but must also have
our opinion—our calmly considered and carefully matured opinion—
which is nothing more nor less than this, that stoves—as now used
—are the national curse; the secret poisoners of that blessed air,
bestowed by kind Providence as an elixir of life,—giving us new
vigor and fresh energy at every inspiration; and we, ungrateful
_ beings, as if the pure breath of heaven were not fit for us, we reject
it, and breathe instead.
what !—the air which passes over a surface
280 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
of hot iron, and becomes loaded with all the vapor of arsenic and
sulphur, which that metal, highly heated, constantly gives off !
If in the heart of large cities—where there is a large population
crowded together, with scanty means of subsistence—one saw a few
persons driven by necessity into warming their small apartments by
little close stoves of iron, liable to be heated red-hot, and thereby to
absolutely destroy the purity of the air, one would not be so much
astonished at the result, because it is so difficult to preserve the poor-
est class from suffering, in some way or other, in great cities. But
it is by no means only in the houses of those who have slender
means of subsistence, that this is the case. It is safe to say that
nine-tenths of all the houses in the northern States, whether belong-
ing to rich or poor, are entirely unventilated, and heated at the pres-
ent moment by close stoves !
It is absolutely a matter of preference on the part of thousands,
with whom the trifling difference between one mode of heating and
another is of no account. Even in the midst of the country, where
there is still wood in abundance, the farmer will sell that wood and
buy coal, so that he may have a little demon—alias a black, cheer-
less close stove—in the place of that genuine, hospitable, wholesome
friend and comforter, an open wood fireplace.
And in order not to leave one unconverted soul in the wilder-
ness, the stove inventors have lately brought out “a new article,” for
forest countries, where coal is not to be had either for love or barter—an
“air-tight stove for burning wood.” The seductive, convenient, mon-
strous thing! “ Tt consumes one-fifth of the fuel which was needed
by the open chimney—is so neat and clean, makes no dust, and
gives no trouble.” All quite true, dear, considerate housewife—all
quite true; but that very stove causes your husband to pay twice
its savings to the family doctor before two winters are past, and gives
you thrice as much trouble in nursing the sick in your family, as
you formerly spent in taking care of the fire in your chimney cor-
ner,—besides depriving you of the most delightful of all household
occupations.
Our countrymen generally have a vast deal of national pride,
and national sensitiveness, and we honor them for it. It is the warp
and woof, out of which the stuff of national improvement is woven,
THE FAVORITE POISON OF AMERICA, 281
When a nation has become quite indifferent as to what it has done,
or can do, then there is nothing left but for its prophets to utter la-
mentations over it.
Now there is a curious but indisputable fact (somebody must say
it), touching our present condition and appearance, as a nation of
men, women and children, in which we Americans compare most
unfavorably with the people of Europe, and especially with those
of northern Europe—England and France, for example. It is
neither in religion or morality, law or liberty. In these great essen-
tials, every American feels that his country is the birthplace of a
larger number of robust and healthy souls than any other. But in
the bodily condition, the signs of physical health, and all that con-
stitutes the outward aspect of the men and women of the United
States, our countrymen, and especially countrywomen, compare most
unfavorably with all but the absolutely starving classes, on the other
side of the Atlantic. So completely is this the fact, that, though
we are unconscious of it at home, the first thing (especially of late
years) which strikes an American, returning from abroad, is the pale
and sickly countenances of his friends, acquaintances, and almost
every one he meets in the streets of large towns,—every other man
looking as if he had lately recovered from a fit of illness. The men
look so pale and the women so delicate, that his eye, accustomed to
the higher hues of health, and the more vigorous physical condition
of transatlantic men and women, scarcely credits the assertion of
old acquaintances, when they assure him that they were “never
better in their lives.”
With this sort of impression weighing disagreeably on our mind,
on returning from Europe lately, we fancied it worth our while to
plunge two hundred or three hundred miles into the interior of the
State of New-York. It would be pleasant, we thought, to see, not
only the rich forest scenery opened by the new railroad to Lake
Erie, but also (for we felt confident they were there) some good,
hearty, fresh-looking lads and lasses among the farmers’ sons and
daughters.
We were for the most part disappointed. Certainly the men,
especially the young men, who live mostly in the open air, are heal-
thy and robust. But the daughters of the farmers—they are as
282 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
delicate and pale as lilies of the valley, or fine ladies of the Fifth
Avenue. If one catches a glimpse of a rose in their cheeks, it is
the pale rose of the hot-house, and not the fresh glow of the garden
damask. Alas, we soon discovered the reason. They, too, live for
seven months of the year in unventilated rooms, heated by close
stoves! ‘The fireplaces are closed up, and ruddy complexions have
vanished with them. Occasionally, indeed, one meets with an ex-
ception; some bright-eyed, young, rustic Hebe, whose rosy cheeks
and round, elastic figure would make you believe that the world has
not all grown “ delicate ;” and if you inquire, you will learn, proba-
bly, that she is one of those whose natural spirits force them out
continually, in the open air, so that she has, as yet, in that way
escaped any considerable doses of the national poison.
Now that we are fairly afloat on this dangerous sea, we must
unburthen our heart sufficiently to say, that neither in England nor
France does one meet with so much beauty—certainly not, so far as
charming eyes and expressive faces go towards constituting beauty
—as in America. But alas, on the other hand, as compared with
the elastic figures and healthful frames abroad, American beauty is as
evanescent as a dissolving view, contrasting with a real and living
landscape. What is with us a sweet dream, from sixteen to twenty-
five, is there a permanent reality till forty-five or fifty.
We should think it might be a matter of climate, were it not
that we saw, as the most common thing, even finer complexions
in France—yes, in the heart of Paris, and especially among the
peasantry, who are almost wholly in the open air—than in England.
And what, then, is the mystery of fine physical health, which
is so much better understood in the old world than the new?
The first transatlantic secret of health, is a much longer time
passed daily in the open air, by all classes of people ; the second, the
better modes of heating and ventilating the rooms in which they live.
Regular daily exercise in the open air, both as a duty and a
pleasure, is something looked upon in a very different light on the
two different sides of the Atlantic. On this side of the water, if a
person—say a professional man, or a merchant—is seen regularly
devoting a certain portion of the day to exercise, and the preserva-
tion of his bodily powers, he is looked upon as a valetudinarian,—
THE FAVORITE POISON OF AMERICA. 283
an invalid, who is obliged to take care of himself, poor soul! and
his friends daily meet him with sympathizing looks, hoping he “feels
better,” etc. As for ladies, if there is not some odject in taking a
- walk, they look upon it as the most stupid and unmeaning thing
in the world.
On the other side of the water, a person who should neglect the
pleasure of breathing the free air for a couple of hours, daily, or
should shun the duty of exercise, is suspected of slight lunacy; and
ladies who should prefer continually to devote their leisure to the
solace of luxurious cushions, rather than an exhilarating ride or walk,
are thought a little téte montée. What, in short, is looked upon as
a virtue there, is only regarded as a matter of fancy here. Hence,
an American generally shivers, in an air that is only grateful and
bracing to an Englishman, and looks blue in Paris, in weather when
the Parisians sit with the casement windows of their saloons wide
open. Yet it is, undoubtedly, all a matter of habit; and we Yan-
kees, (we mean those of us not forced to “rough it,”) with the tough-
est natural constitutions in the world, nurse ourselves, as a people,
into the least robust and most susceptible physiques in existence.
So much for the habit of exercise in the open air. Now let us
look at our mode of warming and ventilating our dwellings; for it
is here that the national poison is engendered, and here that the
ghostly expression is begotten.
However healthy a person may be, he can neither look healthy
nor remain in sound health long, if he is in the habit of breathing
impure air. As sound health depends upon pure blood, and there
can be no pure blood in one’s veins if it is not repurified continual-
ly by the action of pure air upon it, through the agency of the
lungs (the whole purpose of breathing being to purify and vitalize
the blood ), it follows, that if a nation of people will, from choice,
live in badly ventilated rooms, full of impure air, they must become
pale and sallow in complexions. It may not largely affect the
health of the men, who are more or less called into the open air by
their avocations, but the health of women (ergo the constitutions of
children), and all those who are confined to rooms or offices heated
in this way, must gradually give way under the influence of the
poison. Hence, the delicacy of thousands and tens of thousands
of the sex in America.
284 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
“ And how can you satisfy me,” asks some blind lover of stoves,
“that the air of a room heated by a close stove is deleterious?”
Very easily indeed, if you will listen to a few words of reason.
It is well established that a healthy man must have about a pint of
air at a breath; that he breathes above a thousand times in an hour;
and that, as a matter beyond dispute, he requires about fifty-seven
hogsheads of air in twenty four hours.
Besides this, it is equally well settled, that as common air con-
sists of a mixture of two gases, one healthy (oxygen), and the other
unhealthy (nitrogen), the air we have once breathed, having, by
passing through the lungs, been deprived of the most healthful
gas, is little less than unmixed poison (nitrogen).
Now, a room warmed by an open fireplace or grate, is neces-
sarily more or less ventilated, by the very process of combustion
going on; because, as a good deal of the air of the room goes up
the chimney, besides the sinoke and vapor of the fire, a corresponding
amount of fresh air comes in at the windows and door crevices to
supply its place. The room, in other words, is tolerably well sup-
plied with fresh air for breathing.
But let us take the case of a room heated by a close stove. The
chimney is stopped up, to begin with. The room is shut up. The
windows are made pretty tight to keep out the cold; and as there is
very litile air carried out of the room by the stove-pipe, (the stove is
perhaps on the air-tight principle,—that is, it requires the minimum
amount of air,) there is little fresh air coming in through the cre-
vices to supply any vacuum. Suppose the room holds 300 hogs-
heads of air. If a single person requires 57 hogsheads of fresh
air per day, it would last four persons but about twenty-four hours,
and the stove would require half as much more. But, as a man
renders noxious as much again air as he expires from his lungs, it
actually happens that in four or five hours all the air in this room
has been either breathed over, or is so mixed with the impure air
which has been breathed over, that it is all thoroughly poisoned,
and unfit for healthful respiration. A person with his senses un-
blunted, has only to go into an ordinary unventilated room, heated
by a stove, to perceive at once, by the effect on the lungs, how dead,
stifled, and destitute of all elasticity the air is.
THE FAVORITE POISON OF AMERICA, 285
And this is the air which four-fifths of our countrymen and
countrywomen breathe in their homes,—not from necessity, but
from choice.*
This is the air which those who travel by hundreds of thousands
in our railroad cars, closed up in winter, and heated with close
stoves, breathe for hours—or often entire days.t
This is the air which fills the cabins of closely packed steam-
boats, always heated by large stoves, and only half ventilated; the
air breathed by countless numbers—both waking or sleeping.
This is the air—no, this is even salubrious compared with the
air—that is breathed by hundreds and thousands in almost all our
crowded lecture-rooms, concert-rooms, public halls, and private as-
semblies, all over the country. They are nearly all heated by stoves
or furnaces, with very imperfect ventilation, or no ventilation at all.
Is it too much to call it the national poison, this continual at-
mosphere of close stoves, which, whether travelling or at home, we
Americans are content to breathe, as if it were the air of Par-
adise ?
We very well know that we have a great many readers who
abominate stoves, and whose houses are warmed and ventilated in
an excellent manner. But they constitute no appreciable fraction
of the vast portion of our countrymen who love stoves—fill their
houses with them—are ignorant of their evils, and think ventilation
and fresh air physiological chimeras, which may be left to the
speculations of doctors and learned men.
* We have said that the present generation of stove-reared farmers’
daughters are pale and delicate in appearance. We may add that the most
healthy and blooming looking American women, are those of certain fami-
lies where exercise, and fresh air, and ventilation, are matters of conscience
and duty here as in Europe.
+ Why the ingenuity of clever Yankees has not been directed to warm-
ing railroad cars(by means of steam conveyed through metal tubes, running
under the floor, and connected with flexible coupling pipes,) we cannot well
understand. It would be at once cheaper than the present mode, (since
waste steam could be used,) and far more wholesome. Railroad cars have,
it is true, ventilators at the top for the escape of foul air, but no apertures
in the floor for the inlet of fresh air! It is like emptying a barrel without
a vent.
286 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.
And so, every other face that one meets in America, has a
ghostly paleness about it, that would make a European stare.*
What is to be done? “Americans will have stoves.” They
suit the country, especially the new country; they are cheap, labor-
saving, clean. If the more enlightened and better informed throw
them aside, the great bulk of the people will not. Stoves are, we
are told, in short, essentially democratic and national.
We answer, let us ventilate our rooms, and learn to live more in
the open air. If our countrymen will take poison in, with every
breath which they inhale in their houses and all their public gather-
ings, let them dilute it largely, and they may escape from a part at
least of the evils of taking it in such strong doses.
We have not space here to show in detail the best modes of ven-
tilating now in use. But they may be found described in several
works, especially devoted to the subject, published lately. In our
volume on Country Hovusszs, we have briefly shown, not only the
principles of warming rooms, but the most simple and complete
modes of ventilation—from Arnott’s chimney valve, which may
for a small cost be easily placed in the chimney flue of any room,
to Emerson’s more complete apparatus, by which the largest apart-
ments, or every room in the largest house, may be warmed and
ventilated at the same time, in the most complete and satisfactory ~
manner.
We assure our readers that we are the more in earnest upon
this subject, because they are so apathetic. As they would shake
aman about falling into that state of delightful numbness which
precedes freezing to death, all the more vigorously in proportion to
his own indifference and unconsciousness to his sad state, so we are
the more emphatic in what we have said, because we see the na-
tional poison begins to work, and the nation is insensible.
Pale countrymen and countrywomen, rouse yourselves! Con-
sider that Gop has given us an atmosphere of pure, salubrious,
health-giving air, 45 miles high, and—ventilate your houses.
* We ought not, perhaps, to include the Germans and Russians. They
also love stoves, and the poison of bad air indoors, and therefore have not
the look of health of other European nations, though they live far more in
the open air than we do.
TREES.
wih
ONAN
es i" { aie
Wagiahly? Y
tins
ie igh
The Norway Spruce Fir
Full grown tree at Studley, 1321t. bizgh; diameterot the trunk, 61-2 ft. ; and of the head, 39 ft,
[Scale 1 im. to 24 feety
TREES.
THE BEAUTIFUL IN A TREE.
February, 1851.
N what does the beauty of a tree consist ? We mean, of course,
what may strictly be called an ornamental tree—not a tree
planted for its fruit in the orchard, or growing for timber in the
forest, but standing alone in the lawn or meadow—growing in
groups in the pleasure-ground, overarching the roadside, or border-
ing some stately avenue.
Is it not, first of all, that such a tree, standing where it can grow
untouched, and develop itself on all sides, is one of the finest pictures
of symmetry and proportion that the eye can any where meet with ?
The tree may be young, or it may be old, but if left to nature, it is
sure to grow into some form that courts the eye and satisfies it. It
may branch out boldly and grandly, like the oak; its top may be broad
and stately, like the chestnut, or drooping and elegant, like the elm,
or delicate and airy like the birch, but it is sure to grow into the type
form—either beautiful or picturesque—that nature stamped upon its
species, and which is the highest beauty that such tree can possess.
It is true, that nature plants some trees, like the fir and pine, in the
fissures of the rock, and on the edge of the precipice; that she twists
their boughs and gnarls their stems, by storms and tempests—there-
by adding to their picturesque power in sublime and grand scenery ;
but as 2 general truth, it may be clearly stated that the Beautiful, in
19
290 TREES. *
a tree of any kind, is never so fully developed as when, in a genial
soil and climate, it stands quite alone, stretching its boughs upward
freely to the sky, and outward to the breeze, and even downward
towards the earth—almost touching it with their graceful sweep, till
only a glimpse of the fine trunk is had at its spreading base, and
the whole top is one great globe of floating, waving, drooping, or
sturdy luxuriance, giving one as perfect an idea of symmetry and
proportion, as can be found short of the Grecian Apollo itself.
We have taken the pains to present this beau-ideal of a fine or-
namental tree to our readers, in order to contrast it with another pic-
ture, not from nature—but by the hands of quite another master.
This master is the man whose passion is to prune trees. To his
mind, there is nothing comparable to the satisfaction of trimming a
tree. A tree in a state of nature is a no more respectable object than
an untamed savage. It is running to waste with leaves and bran-
ches, and has none of the look of civilization about it. Only let him
use his saw for a short time, upon any young specimen just growing
into adolescence, and throwing out its delicate branches like a fine
fall of drapery, to conceal its naked trunk, and you shall see how
he will ¢mprove its appearance. Yes, he will trim up those branches
till there is a tall, naked stem, higher than. his head. That shows
that the tree has been taken care of—has been trimmed—ergo,
trained and educated into a look of respectability. This is his great
point—the fundamental law of sylvan beauty in his mind—a bare
pole with a top of foliage at the end of it. If he cannot do this,
he may content himself with thinning out the branches to let in the
light, or chpping them at the ends +o send the head upwards, or
cutting out the leader to make it spread laterally. But though the
trees formed by these latter modes of pruning, are well enough,
they never reach that exalted standard, which has for its type, a pole
as bare as a ship’s mast, with only a flying studding-sail of green
boughs at the end of it.*
We suppose this very common pleasure—for it must be a
pleasure—which so many persons find in trimming up ornamental
® Some of our readers may not be aware that to cut off the side branches
on a young trunk, actually lessens the growth in diameter of that trunk at
once.
THE BEAUTIFUL IN A TREE, 291
trees, is based on a feeling that trees, growing quite in the natural
way, must be capable of some amelioration by art; and as pruning
is usually acknowledged to be useful in developing certain points in
a fruit tree, a like good purpose will be reached by the use of the
knife upon an ornamental tree. But the comparison does not hold
good—since the objects aimed at are essentially different. Pruning
—at least all useful pruning—as applied to fruit trees, is applied for
the purpose of adding to, diminishing, or otherwise regulating the
Fruitfulness of the tree; and this, im many cases, is effected at the
acknowledged diminution of the growth, luxuriance and beauty of
the trees-so far as spread of branches and prodigality of foliage go.
But even here, the pruner who prunes only for the sake of using the
knife (like heartless young surgeons in hospitals), not unfrequently
goes too far, injures the perfect maturity of the crop, and hastens the
decline of the tree, by depriving it of the fair proportions which na-
ture has established between the leaf and the fruit.
But for the most part, we imagine that the practice we complain
of is a want of perception of what is truly beautiful in an ornamen-
tal tree. It seems to us indisputable, that no one who has any per-
ception of the beautiful in nature, could ever doubt for a moment,
that a fine single elm or oak, such as we may find in the valley of
the Connecticut or the Genesee, which has never been touched by
the knife, is the most perfect standard of sylvan grace, symmetry,
dignity, and finely balanced proportions, that it is possible to con-
ceive. One would no more wish to touch it with saw or axe (unless
to remove some branch that has fallen into decay), than to give a
nicer curve to the rainbow, or add freshness to the dew-drop. If any
of our readers, who still stand by the pruning-knife, will only give
themselves up to the study of such trees as these—trees that have
the most completely developed forms that nature stamps upon the
species, they are certain to arrive at the same conclusions. For the
beautiful in nature, though not alike visible to every man, never
fails to dawn, sooner or later, upon all who seek her in the right
spirit.
And in art too—no great master of landscape, no Claude, or
Poussin, or Turner, paints mutilated trees; but trees of grand and
majestic heads, full of health and majesty, or grandly stamped with
292 TREES.
the wild irregularity of nature in her sterner types. The few Dutch
or French artists who are the exceptions to this, and have copied
those emblems of pruned deformity—the pollard trees that figure
in the landscapes of the Low Countries—have given local truthfulness
to their landscapes, at the expense of every thing like sylvan loveli-
ness. A pollard willow shouldbe the very type and model of beauty
in the eye of the champion of the pruning saw. Its finest parallels
in the art of mending nature’s proportions for the sake of beauty,
are in the flattened heads of a certain tribe of Indians, and the de-
formed feet of Chinese women. What nature has especially shaped
for a delight to the eye, and a fine suggestion to the spiritual sense,
as a beautiful tree, or the human form divine, man should not lightly
undertake to remodel or clip of its fair proportions.
i.
HOW TO POPULARIZE THE TASTE FOR PLANTING.
July, 1852.
OW to popularize that taste for rural beauty, which gives to
every beloved home in the country its greatest outward charm,
and to the country itself its highest attraction, is a question which
must often occur to many of our readers. A traveller never jour-
neys through England without lavishing all the epithets of admira-
tion on the rural beauty of that gardenesque country; and his
praises are as justly due to the way-side cottages of the humble
laborers (whose pecuniary condition of life is far below that of our
numerous small householders), as to the great palaces and villas.
Perhaps the loveliest and most fascinating of the “cottage homes,”
of which Mrs. Hemans has so touchingly sung, are the clergymen’s
dwellings in that country ; dwellings, for the most part, of very mod-
erate size, and no greater cost than are common in all the most
thriving and populous parts of the Union—but which, owing to the
love of horticulture, and the taste for something above the merely
useful, which characterizes their owners, as a class, are, for the most
part, radiant with the bloom and embellishment of the loveliest
flowers and shrubs.
The contrast with the comparatively naked and neglected coun
try dwellings that are the average rural tenements of our country at
large, is very strikmg. Undoubtedly, this is, in part, owing to the
fact that it takes a longer time, as Lord Bacon said a century ago,
“to garden finely than to build stately.” But the newness of our
civilization is not sufficient apology. If so, we should be spared the
294 TREES.
exhibition of gay carpets, fine mirrors and furniture in the “front
parlor,” of many a mechanic’s, working-man’s, and farmer’s comfort-
able dwelling, where the “bare and bald” have pretty nearly su-
preme control in the “front yard.”
What we lack, perhaps, more than all, is, not the capacity to
perceive and enjoy the beauty of ornamental trees and shrubs—the
rural embellishment alike of the cottage and the villa, but we are de-
ficient in the knowledge and the opportunity of knowing how beau-
tiful human habitations are made by a little taste, time, and means,
expended in this way.
Abroad, it is clearly seen, that the taste has descended from the
palace of the noble, and the public parks and gardens of the nation,
to the hut of the simple peasant; but here, while our institutions
have wisely prevented the perpetuation of accumulated estates, that
would speedily find their expression in all the luxury of rural taste,
we have not yet risen to that general diffusion of culture and com-
petence which may one day give to the many, what in the old world
belongs mainly to the favored few. In some localities, where that
point has in some measure been arrived at already, the result that
we anticipate has, in a good degree, already been attained. And
there are, probably, more pretty rural homes within ten miles of
Boston, owned by those who live in them, and have made them,
than ever sprung up in so short a space of time, in any part of the
world. The taste once formed there, it has become contagious, and
is diffusing itself among all conditions of men, and gradually elevating
and making beautiful, the whole neighborhood of that populous city.
In the country at large, however, even now, there cannot be said
to be any thing like a general taste for gardening, or for embellish-
ing the houses of the people. We are too much occupied with
making a great deal, to have reached that poimt when a man or a
people thinks it wiser to understand how to enjoy a little well, than
to exhaust both mind and body in getting an indefinite more. And
there are also many who would gladly do something to give a senti-
ment to their houses, but are ignorant both of the materials and the
way to set about it. Accordingly, they plant odorous ailanthuses
and filthy poplars, to the neglect of graceful elms and salubrious
maples.
HOW TO POPULARIZE THE TASTE FOR PLANTING. 295
The influence of commercial gardens on the neighborhood where
they are situated, is one of the best proofs of the growth of taste—
that our people have no obtuseness of faculty, as to what is beauti-
ful, but only lack information and example to embellish with the
heartiest good will. Take Rochester, N. Y., for instance—which, at
the present moment, has perhaps the largest and most active nurse-
ries in the Union. We are confident that the aggregate planting
of fruits and ornamental trees, within fifty miles of Rochester, during
the last ten years, has been twice as much as has taken place, in the
same time, in any three of the southern States. Philadelphia has
long been famous for her exotic gardens, and now even the little
yard plats of the city dwellings, are filled with roses, jasmines,
lagestroemias, and the like. Such facts as these plainly prove to us,
that only give our people a knowledge of the beauty of fine trees
and plants, and the method of cultivating them, and there is no
sluggishness or inaptitude on the subject in the public mind.
In looking about for the readiest method of diffusing a know-
ledge of beautiful trees and plants, and thereby bettering our homes
and our country, several means suggest themselves, which are worthy
of attention.
The first of these is, by what private individuals may do.
There is scarcely a single fine private garden in the country,
which does not possess plants that are perhaps more or less coveted
—or would at least be greatly prized by neighbors who do not pos-
sess, and perhaps cannot easily procure them. Many owners of such
places, cheerfully give away to their neighbors, any spare plants that
they may possess; but the majority decline, for the most part, to
give away plants at all, because the indiscriminate practice subjects
them to numerous and troublesome demands upon both the time
and generosity of even the most liberally disposed. But every gen-
tleman who employs a gardener, could well afford to allow that gar-
dener to spend a couple of days in a season, in propagating some
one or two really valuable trees, shrubs, or p.ants, that would be a
decided acquisition to the gardens of his neighborhood. One or two
specimens of such tree or plant, thus raised in abundance, might be
distributed freely during the planting season, or during a given week
of the same, to all who would engage to plant and take care of the
296 TREES.
same in their own grounds; and thus this tree or plant would soon
become widely distributed about the whole adjacent country. An-
other season, still another desirable tree or plant might be taken in
hand, and when ready for home planting, might be scattered broad-
east among those who desire to possess it, and so the labor of love
might go on as convenience dictated,till the greater part of the gar-
dens, however small, within a considerable circumference, would con-
tain at least several of the most valuable, useful, and ornamental
trees and shrubs for the climate.
The second means is by what the nurserymen may do.
We are very well aware that the first thought which will cross
the mind of a selfish and narrow-minded nurseryman, (if any such
read the foregoing paragraph,) is that such a course of gratuitous
distribution of good plants, on the part of private persons, will
speedily ruin his business. But he was never more greatly
mistaken, as both observation and reason will convince him. Who
are the nurseryman’s best customers? That class of men who
have long ewned a garden, whether it be half a rood or many
acres, who have never planted trees—or, if any, have but those not
worth planting? Not at all. His best customers are those who
have formed a taste for trees by planting them, and who, having
got a taste for improving, are seldom idle in the matter, and keep
pretty regular accounts with the dealers in trees. If you cannot
get a person who thinks he has but little time or taste for improving
his place to buy trees, and he will accept a plant, or a fruit-tree, or
a shade-tree, now and then, from a neighbor whom he knows to be
“eurious in such things”—by all means, we say to the nursery-
man, encourage him to plant at any rate and all rates.
If that man’s tree turns out to his satisfaction, he is an amateur,
one only begimning to pick the shell, to be sure—but an amateur
full fledged by-and-by. Ifhe once gets a taste for gardening down-
right—if the flavor of his own rareripes touch his palate but once,
as something quite different from what he has always, like a con-
tented, ignorant donkey, bought in the market—if his Malmaison
rose, radiant with the sentiment of the best of French women, and
the loveliness of intrinsic bud-beauty once touches his hitherto dull
eyes, so that the scales of his blindness to the fact that one rose
HOW TO POPULARIZE THE TASTE FOR PLANTING. 297
“ differs from another,” fall off for ever—then we say, thereafter he
is one of the nurseryman’s best customers. Begging is both too
slow and too dependent a position for him, and his garden soon
fills up by ransacking the nurseryman’s catalogues, and it is more
likely to be swamped by the myriad of things which he would
think very much alike, (if We had not bought them by different
appellations,) than by any empty spaces waiting for the liberality of
more enterprising cultivators.
And thus, if the nurseryman can satisfy himself with our rea-
soning that he ought not object to the amateur’s becoming a gra-
tuitous distributor of certain plants, we would persuade him for
much the same reason, to follow the example himself. No person
can propagate a tree or plant with so little cost, and so much ease,
as one whose business it is to do so. And we may add, no one is
more likely to know the really desirable varieties of trees or plants,
than he is. No one so well knows as himself that the newest
things—most zealously sought after at high prices—are by no
means those which will give the most permanent satisfaction in a
family garden. And accordingly, it is almost always the older
and well-tried standard trees and plants—those that the nursery-
man can best afford to spare, those that he can grow most cheaply,
—that he would best serve the diffusion of popular taste by distri-
buting gratis. We think it would be best for all parties if the
variety were very limited—and we doubt whether the distribution
of two valuable hardy trees or climbers for five years, or till they
became so common all over the surroundings as to make a distinct
feature of embellishment, would not be more serviceable than dis-
seminating a larger number of species. It may appear to some of
our commercial readers, an odd recommendation to urge them to
give away precisely that which it is their business to sell—but we
are not talking at random, when we say most confidently, that such
a course, steadily pursued by amateurs and nurserymen throughout
the country, for ten years, would increase the taste for planting, and
the demand for trees, five hundred fold. ,
The third means is by what the Horticultural Societies may do.
We believe there are now about forty Horticultural Societies in
North America. Hitherto they have contented themselves, year
298 TREES.
after year, with giving pretty much the same old schedule of pre-
miums for the best cherries, cabbages, and carnations, all over the
country—till the stimulus begins to wear out—somewhat like the
effects of opium or tobacco, on confirmed habitués. Let them adopt
our scheme of popularizing the taste for horticulture, by giving
premiums of certain select small assorinents of standard fruit trees,
ornamental trees, shrubs, and vines, (purchased by the society of
the nurserymen,) to the cultivators of such small gardens—sub-
urban door-yards—or cottage inclosures, within a distance of ten
miles round, as the inspecting committee shall decide to be best
worthy, by their air of neatness, order, and attention, of such pre-
miums. In this way, the valuable plants will fall into the nght
hands; the vendor of trees and plants will be directly the gainer,
and the stimulus given to cottage gardens, and the spread of the
popular taste, will be immediate and decided.
“Tall oaks from little acorns grow”—is a remarkably trite
aphorism, but one, the truth of which no one who knows the apti-
tude of our people, or our intrinsic love of refinement and elegance,
will underrate or gainsay. If, by such simple means as we have
here pointed out, our great farm on this side of the Atlantic, with
the water-privilege of both oceans, could be made to wear a little
less the air of Canada-thistle-dom, and show a little more sign of
blossoming like the rose, we should look upon it as a step so much
nearer the millennium. In Saxony, the traveller beholds with no
less surprise and delight, on the road between Wiessenfels and
Halle, quantities of the most beautiful and rare shrubs and flowers,
growing along the foot-paths, and by the sides of the hedges which
line the public promenades. The custom prevails "there, among
private individuals who have beautiful gardens, of annually planting
some of their surplus materiel along these public promenades, for
the enjoyment of those who have no gardens. And the custom is
met in the same beautiful spirit by the people at large; for in the
main, those embellishments that turn the highway into pleasure
grounds, are respected, and grow and bloom as if within the inclosures.
Does not this argue a civilization among these “ down-trodden
nations” of Central Europe, that would not be unwelcome in this,
our land of equal rights and free schools?
fil.
ON PLANTING SHADE-TREES.
November, 1847.
OW that the season of the present is nearly over; now that
spring with its freshness of promise, summer with its luxury
of development, and autumn with its fulfilment of fruitfulness, have
all laid their joys and benefits at our feet, we naturally pause for a
moment to see what is to be done in the rural plans of the future.
The PLANTING SEASON is at hand. Our correspondence with all
parts of the country informs us, that at no previous time has the
improvement of private grounds been so active as at present. New
and tasteful residences are every where being built. New gardens
are being laid out. New orchards of large extent are rapidly being
planted. In short, the horticultural zeal of the country is not only
awake—it is brimfull of energy and activity.
Private enterprise being thus in a fair way to take care of itself,
we feel that the most obvious duty is to endeavor to arouse a cor-
responding spirit in certain rural improvements of a more public
nature.
We therefore return again to a subject which we dwelt upon at
some length last spring—the planting of shade-trees in the streets
of our rural towns and villages.
Pleasure and profit are certain, sooner or later, to awaken a large
portion of our countrymen to the advantages of improving their
own private grounds. But we find that it is only under two condi-
tions that many public improvements are carried on. The first is,
when nearly the whole of the population enjoy the advantages of
300 TREES.
education, as in New England. The second is, when a few of the
more spirited and intelligent of the citizens move the rest by taking
the burden in the beginning upon their own shoulders by setting the
example themselves, and by most zealously urging all others to follow.
The villages of New England, looking at their sylvan charms,
are as beautiful as any in the world. Their architecture is simple
and unpretending—often, indeed, meagre and unworthy of notice.
The houses are surrounded by inclosures full of trees and shrubs,
with space enough to afford comfort, and ornament enough to de-
note taste. But the main street of the village is an avenue of elms,
positively delightful to behold. Always wide, the overarching
boughs form an aisle more grand and beautiful than that of any old
Gothic cathedral. Not content, indeed, with one avenue, some of
these villages have, in their wide, single street, three lines of trees,
forming a double avenue, of which any grand old palace abroad
might well be proud. Would that those of our readers, whose souls
are callous to the charms of the lights and shadows that bedeck
these bewitching rural towns and villages, would forthwith set out
out ona pilgrimage to such places as Northampton, Springfield,
New Haven, Pittsfield, Stockbridge, Woodbury, and the like.
When we contrast with these lovely resting places for the eye,
embowered with avenues of elms, gracefully drooping like fountains
of falling water, or sugar-maples swelling and towering up like finely
formed antique vases—some of the uncared for towns and villages
in our own State, we are almost forced to believe that the famous
common schools of New England teach the esthetics of art, and
that the beauty of shade-trees is the care of especial professorships.
Homer and Virgil, Cicero, Manlius, and Tully, shades of the great
Greeks and Romans !—our citizens have named towns after you, but
the places that bear your names scarcely hold leafy trees enough to
renew the fading laurels round your heads !—while the direct de-
scendants of stern Puritans, who had a holy horror of things ornamen-
tal, who cropped their hair, and made penalties for indulgences in fine
linen, live in villages overshadowed by the very spirit of rural elegance!
It is neither from a want of means, or want of time, or any ig-
norance of what is essential to the beauty of body or of mind, that
we see this neglect of the public becomingness. There are numbers
ON PLANTING SHADE-TREES. 301
of houses in all these villages, that boast their pianos, while the last
Paris fashions are worn in the parlors, and the freshest periodical
literature of both sides of the Atlantic fills the centre-tables. But
while the comfort and good looks of the individual are sufficiently
eared for, the comfort and good looks of the town are sadly neg-
lected. Our education here stops short of New England. We are
slow to feel that the character of the inhabitants is always, in some
degree, indicated by the appearance of the town. It is, unluckily,
no one’s especial business to ornament the streets. No one feels it
a reproach to himself, that verdure and beauty do not hang like rich
curtains over the street in which he lives. And thus a whole village
or town goes on from year to year, in a shameless state of public
nudity and neglect, because no one feels it his particular duty to
persuade his neighbors to join him in making the town in which he
lives a gem of rural beauty, instead of a sorry collection of unin-
teresting houses.
It is the frequent apology of intelligent persons who live in such
places, and are more alive to this glaring detect than the majority,
that it is impossible for them to do any thing alone, and their neigh-
bors care nothing about it.
One of the finest refutations of this kind of delusion exists in
New Haven. All over the Union, this town is known as the “ City
of Elms.” The stranger always pauses, and bears tribute to the
taste of its inbabitants, while he walks beneath the grateful shade
of its lofty rows of trees. Yet a large part of the finest of these
trees were planted, and the whole of the spirit which they have in-
spired, was awakened by one person—Mr. Hillhouse. He lived
long enough to see fair and lofty aisles of verdure, where, before,
were only rows of brick or wooden houses ; and, we doubt not, he
enjoyed a purer satisfaction than many great conquerors who have
died with the honors of capturing kingdoms, and demolishing a
hundred cities.
Let no person, therefore, delay planting shade-trees himself,
or persuading his neighbors to do the same. Wherever a village
contains half a dozen persons zealous in this exeellent work of
adorning the country at large, let them form a saciety and make
proselytes of those who are slow to be moved otherwise. A public
302 TREES.
spirited man in Boston does a great service to the community, and
earns the thanks of his countrymen, by giving fifty thousand dollars
to endow a professorship in a college ; let the public spirited man
of the more humble village in the interior, also establish his claim
to public gratitude, by planting fifty trees annually, along its public
streets, in quarters where there is the least ability or the least taste
to be awakened in this way, or where the poverty of the houses
most needs something to hide them, and give an aspect of shelter
and beauty. Hundreds of public meetings are called, on subjects
not half so important to the welfare of the place as this, whose
object would be to direct the attention of all the householders to
the nakedness of their estates, in the eyes of those who most love
our country, and would see her rural towns and village homes made
as attractive and pleasant as they are free and prosperous.
We pointed out, in a former article, the principle that should
guide those who are about to select trees for streets of rural towns
—that of choosing that tree which the soil of the place will bring
to the highest perfection. There are two trees, however, which are
so eminently adapted to this purpose in the Northern States, that
they may be universally employed. These are the American weeping
elm and the silver maple. They have, to recommend them, in the first
place, great rapidity of growth; in the second place, the graceful
forms which they assume; in the third place, abundance of fine
foliage ; and lastly, the capacity of adapting themselves to almost
every soil where trees will thrive at all.
These two trees have broad and spreading heads, fit for wide
streets and avenues. That fine tree, the Dutch elm, of exceedingly
rapid growth and thick dark-green foliage, makes a narrower and
more upright head than our native sort, and, as well as the sugar
maple, may be planted in streets and avenues, where there is but
little room for the expansion of wide spreading tops.
No town, where any of these trees are extensively planted, can
be otherwise than agreeable to the eye, whatever may be its situa-
tion, or the style of its dwellings. To villages prettily built, they
will give a character of positive beauty, that will both add to the
value of property, and increase the comfort and patriotism of the
inhabitants.
TY.
TREES IN TOWNS. AND VILLAGES,
March, 1847.
“FINHE man who loves not trees, to look at them, to lie under
them, to climb up them (once more a schoolboy,) would
make no bones of murdering Mrs. Jeffs. In what one imaginable
attribute, that it ought to possess, is a tree, pray, deficient? Light,
shade, shelter, coolness, freshness, music,—all the colors of the rain-
bow, dew and dreams dropping through their soft twilight, at eve
and morn,—dropping direct, soft, sweet, soothing, restorative from
heaven. Without trees, how, in the name of wonder, could we
have had houses, ships, bridges, easy chairs, or coftins, or almost
any single one of the necessaries, comforts, or conveniences of life ?
Without trees, one man might have been born with a silver spoon
in his mouth, but not another with a wooden .adle.”
Every man, who has in his nature a spark of sympathy with
the good and beautiful, must involuntarily respond to this rhapsody
of Christopher North’s, in behalf of trees—the noblest and proudest
drapery that sets off the figure of our fair planet. Every man’s bet-
ter sentiments would involuntarily lead him to cherish, respect, and
admire trees. And no one who has sense enough rightly to under-
stand the wonderful system of life, order, and harmony, that is in-
volved in one of our grand and majestic forest-trees, could ever de-
stroy it, unnecessarily, without a painful feeling, we should say, akin
at least to murder in the fourth degree.
Yet it must be confessed, that it is surprising, when, from the
force of circumstances, what the phrenologists call the principle of
804 TREES.
destructiveness, gets excited, how sadly men’s better feelings are
warped and smothered. Thus, old soldiers sweep away ranks of
men with as little compunction as the mower swings his harmless
scythe in a meadow; and settlers, pioneers, and squatters, girdle
and make a clearing, in a centennial forest, perhaps one of the
grandest that ever God planted, with no more remorse than we have
in brushing away dusty cobwebs. We are not now about to de-
claim against war, as a member of the peace society, or against plant-
ing colonies and extending the human family, as would a disciple
of Dr. Malthus. These are probably both wise means of progress,
in the hands of the Great Worker.
But it is properly our business to bring men back to their bet-
ter feelings, when the fever of destruction is over. If our ancestors
found it wise and necessary to cut down vast forests, it is all the
more needful that their descendants should plant trees. We shall
do our part, therefore, towards awakening again, that natural love of
trees, which this long warfare against them—this continual laying
the axe at their roots—so common in a new country, has, in so
many places, well nigh extinguished. We ought not to cease, till
every man feels it to be one of his moral duties to become a planter
of trees ; until every one feels, indeed, that, if it is the most patriotic
‘hing that can be done to make the earth yield two blades of grass
instead of one, it is far more so to cause trees to grow where no
foliage has waved and fluttered before—trees, which are not only
full of usefulness and beauty always, but to which old Time himself
grants longer leases than he does to ourselves; so that he who plants
them wisely, is more certain of receiving the thanks of posterity,
than the most persuasive orator, or the most prolific writer of his
day and generation.
The especial theme of our lamentation touching trees at the pre-
sent moment, is the general neglect and inattention to their many
charms, in country towns and villages. We say general, for our
mind dwells with unfeigned telight upon exceptions—many beautiful
towns and villages in New England, where the verdure of the loveliest
elms waves like grand lines of giant and graceful plumes above the
house tops, giving an air of rural beauty, that speaks louder for the
good habits of the inhabitants, than the pleasant sound of a hun-
TREES IN TOWNS AND VILLAGES. 305
dred church bells. We remember Northampton, Springfield, New
Haven, Stockbridge, and others, whose long and pleasant avenues
are refreshing and beautiful to look upon. We do not forget that
large and sylan park, with undulating surface, the Boston Common,
or that really admirable city arboretum of rare trees, Washington
Square of Philadelphia.* Their groves are as beloved and sacred
in our eyes, as those of the Deo-dar are to the devout Brahmins.
But these are, we are sorry to be obliged to say, only the ex-
ceptions to the average condition of our country towns. As an off
set to them, how many towns, how many villages, could we name,
where rude and uncouth streets bask in the summer heat, and revel
in the noontide glare, with scarcely a leaf to shelter or break the
painful monotony! Towns and villages, where there is no lack of
trade, no apparent want of means, where houses are yearly built,
and children weekly born, but where you might imagine, from their
barrenness, that the soil had been cursed, and it refused to support
the life of a single tree.
What must be done in such cases? There must be at least one
right-feeling man in every such Sodom. Let him set vigorously at
work, and if he cannot induce his neighbors to join him, he must
not be disheartened—let him plant and cherish carefully a few
trees, if only half a dozen. They must be such as will grow vigor-
ously, and like the native elm, soon make themselves felt and seen
wherever they may be placed. Ina very few years they will preach
more eloquent orations than “ gray goose quills” can write. Their
luxuriant leafy arms, swaying and waving to and fro, will make
more convincing gestures than any member of congress or stump
speaker; and if there is any love of nature dormant in the dusty
hearts of the villagers, we prophesy that im a very short time there
will be such a general yearning after green trees, that the whole
place will become a bower of freshness and verdure.
In some parts of Germany, the government makes it a duty for
every landholder to plant trees in the highways, before his property ;
and in a few towns that we have heard of, no young bachelor can
* Which probably contains more well grown specimens of different spe-
cies of forest-trees, than any similar space of ground in America.
306 TREES.
take a wife till he has planted a tree. We have not a word to say
against either of these regulations. But Americans, it must be con-
fessed, do not like to be over-governed, or compelled into doing even
beautiful things. We therefore recommend, as an example to all
country towns, that most praiseworthy and successful mode of achiev-
ing this result adopted by the’ citizens of Northampton, Massachu-
setts.
This, as we learn, is no less than an Ornamental Tree Society.
An association, whose business and pleasure it is to turn dusty lanes
and bald highways into alleys and avenues of coolness and verdure.
Making a “ wilderness blossom like the rose,” is scarcely more of a
rural miracle than may be wrought by this simple means. It is
quite incredible how much spirit such a society, composed at first
of a few really zealous arboriculturists, may beget in a country
neighborhood. Some men there are, in every such place, who are
too much occupied with what they consider more important mat-
ters, ever to plant a single tree, unsolicited. But these are readily
acted upon by a society, who work for “the public good,” and who
move an individual of this kind much as a town meeting moves
him, by the greater weight of numbers. Others there are, who can
only be led into tasteful improvement, by the principle of ¢mitation,
and who consequently will not begin to plant trees, till it is the fash-
ion todo so. And again, others who grudge the trifling cost of
putting out a shade-tree, but who will be shamed into it by the ex-
ample of every neighbor around them—neighbors who have been
stimulated into action by the zeal of the society. And last of all, as
we have learned, there is here and there an instance of some slovenly
and dogged farmer, who positively refuses to take the trouble to
plant a single twig by the road-side. Such an individual, the soci-
ety commiserate, and beg him to let them plant the trees in front
of his estate at their own cost !
In this way, little by little, the Ornamental Tree. Society accom-
plishes its ends. In a few years it has the satisfaction of seeing its
village the pride of the citizens—for even those who were the most
tardy to catch the planting fever, are at last—such is the silent and
irresistible influence of sylvan beauty—the loudest champions of
green trees—and the delight of all travellers, who treasure it up in
TREES IN TOWNS AND VILLAGES. 307
their hearts, as one does a picture drawn by poets, and colored by
the light of some divine genius.
We heartily commend, therefore, this plan of Social Planting
Reform, to every desolate, leafless, and repulsive town and village in
the country. There can scarcely be one, where there are not three
persons of taste and spirit enough to organize such a society; and
once fairly in operation, its members will never cease to congratulate
themselves on the beauty and comfort they have produced. Every
tree which they plant, and which grows up in after years into a
giant trunk and grand canopy of foliage, will be a better monument
(though it may bear no lying inscription) than many an unmeaning
obelisk of marble or granite.
Let us add a few words respecting the best trees for adorning
the streets of rural towns and villages. With the great number and
variety of fine trees which flourish in this country, there is abundant
reason for asking, “where shall we choose?” And although we
must not allow ourselves space at this moment, to dwell upon the
subject in detail, we may venture two or three hints about it.
Nothing appears to be so captivating to the mass of human
beings, as novelty. And there is a fashion in trees, which sometimes
has a sway no less rigorous than that of a Parisian modiste. Hence,
while we have the finest indigenous, ornamental trees in the world,
growing in our native forests, it is not an unusual thing to see them
blindly overlooked for foreign species, that have not half the real
charms, and not a tenth part of the adaptation to our soil and
climate.
Thirty years ago, there was a general Lombardy poplar epidemic.
This tall and formal tree, striking and admirable enough, if very
sparingly introduced in landscape planting, is, of all others, most
abominable, in its serried stiffness and monotony, when planted in
avenues, or straight lines. Yet nime-tenths of all the ornamental
planting of that period, was made up of this now decrepit and con-
demned tree.
So too, we recall one or two of our villages, where the soil would
have produced any of our finest forest trees, yet where the only trees
thought worthy of attention by the inhabitants, are the ailanthus
and the paper mulberry.
308 TREES.
The principle which would govern us, if we were planting the
streets of rural towns, is this: Select the finest indigenous tree or
trees ; such as the soil and climate of the place will bring to the
highest perfection. Thus, if it were a neighborhood where the elm
flourished peculiarly well, or the maple, or the beech, we would
directly adopt the tree indicated. We would then, in time, succeed
in producing the finest possible specimens of the species selected :
while, if we adopted, for the sake of fashion or novelty, a foreign
tree, we should probably only succeed in getting poor and meagre
specimens.
Tt is because this principle has been, perhaps accidentally, pur-
sued, that the villages of New England are so celebrated for their
sylvan charms. The elm is, we think, nowhere seen in more ma-
jesty, greater luxuriance, or richer beauty, than in the valley of the
Connecticut; and it is because the soil is so truly congenial to it,
that the elm-adorned streets of the villages there, elicit so much ad-
miration. They are not only well planted with trees—but with a
kind of tree which attains its greatest perfection there. Who can
forget the fine lines of the sugar-maple, in Stockbridge, Massachu-
setts? They are in our eyes the rural glory of the place. The soil
there is their own, and they have attained a beautiful symmetry
and development. Yet if, instead of maples, poplars or willows
had been planted, how marked would have been the difference of
effect.
There are no grander or more superb trees, than our American
oaks. Those who know them only as they grow in the midst, or
on the skirts of a thick forest, have no proper notion of their dignity
and beauty, when planted and grown in an avenue, or where they
have full space to develop. Now, there are many districts where
the native luxuriance of the oak woods, points out the perfect adap-
tation of the soil for this tree. If we mistake not, such is the case
where that charming rural town in this State, Canandaigua, stands.
Yet, we confess we were not a little pained, in walking through the
streets of Canandaigua, the past season, to find them mainly lined
with that comparatively meagre tree, the locust. How much finer
and more imposing, for the long principal street of Canandaigua,
TREES IN TOWNS AND VILLAGES. 309
would be an avenue of our finest and hardiest native oaks—rich in
foliage and grand in every part of their trunks and branches.*
Though we think our native weeping elm, or sugar maple, and
two or three of our oaks, the finest of street trees for country villages,
yet there are a great many others which may be adopted, when the
soil is their own, with the happiest effect. What could well be
more beautiful, for example, for a village with a deep, mellow soil,
than a long avenue of that tall and most elegant tree, the tulip-tree
or whitewood? For a village in a mountainous district, like New
Lebanon, in this State, we would perhaps choose the white pine,
which would produce a grand and striking effect. In Ohio, the
cucumber-tree would make one of the noblest and most admirable
avenues, and at the south what could be conceived more captivating
than a village whose streets were lined with rows of the magnolia
grandiflora? We know how little common minds appreciate these
natural treasures ; how much the less because they are common in
the woods about them. Still, such are the trees which should be
planted ; for fine forest trees are fast disappearing, and planted trees,
grown in a soil fully congenial to them, will, as we have already
said, assume a character of beauty and grandeur that will arrest the
attention and elicit the admiration of every traveller.
The variety of trees for cities—densely crowded cities—is but
small; and this, chiefly, because the warm brick walls are such
hiding-places and nurseries for insects, that many fine trees—fine for
the country and for rural towns—become absolute pests in the cities.
Thus, in Philadelphia, we have seen, with regret, whole rows of the
European linden cut down within the last ten years, because this
tree, in cities, is so infested with odious worms, that it often becomes
unendurable. On this account that foreign tree, the ailanthus, the
strong scented foliage of which no insect will attack, is every day
becoming a greater metropolitan favorite. The maples are among
the thriftiest and most acceptable trees for large cities, and no one
of them is more vigorous, cleaner, hardier, or more graceful than the
silver maple (Acer ertocarpum).
* The oak is easily transplanted from the nurseries—though not from
the woods, unless in the latter case, it has been prepared a year beforehand
by shortening the roots and branches.
310 : TREES.
We must defer any further remarks for the present; but we must
add, in conclusion, that the planting season is at hand. Let every
man, whose soul is not a desert, plant trees; and that not alone for
himself—within the bounds of his own demesne, but in the streets,
and along the rural highways of his neighborhood. Thus he will
not only lend grace and beauty to the neighborhood and county in
which he lives, but earn, honestly and well, the thanks of his fellow-
men.
Vi
SHADE-TREES IN CITIES.
August, 1852.
“ T\OWN with the ailanthus!” is the ery we hear on all sides,
town and country, — now that this “tree of heaven” (as
the catalogues used alluringly to call it) has penetrated all parts of
the Union, and begins to show its true character. Down with the
ailanthus! “Its blossoms smell so disagreeably that my family are
made ill by it,” says an old resident on one of the squares in New-
York, where it is the only shade for fifty contiguous houses. “We
must positively go to Newport, papa, to escape these horrible ailan-
thuses,” exclaim numberless young ladies, who find that even their
best Jeon Maria Farina, affords no permanent relief, since their
front parlors have become so celestially embowered. “The vile tree
comes upall over my garden,” say fifty owners of suburban lots who
have foolishly been tempted into bordering the outside of their
“yards” with it—having been told that it grows so “ surprising fast.”
“Tt has ruined my lawn for fifty feet all round each tree,” say the
country gentlemen, who, seduced by the oriental beauty of its foli-
age, have also been busy for years dotting it in open places, here
and there, in their pleasure-grounds. In some of the cities south-
ward, the authorities, taking the matter more seriously, have voted
the entire downfall of the whole species, and the Herods who wield
the besom of sylvan destruction, have probably made a clean sweep
of the first born of celestials, in more towns than one south of Mason
and Dixon’s line this season.
Although we think there is picturesqueness in the free and luxu-
oe TREES.
riant foliage of the ailanthus, we shall see its downfall without a
word to save it. We look upon it as an usurper in rather bad odor
at home, which has come over to this land of liberty, under the
garb of utility,* to make foul the air, with its pestilent breath, and
devour the soil, with its intermeddling roots—a tree that has the
fair outside and the treacherous heart of the Asiatics, and that has
played us so many tricks, that we find we have caught a Tartar
which it requires something more than a Chinese wall to confine
within limits.
Down with the ailanthus! therefore, we cry with the populace.
But we have reasons beside theirs, and now that the favorite has
fallen out of favor with the sovereigns, we may take the opportunity
to preach a funeral sermon over its remains, that shall not, like so
many funeral sermons, be a bath of oblivion-waters to wash out all
memory of its vices. For if the Tartar is not laid violent hands
upon, and kept under close watch, even after the spirit has gone out
of the old trunk, and the coroner is satisfied that he has come to a
violent end—lo, we shall have him upon us tenfold in the shape of
suckers innumerable—litle Tartars that will beget a new dynasty,
and overrun our grounds and gardens again, without mercy.
The vices of the ailanthus—the incurable vices of the by-gone
favorite—then, are twofold. In the first place, it smells horribly,
both in leaf and fiower—and instead of sweetening and purifying
the air, fills it with a heavy, sickening odor; in the second place,
it suckers abominably, and thereby overruns, appropriates, and re-
duces to beggary, all the soil of every open piece of ground where
it is planted. These are the mortifications which every body feels
sooner or later, who has been seduced by the luxuriant outstretched
welcome of its smooth round arms, and the waving and beckoning
of its graceful plumes, into giving it a place in their home circle.
For a few years, while the tree is growing, it has, to be sure, a fair
* The ailanthus, though originally from China, was first introduced into
this country from Europe, as the “Tanner’s sumac”—but the mistake was
soon discovered, and its rapid growth made it a favorite with planters.
+ Two acquaintances of ours, in a house in the upper part of the city
of New-York, are regularly driven out by the ailanthus malaria every
season,
es
SHADE-TREES IN CITIES. ole
and specious look. You feel almost, as you look at its round trunk
shooting up as straight, and almost as fast as a rocket, crowned by
such a luxuriant tuft of verdure, that you have got a young palm-
tree before your door, that can whisper tales to you in the evening
of that “ Flowery Country” from whence you have borrowed it, and
you swear to stand by it against all slanderous aspersions. But
alas! you are greener in your experience than the Tartar in his
leaves. A few years pass by; the sapling becomes a tree—its blos-
soms fill the air with something that looks like curry-powder, and
smells like the plague. You shut down the windows to keep out
the unbalmy June air, if you live in town, and invariably give a
wide berth to the heavenly avenue, if you belong to the country.
But we confess openly, that our crowning objection to this petted
Chinaman or Tartar, who has played us so falsely, is a patriotic ob-
jection. It is that lig has drawn away our attention from our own
more noble native American trees, to waste it on this miserable pig-
tail of an Indiaman. What should we think of the Italians, if they
should forswear their own orange-trees and figs, pomegranates and
citrons, and plant their streets and gardens with the poison sumac-
tree of our swamps? And what must a European arboriculturist
think, who travels in America, delighted and astonished at the
beauty of our varied and exhaustless forests—the richest in the
temperate zone, to see that we neither value nor plant them, but fill
our lawns and avenues with the cast-off nuisances of the gardens
of Asia and Europe ?
And while in the vein, we would include in the same category
another less fashionable, but still much petted foreigner, that has
settled among us with a good letter of credit, but who deserves not
his success. We mean the abele or silver poplar. There is a
pleasant flutter in his silver-lined leaves—but when the timber is a
foot thick, you shall find the air unpleasantly filled, every spring,
with the fine white down which flies from the blossom, while the
suckers which are thrown up from the roots of old abeles are a pest
to all grounds and gardens, even worse than those of the ailanthus.
Down with the abeles !
Oh! that our tree-planters, and they are an army of hundreds
of thousands in this country—ever increasing with the growth of
314 TREES.
good taste—oh ! that they knew and could understand the surpase-
ing beauty of our native shade-trees. More than forty species of oak
are there in North America (Great Britain has only two species—
France only five), and we are richer in maples, elms, and ashes,
than any country in the old world. Tulip-trees and magnolias from
America, are the exotic glories of the princely grounds of Europe. |
But (saving always the praiseworthy partiality in New England for
our elms and maples), who plants an American tree—in America ?
And who, on the contrary, that has planted shade-trees at all in the
United States, for the last fifteen years, has not planted either ailan-
thuses or abele poplars ? We should like to see that discreet, sagacious
individual, who has escaped the national ecstasy for foreign suckers.
If he can be found, he is more deserving a gold medal from our
horticultural societies, than the grower of the most mammoth
pumpkin, or elephantine beet, that will garnish the cornucopia of
Pomona for 1852.
In this confession of our sins of commission in planting filthy
suckers, and omission in not planting clean natives—we must lay
part of the burden at the door of the nurserymen. (It has been
found a convenient practice—this shiftmg the responsibility—ever
since the first trouble about trees in the Garden of Eden.)
“Well! then, if the nurserymen will raise ailanthuses and abeles
by the thousands,” reply the planting community, “and telling us
nothing about pestilential odors and suckers, tell us a great deal
about ‘rapid growth, immediate effect—beauty of foliage—rare
foreign trees, and the like, it is not surprising that we plant what
turn out, after twenty years’ trial, to be nuisances instead of embel-
lishments. It is the business of the nurserymen to supply planters
with the best trees. If they supply us with the worst, who sins the
most, the buyer or the seller of such stuff?”
Softly, good friends. It is the business of the nurserymen to
make a profit by raising trees. If you will pay just as much for a
poor tree, that can be raised in two years from a sucker, as a valua-
ble tree that requires four or five years, do you wonder that the nur-
serymen will raise and sell you ailanthuses instead of oaks? It is
the business (duty, at least) of the planter, to know what he is about
to plant; and though there are many honest traders, it is a good
SHADE-TREES IN CITIES. 315
maxim that the Turks have—“ Ask no one in the bazaar to praise
his own goods.” To the eyes of the nurserymen a crop of ailan-
thuses and abeles is “a pasture in the valley of sweet waters.” But
go to an old homestead, where they have become naturalized, and
you will find that there is a bitter aftertaste about the experience of
the unfortunate possessor of these sylvan treasures of a far-off
country.*
The planting intelligence must therefore increase, if we would
fill our grounds and shade our streets with really valuable, ornamen-
tal trees. The nurserymen will naturally raise what is in demand,
and if but ten customers offer in five years for the overcup oak,
while fifty come of a day for the ailanthus, the latter will be culti-
vated as a matter of course.
The question immediately arises, what shall we use instead of
the condemned trees? What, especially, shall we use in the streets
of cities? Many—nay, the majority of shade-trees—clean and
beautiful in the country—are so infested with worms and insects in
towns as to be worse than useless. The sycamore has failed, the
linden is devoured, the elm is preyed upon by insects. We have
rushed into the arms of the Tartar, partly out of fright, to escape
the armies of caterpillars and cankerworms that have taken posses-
sion of better trees !
Take refuge, friends, in the American maples. Clean, sweet,
cool, and umbrageous, are the maples ; and, much vaunted as ailan-
thuses and poplars are, for their ightning growth, take our word for
it, that it is only a good go-off at the start. A maple at twenty years
—or even at ten, if the soil is favorable, will be much the finer and
larger tree. No tree transplants more readily—none adapts itself
more easily to the soil, than the maple. For light soils, and the
milder parts of the Union, say the Middle and Western States, the
silver maple, with drooping branches, is at once the best and most
graceful of street trees. For the North and East, the soft maple and
* We may as well add for the benefit of the novice, the advice to shun
all trees that are universally propagated by suckers. It is a worse inherit-
ance for a tree than drunkenness for a child, and more difficult to eradicate.
Even ailanthuses and poplars from seed have tolerably respectable habits
as regards radical things.
316 TREES.
the sugar maple. If any one wishes to know the glory and beauty
of the sugar maple as a street tree, let him make a pilgrimage to
Stockbridge, in Massachusetts! If he desires to study the silver
maple, there is no better school than Burlington, New Jersey.
These are two towns almost wholly planted with these American
trees—of the sylvan adornings of which any “native” may well be
proud. The inhabitants neither have to abandon their front rooms
from “the smell,” nor lose the use of their back yards by “ the
suckers.” And whoever plants either of these three maples, may
feel sure that he is earning the thanks instead of the reproaches of
posterity.
The most beautiful and stately of all trees for an avenue—and
especially for an avenue street in town—is an American tree that
one rarely sees planted in America*—never, that we remember, in
any public street. We mean the tudip-tree, or liriodendron. What
can be more beautiful than its trunk—finely proportioned, and
smooth as a Grecian column? What more artistic than its leaf—
cut like an arabesque in a Moorish palace? What more clean and
lustrous than its tufts of foliage—dark-green, and rich as deepest
emerald? What more lily-like and specious than its blossoms—
golden and bronze.shaded ? and what fairer and more queenly than
its whole figure—stately and regal as that of Zenobia? For a park
tree, to spread on every side, it is unrivalled, growing a hundred and
thirty feet high, and spreading into the finest symmetry of outline.t
For a street tree, its columnar stem, beautiful either with or without
branches—with a low head or a high head—foliage over the second
story or under it—is precisely what is most needed. A very spread-
ing tree, like the elm, is always somewhat out of place in town, be-
cause its natural habit is to extend itself laterally. A tree with the
habit of the tulip, lifts itself into the finest pyramids of foliage, ex-
actly suited to the usual width of town streets—and thus embel-
lishes and shades, without darkening and incumbering them. Be-
* Though there are grand avenues of it in the grovel parks of Germany
—raised from American seed.
+ At Wakefield, the fine country-seat of the Fisher family, near Phila-
delphia, are several tulip-trees on the lawn, over one hundred feet high,
and three to six feet in diameter.
SHADE-TREES IN CITIES. Su
sides this, the foliage of the tulip-tree is as clean and fresh at all
times as the bonnet of a fair young quakeress, and no insect mars
the purity of its rich foliage.
We know very well that the tulip-tree is considered sien to
transplant. It is, the gardeners will tell you, much easier to plant
ailanthuses, or, if you prefer, maples. Exactly, so it is easier to walk
than to dance—but as all people who wish to be graceful in their
gait learn to dance (if they can get an opportunity), so all planters
who wish a peculiarly elegant tree, will learn how to plant the lirio-
dendron. In the first place the soil must be light and rich—better
than is at all necessary for the maples—and if it cannot be made
light and rich, then the planter must confine himself to maples.
Next, the tree must be transplanted just about the time of. com-
mencing its growth in the spring, and the roots must be cut as little
as possible, and not suffered to get dry till replanted.
There is one point which, if attended to as it is im nurseries
abroad, would render the tulip-tree as easily transplanted as a maple
or a poplar. We mean the practice of cutting round the tree every
year in the nursery till it is removed. This developes a ball of
fibres, and so prepares the tree for the removal. that it feels no shock
at all* Nurserymen could well afford to grow tulip-trees to the
size suitable for street planting, and have them twice cut or removed
beforehand, so as to enable them to warrant their growth in any
good soil, for a dollar apiece. (And we believe the average price
at which the thousands of noisome ailanthuses that now infest our
streets have been sold, is above a dollar.) No buyer pays so much
and so willingly, as the citizen who has only one lot front, and five
dollars each has been no uncommon price in New-York for “ trees
of heaven.”
After our nurserymen have practised awhile this preparation of
the tulip-trees for the streets by previous removals, they will gradu-
ally find a demand for the finer oaks, beeches, and other trees now
considered difficult to transplant for the same cause—and about
which there is no difficulty at all, if this precaution is taken. Any
* In many continental nurseries, this annual preparation in the nursery,
takes place until fruit trees of bearing size can be removed without the
slightest injury to the crop of the same year.
318 TREES.
body can catch “ suckers” in a still pond, but a trout must be tickled
with dainty bait. Yet true sportsmen do not, for this reason, prefer
angling with worms about the margin of stagnant pools, when they
can whip the gold-spangled beauties out of swift streams with a
little skill and preparation, and we trust that in future no true lover
of trees will plant “suckers” to torment his future days and sight,
when he may, with a little more pains, have the satisfaction of en-
joying the shade of the freshest and comeliest of American forest
trees,
SER
Sey May eas or
a XSF oe
Bay 3 :
Jat
The Cedar of Lebanon.
Full grown tree at Foxley, planted by Sir Uvedule Price,,
[Scale 1 inch to 12 feet,)
VE
RARE EVERGREEN TREES.
June, 1847.
N American may be allowed some honest pride in the beauty
and profusion of fine forest trees, natives of our western hemi-
sphere. North America is the land of oaks, pines, and magnolias,
to say nothing of the lesser genera; and the parks and gardens of
all Europe owe their choicest sylvan treasures to our native woods
and hills.
But there is one tree, almost every where naturalized in Europe
—an evergreen tree as pre-eminently grand and beautiful among
evergreens, as a proud ship of the line among little coasting-vessels
—a historical tree, as rich in sacred and poetic association as Mount
Sinai itself—a hardy tree, from a region of mountain snows, which
bears the winter of the middle States; and yet, notwithstanding all
these unrivalled claims to attention, we believe there are not at this
moment a dozen good specimens of it, twenty feet high, in the
United States.
We mean, of course, that world-renowned tree, the Cedar of
Lebanon: that tree which was the favorite of the wisest of kings;
the wood of which kindled the burnt-offerings of the Israelites in the
time of Moses; of which was built the temple of Solomon, and
which the Prophet Ezekiel so finely used as a simile in describing
a great empire ;—“ Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon,
with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of a high
stature; and his top was among the thick boughs. His boughs
were multiplied, and his branches became long. ‘The fir-trees were
320 TREES.
not like his boughs, nor the chestnut-trees like his branches, nor any
tree in the garden of God like unto him in beauty.”
The original forests of this tree upon Mount Lebanon, must have
been truly vast, as Solomon’s “forty thousand hewers” were em-
ployed there in cutting the timber used in building the temple. It
is indeed most probable that they never recovered or were renewed
afterwards, since modern travellers give accounts of their gradual
disappearance. Such, however, is the great age and longevity of
this tree, that it is highly credible that the few existing old specimens
on Mount Lebanon, are remnants of the ancient forest. Lamartine,
who made a voyage to the Holy Land, and visited these trees in
1832, gives the following account of them :
“We alighted and sat down under a rock to contemplate them.
These trees are the most renowned natural monuments in the uni-
verse ; religion, poetry, and history, have all equally celebrated
them. The Arabs of all sects entertain a traditional veneration for
these trees. They attribute to them not only a vegetative power,
which enables them to live eternally, but also an intelligence, which
causes them to manifest signs of wisdom and foresight, similar to
those of instinct and reason in man. They are said to understand
the changes of seasons; they stir their vast branches as if they were
limbs; they spread out and contract their boughs, inclining them
towards heaven, or towards earth, according as the snow prepares to
fall or to melt. These trees dimimish m every succeeding age.
Travellers formerly counted 30 or 40; more recently 17; more re-
cently still only 12; there are now but 7. These, however, from
their size and general appearance, may be fairly presumed to have
existed in biblical times. Around these ancient witnesses of ages
long since past, there still remains a grove of yellower cedars, ap-
pearing to me to form a group of 400 or 500 trees or shrubs. Every
year, in the month of June, the inhabitants of Beschieria, of Eden, of
Kanobin, and the other neighboring valleys and villages, clamber up
to these cedars, and celebrate mass at their feet. How many pray-
ers have resounded under these branches; and what more beautiful
canopy for worship can exist!”
The trunks of the largest of these venerable trees measure from
30 to40 feet in circumference. The finest and most numerous
RARE EVERGREEN TREES. 321
Cedars of Lebanon in the world, at the present moment, however,
are in Great Britain. A people sosfond of park scenery as the Eng-
lish, could not but be early impressed with the magnificence of this
oriental cedar. It was accordingly introduced into England as early
as 1683, and the two oldest trees on record there are said to have
been planted by Queen Elizabeth. The Duke of Richmond of the
year 1761, planted 1000 young Cedars of Lebanon; and nearly all
the larger estates in England boast their noble specimens of this tree
at the present day. The tallest specimen im England, is that at
Strathfieldsaye, the seat of the Duke of Wellington, which is 108
feet high. Woburn Abbey boasts also many superb specimens
varying from 60 to 90 feet high, nine of which measure from 4 to 6
feet each in the diameter of their trunks. But the largest, and, ac-
cording to Loudon, unquestionably the handsomest cedar in Eng-
land, is the magnificent specimen at Syon House, the seat of the
Duke of Northumberland. This tree is 72 feet high, the diameter
of its head 117 feet, and of the trunk 8 feet. We give a miniature
engraving of this tree
(Fig. 1) from the
Arboretum Britanni-
cum, and also of the
tree at Foxley, plant-
ed by Sir Uvedale
Price, which is 50
feet high, with a
trunk measuring 4
feet in diameter.
The finest speci-
men of this ever-
green in the United States, is that upon the grounds of Thomas
Ash, Esq., at Throg’s Neck, Westchester county, N. ¥. We made
a hasty sketch of this tree in 1845, of which the annexed engraving
is a miniature. (Fig. 2.) It is about 50 feet high, and has, we
learn, been planted over 40 years. It is a striking and beautiful!
tree, but has as yet by no means attained the grandeur and dignity
which a few more years will give it. Still, it is a very fine tree, and
21
Fie. 1. The Syon Cedar.
322 TREES.
no one can look upon it without being inspired with a desire to
plant Cedars of Lebanon.
The most remarkable peculiarity in the Cedar of Lebanon is the
horizontal disposition of its wide spreading branches. This is not
apparent in very young trees, but
soon becomes so as they begin to de-
velope large heads. Though in alti-
tude this tree is exceeded by some of
the pines lately discovered in Oregon,
which reach truly gigantic heights,
yet in breadth and massiveness it far
exceeds all other evergreen trees, and
when old and finely developed on
every side, is not equalled in an or-
namental point of view, by any syl-
van tree of temperate regions.
Its character being essentially
grand and magnificent, it therefore
Fig. 2. Cedar of Lebanon, at Mr. Ash’s, should only be planted where there
fea Net is sufficient room for its develop-
ment on every side. Crowded among other trees, all its fine
breadth and massiveness is lost, and it is drawn up with a narrow
head hke any other of the pine family. But planted in the midst
of a broad lawn, it will eventually form a sublime object, far more
impressive and magnificent than most of the country houses which
belong to the private life of a republic.
The Cedar of Lebanon grows in almost every soil, from the
poorest gravel to the richest loam. It has been remarked in Eng-
land that its growth is most rapid in localities where, though plant-
ed in a good dry soil, its roots can reach water—such as situations
near the margins of ponds or springs. In general, its average growth
in this country in favorable soils is about a foot in a year; and when
the soil is very deeply trenched before planting, or when its roots
are not stinted in the supply of moisture during the summer, it fre-
quently advances with double that rapidity.
Although hardy here, we understand in New England it requires
slight protection in winter, while the trees are yet small. The
RARE EVERGREEN TREES. 323
shelter afforded by sticking a few branches of evergreens in the
ground around it, will fully answer this purpose. Wherever the
Isabella grape matures fully in the open air, it may be cultivated
successfully. The few plants that are offered for sale by the nursery-
men in this country, are imported from England in pots, but there
is no reason why they should not be raised here from seeds, and
sold in larger quantities at a reduced price. The seeds vegetate
freely, even when three or four years old, and the cones containing
them may easily be obtained of London seedsmen.*
The cone of the Cedar of Lebanon (of which figure 3 is a re-
duced drawing) is about 4 inches long, and is beautifully formed.
The spring is the better time for plant-
ing the Cedar of Lebanon, in this climate.
When the small trees are grown in pots,
there is no difficulty in transporting them
to any distance, and as the months of
September and October are the best for
importing them from England, we trust
our leading nurserymen who are now
importing thousands of fruit trees from
London and Paris annually, will provide
a sufficient stock of this most desirable
evergreen for the spring sales of 1848.
If the Cedar of Lebanon does not become
a popular tree with all intelligent planters
in this country, who have space enough
to allow it to show its beauties, and a
Gee Osea entone of ae climate not too inclement for its growth,
Dae then we have greatly overrated the
taste of those engaged in rural improvements at the present mo-
* Mr. Ash presented us with some cones from his tree in 1844, the seeds
from which we planted and they vegetated very readily. They should be
sown in the autumn, in light, rich soil, in broad flat boxes about four
inches deep. These should be placed in a cellar till spring, and then kept
during the summer following in a cool and rather shaded situation—the
next winter in a cellar or cold pit, and the succeeding spring they may be
transplanted into the nnrsery.
324 TREES.
ment in the United States. The only reason why this grandest and
most interesting of all evergreen trees, which may be grown in this
country as easily as the hemlock, wherever the peach bears well, has
not already been extensively planted, is owing to two causes. First:
that its merits and its adaptation to our soil and climate, are not
generally known; and, second, that it has as yet, without any suf-
ficient reason, been difficult to procure it, even in our largest nurse-
ries. We trust that our remarks may have the effect of inspiring
many with an appreciation of its great charms, and that our ener-
getic nurserymen, well knowing that there are thousands of young
trees to be had in England, which may be imported in autumn,
from one to three feet high, and in pots, in perfect condition, will be
able in future to supply all orders for Cedars of Lebanon.
While we are upon the subject of evergreen trees, we will briefly
call the attention of our readers to another rare coniferous species,
which is likely to prove a very interesting addition to our hardy ar-
boretums. This is the Cartr Pinu, Araucaria imbricata, a singu-
lar and noble evergreen from the Cordilleras mountains, in South
America, where it attains the height of 150 feet.
This pine, commonly known as the Araucaria (from Araucanos,
the name of the Chilian tribe in whose country it grows), is distin-
guished by its scale-like foliage, closely overlaid or imbricated, its
horizontal branches springing out from the trunk in whorls or circles,
and its immense globular cone, or fruit, as large as a man’s head,
containing numerous nutritious and excellent nuts. A single fruit
contains between two hundred and three hundred of these kernels,
which Dr. Pceppig informs us, supply the place of both the palm
and corn to the Indians of the Chilan Andes. “As there are fre-
quently twenty or thirty fruits on a stem, and as even a hearty eater
among the Indians, except he should be wholly deprived of every
other kind of sustenance, cannot consume more than two hundred
nuts in a day, it is obvious that eighteen Araucaria trees will main-
tain a single person for a whole year.” The kernel is of the shape
of an almond, but twice as large, and is eaten either fresh, boiled,
or roasted ; and for winter’s use, the women prepare a kind of pastry
from them.*
* Arboretum Britannicum, p. 2438.
RARE EVERGREEN TREES. 325
We borrow from the Arboretum Britannicum, an engraving one-
sixth of the size of nature, showing the young branch and leaves
(fig. 4), and also another (fig. 5), which is a portrait of a specimen
growing at Kew Garden,
England, taken in 1838,
when it was only twelve
feet high. We also add,
from the London Horticul-
wea tural Magazine, the following
Ai .; memorandum respecting a
wd tree at Dropmore, taken last
i summer (1846).
\ 3 “The following is the
Wore height and dimensions of
Vy, the finest specimen we have
of this noble tree, and pro-
blably the largest in Europe:
height 22 feet 6 inches; di-
ameter of the spread of
i
Ae ez
$Y
{P
branches near the ground,
10 feet 6 inches; girth of
the stem near the ground,
2 feet 10 inches; five feet
above the ground, 2 feet.
Fig. 4.—Branch of the Araucaria, or Chili Pine, one- The tree has made a rapid
Setyey eeosinema ate? growth this season, and pro-
mises to get a foot higher, or more, before autumn; it is about
sixteen years old, and has never had the least protection; it stands
in rather an exposed situation, on a raised mound, in which the tree
delights. The soil is loam, with a small portion of poor peat, and
the plant has never been watered, even in the hottest season we
have had. A wet subsoil is certain death to the araucaria in very
wet seasons. 1
r f 4 a
FRUIT.
ral | LAA Wi rae tw)
i. meas 5 ait
(a Ae an sate
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A FEW WORDS ON FRUIT CULTURE.
July, 1851.
Y far the most important branch of horticulture at the present
moment in this country, is the cultivation of Fruit. The soil
and climate of the United States are, on the whole, as favorable to
the production of hardy fruits as those of any other country—and
our northern States, owing to the warmth of the summer and the
clearness of the atmosphere, are far more prolific of fine fruits than
the north of Europe. The American farmer south of the Mohawk,
has the finest peaches for the trouble of planting and gathering—
while in England they are luxuries only within the reach of men of
fortune, and even in Paris, they can only be ripened upon walls.
By late reports of the markets of London, Paris, and New-York, we
find that the latter city is far more abundantly supplied with fruit
than either of the former—though finer specimens of almost any
fruit may be found at very high prices, at all times, in London and
Paris, than in New-York. The fruit-grower abroad, depends upon
extra size, beauty, and scarcity for his remuneration, and asks, some-
times, a guinea a dozen for peaches, while the orchardist of New-
York will sell you a dozen baskets for the same money. The result
is, that while you may more easily find superb fruit im London and
Paris than in New-York—if you can afford to pay for it—you know
436 FRUIT.
that not one man in a hundred tastes peaches in a season, on the
other side of the water, while during the month of September, they
are the daily food of our whole population.
Within the last five years, the planting of orchards has, in the
United States, been carried to an extent never known before. In
the northern half of the Union, apple-trees, in orchards, have been
planted by thousands and hundreds of thousands, in almost every
State. The rapid communication established by means of railroads
and steamboats in all parts of the country, has operated most favor-
ably on all the lighter branches of agriculture, and so many farmers
have found their orchards the most profitable, because least expen-
sive part of their farms, that orcharding has become in some parts
of the West, almost an absolute distinct species of husbandry. Dried
apples are a large article of export from one part of the country to
another, and the shipment of American apples of the finest quality
to England, is now a regular and profitable branch of commerce,
No apple that is sent from any part of the Continent will command
more than half the price in Covent Garden market, that is readily
paid for the Newtown pippin.
The pear succeeds admirably in many parts of the United States
—but it also fails as a market fruit in many others—and, though
large orchards have been planted in various parts of the country,
we do not think the result, as yet, warrants the belief that the
orchard culture of pears will be profitable generally. In certain
deep soils—abounding with lime, potash, and phosphates, naturally,
as in central New-York, the finest pears grow and bear like apples,
and produce very large profits to their cultivators. Mr. Pardee’s
communication on this subject, in a former number, shows how
largely the pear is grown as an orchard fruit in the State of New-
York, and how profitable a branch of culture it has already
become.
In the main, however, we believe the experience of the last five
years has led most cultivators—particularly those not in a region
naturally favorable in its soil—to look upon a pear as a tree rather
to be confined to the fruit-garden than the orchard; as a tree not so
hardy as the apple, but sufficiently hardy to give its finest fruit, pro-
vided the soil is deep, and the aspect one not too much exposed to
A FEW WORDS ON FRUIT CULTURE. 437
violent changes of temperature. As the pear-tree (in its finer varie-
ties) is more delicate in its bark than any other fruit-tree excepting
the apricot, the best cultivators now agree as to the utility of sheath-
ing the stem from the action of the sun all the year round—either
by keeping the branches low and thick, so as to shade the trunk and
principal limbs—the best mode—or by sheathing the stems with
straw—thus preserving a uniform temperature. In all soils and cli-
mates naturally unfavorable to the pear, the culture of this tree is
far easier upon the quince stock than upon the pear stock; and this,
added to compactness and economy of space for small gardens, has
trebled the demand for dwarf pears within the last half-dozen years.
The finest pears that make their appearance in our markets, are still
the White Doyenne (or Virgalieu), and the Bartlett. In Philadel-
phia the Seckel is abundant, but of late years the fruit is small and
inferior, for want of the high culture and manuring which this pear
demands.
If we except the neighborhood of Rochester and a part of cen-
tral New-York (probably the future Belgium of America, as ¥e-
gards the production of pears), the best fruit of this kind yet pro-
duced in the United States is still to be found in the neighborhood
of Boston. Neither climate nor soil are naturally favorable there,
but the great pomological knowledge and skill of the amateur and
professional cultivators of Massachusetts, have enabled them to make
finer shows of pears, both as regards quality and variety, than have
been seen in any part of the world. And this leads us to observe
that the very facility with which fruit is cultivated in America—
consisting for the most part only in planting the trees, and gathering
the crop—leads us into an error as to the standard of size and flavor
attainable generally. One half the number of trees well cultivated,
manured, pruned, and properly cared for, annually, would give a
larger product of really delicious and handsome fruit, than is now
obtained from double the number of trees, and thrice the area of
ground. The difficulty usually lies in the want of knowledge, and
the high price of labor. But the horticultural societies in all parts
of the country, are gradually raising the criterion of excellence
among amateurs, and the double and treble prices paid lately by
confectioners for finely-grown specimens, over the market value of
438 FRUIT.
ordinary fruit, are opening the eyes of market growers to the pecu-
niary advantages of high cultivation.
Perhaps the greatest advance in fruit-growing of the last half-
dozen years, is in the culture of foreign grapes. So long as it was
believed that our climate, which is warm enough to give us the
finest melons in abundance, is also sufficient to produce the foreign
grape in perfection, endless experiments were tried in the open gar-
den. But as all these experiments were unsatisfactory or fruitless,
not only at the North but at the South—it has finally come to be
admitted that the difficulty lies in the variableness, rather than the
want of heat, in the United States. This once conceded, our horti-
culturists have turned their attention to vineries for raising this de-
licious fruit under glass—and at the present time, so much have
both private and market vineries increased, the finest Hamburgh,
Chasselas, and Muscat grapes, may be had in abundance at mode-
rate prices, in the markets of Boston, New-York, and Philadelphia.
For a September crop of the finest foreign grapes, the heat of the
sun accumulated in one of the so-called cold vineries (i. e. a vinery
without artificial heat, and the regular temperature insured by the
vinery itself) is amply sufficient. A cold vinery is constructed at
so moderate a cost, that it is now fast becoming the appendage of
every good garden, and some of our wealthiest amateurs, taking ad-
vantage of our bright and sunny climate, have grapes on their tables
from April to Christmas—the earlier crops forced—the late ones
slightly retarded in cold vineries. From all that we saw of the best
private gardens in England, last summer, we are confident that we
raise foreign grapes under glass in the United States, of higher flavor,
and at far less trouble, than they are usually produced in England.
Indeed, we have seen excellent Black Hamburghs grown in a large
pit made by coyering the vines trained on a high board fence, with
the common sash of a large hot-bed.
On the Ohio, the native grapes—especially the Catawba—have
risen to a kind of national importance. The numerous vineries
which border that river, particularly about Cincinnati, have begun
to yield abundant vintages of pure light wine, which takes rank with
foreign wine of established reputation, and commands a high price
in the market. Now that the Ohio is certain to give us Hock and
A FEW WORDS ON FRUIT CULTURE. 439
Claret, what we hear of the grapes and wine of Texas and New
Mexico, leads us to believe that the future vineyards of New World
Sherry and Madeira may spring up in that quarter of our widely
extended country.
New Jersey, so long famous for her prolific peach orchards, be-
gins to show the effects of a careless system of culture. Every year,
the natural elements of the soil needful to the production of the finest
peaches, are becoming scarcer and scarcer, and nothing but deeper
cultivation, and a closer attention to the inorganic necessities of
vegetable growth, will enable the orchardists of that State long to
hold their ground in the production of good fruit. At the present
moment, the peaches of Cincinnati and Roche&ter are far superior,
both in beauty and flavor, to those of the New-York market—though
in quantity the latter beats the world. The consequence is, that we
shall soon find the peaches of Lake Ontario outselling those of Long
Island and New Jersey in the same market, unless the orchardists
of the latter State abandon Malagatunes and the yellows, and shal-
low ploughing.
The fruit that most completely baffles general cultivation in the
United States, is the plum. It is a tree that grows and blossoms
well enough in all parts of the country, but almost every where it
has for its companion: the curculio, the most destructive and the
least vulnerable of all enemies to fruit. In certain parts of the Hud-
son, of central New-York, and at the West, where the soil is a stiff,
fat clay, the curculio finds such poor quarters in the soil, and the
tree thrives so well, that the fruit is most delicious. But in light,
sandy soils, its culture is only an aggravation to the gardener. In
such sites, here and there only a tree escapes, which stands in some
pavement or some walk for ever hard by the pressure of constant
passing. No method has proved effectual but placing the trees in
the midst of the pig and poultry yard; and notwithstanding the
numerous remedies that have been proposed in our pages since the
commencement of this work, this proves the only one that has not
failed more frequently than it has succeeded.
The multiplication of insects seems more rapid, if possible, than
that of gardens and orchards in this country. Every where the cul-
ture of fruit appears, at first sight, the easiest possible matter, and
440 FRUIT.
really would be, were it not for some insect pest that stands ready
to devour and destroy. In countries where the labor of women and
children is applied, at the rate of a few cents a day, to the extermi-
nation of insects, it is comparatively easy to keep the latter under
control. But nobody can afford to catch the curculios and other
beetles at the price of a dollar a day for labor. The entomologists
ought, therefore, to explain to us some natural laws which have been
violated to bring upon us such an insect scourge; or at least point
out to us some cheap way of calling in nature to our aid, in getting
rid of the vagrants. For our own part, we fully believe that it is to
the gradual decrease of small birds—partly from the destruction of
our forests, but maifily from the absence of laws against that vaga-
bond race of unfledged sportsmen who shoot sparrows when they
ought to be planting corn—that this inordinate increase of insects is
to be attributed. Nature intended the small birds to be maintained
by the destruction of insects, and if the former are wantonly de-
stroyed, our crops, both of the field and gardens, must pay the
penalty. Ifthe boys must indulge their spirit of liberty by shooting
something innocent, it would be better for us husbandmen and gar-
deners to subscribe and get some French masters of the arts of do-
mestic sports, to teach them how to bring their light artillery to
bear upon bull-frogs. It would be a gain to the whole agricultural
community, of more national importance than the preservation of
the larger birds by the game laws.
We may be expected to say a word or two here respecting the
result of the last five years on pomology in the United States. The
facts are so well known that it seems hardly necessary. There has
never been a period on either side of the Atlantic, when so much
attention has been paid to fruit and fruit culture. The rapid in-
crease of nurseries, the enormous sales of fruit-trees, the publication
and dissemination of work after work upon fruits and fruit culture,
abundantly prove this assertion. The Pomological Congress which
held its third session last year in Cincinnati, and which meets again
this autumn in Philadelphia, has done much, and will do more to-
wards generalizing our pomological knowledge for the country gen-
erally. During the last ten years, almost every fine fruit known in
Europe has been introduced, and most of them have been proved in
A FEW WORDS ON FRUIT CULTURE. 44]
this country. The result, on the whole, has been below the expec-
tation; a few very fine sorts admirably adapted to the country; a
great number of indifferent quality ; many absolutely worthless.
This, naturally, makes pomologists and fruit-growers less anxious
-about the novelties of the nurseries abroad, and more desirous of
originating first-rate varieties at home. The best lessons learned
from the discussions in the Pomological Congress—where the expe-
rience of the most practical fruit-growers of the country is brought
out—is, that for every State, or every distinct district of country,
there must be found or produced its improved indigenous varieties
of fruit—varieties born on the soil, inured to the climate, and there-
fore best adapted to that given locality. So that after gathering a
few kernels of wheat out of bushels of chaff, American horticultu-
rists feel, at the present moment, as if the best promise of future ex-
cellence, either in fruits or practical skill, lay in applying all our
knowledge and power to the study of our own soil and climate, and
in helping nature to perform the problem of successful cultivation,
by hints drawn from the facts immediately around us.
I.
THE FRUITS IN CONVENTION.
February, 1850.
HAT an extraordinary age is this for conventions! Now-a-
days, if people only imagine something is the matter, they
directly hold a convention, and resolve that the world shall be
amended. We should not be surprised to hear next, of a conven-
tion of crows, resolving that the wicked practice of setting scare-
crows in cornfields be henceforth abolished.
Sitting in our easy chair a few evenings since, we were quite sur-
prised to see the door of our library open, and a small boy—dressed
in dark green, who had something of the air of a locust or a grass-
hopper—walk in with a note.
It was an invitation to attend a mass meeting of all the fruits of
America, ass embled to discuss the propriety of changing their names.
Horrified at the revolutionary spirit, we seized our hat directly, and
bade the messenger lead the way.
He lost no time in conducting us at once to a large building,
where we entered a lofty hall, whose dome, ribbed like a melon, was
lighted by a gigantic chandelier, in the form of a Christmas tree,
the lights of which gleamed through golden and emerald drops of
all manner of crystal fruits.
In the hall itself were assembled all our familiar acquaintances,
and many that were scarcely known to us by sight. We mean our
acquaintances—the fruits. On the right of the speaker sat the
Pears ; rather a tall, aristocratic set of gentlemen and ladies,—many
of them foreigners, and most of them of French origin. One could
THE FRUITS IN CONVENTION. 443
see by the gossiping and low conversation going on in knots
among them, that they were full of little schemes of finesse. On
the left, sat the numerous Apple family, with honest, ruddy faces ;
and whether Yankee, English, or German, evidently all of the Teu-
tonic race. They had a resolute, determined air, as if they had busi-
ness of importance on hand. Directly behind the Pears sat the
Peaches, mostly ladies, with such soft complexions and finely turned
figures as it did one’s eyes good to contemplate; or youths, with the
soft down of early manhood on their chins. Apricots and Necta-
rines were mingled among them, full of sweet smiles and a honeyed
expression about their mouths. The Plums were there, too, dressed
in purple and gold,—many of them in velvet coats, with a fine downy
bloom upon them; and near them were the Cherries, an arrant, co-
quettish set of lasses and lads,—the light in their eyes as bright as
rubies. The Strawberries sat on low stools in the aisles, overhung
and backed by the Grapes,—tall fellows, twisting their moustaches
(tendrils), and leaning about idly, as if they took but little interest
in the proceedings. The only sour faces in the crowd were those of
a knot of Morello Cherries and Dutch Currants, who took every
occasion to hiss any speaker not in favor.
We said this was a convention of fruits; but we ought also to
add that the fruits looked extremely like human beings. On re-
marking this to our guide, he quietly said,—‘ Of course, you know
you see them now in their spiritual forms. If you half close your eyes,
you will find you recognize them all in their everyday, familiar
. shapes.” And so indeed we did, and were shaking hands warmly
with our neighbors and friends—the Beurrés, and Pippins, and Pear-
mains, when we were interrupted by the speaker, calling the meet-
ing to order.
The Speaker (on giving him the dlink), we found to be a fine
large specimen of the Boston Russet, with a dignified expression, and
a certain bland air of one accustomed to preside. He returned
thanks very handsomely to the convention for the honor of the
chair ; assuring them that having been bred in the land of steady
habits, he would do all in his power to maintain order and expedite
the business of the convention. We noticed, as he sat down, that
there were vice-presidents from every State,—many of them old and
444 FRUIT.
well-known fruits ; and that the Le Clerc Pear and an Honest John
Peach were the secretaries; and a pair of very astringent looking
fellows—one a Crab Apple, and the other a Choke Pear—were ser-
geants-at-arms, or door-keepers. Their duties seemed to be chiefly
that of preventing some brambles from clambering up the walls and
looking in the windows, and a knot of saucy looking blackamoors,
whom we discovered to be only Black Currants, from crowding up
the lobbies ; the latter in particular, being in bad odor with many
of the members.
There was a little stir on the left, and a solid, substantial, well-
to-do personage rose, who we recognized immediately as the New-
town Pippin. He had the air of a man about sixty; but there was
a look of sound health about him which made you feel sure of his
hundredth year.
The Newtown Pippin said it was needless for him to remark that
this was no common meeting. The members were all aware that
no ordinary motives had called together this great convention of
fruits. He was proud and happy to welcome so many natives and
naturalized citizens,—all bearing evidence of having taken kindly
to the soil of this great and happy country. Every one present
knows, the world begins to know, he remarked, that North America
is the greatest of fruit-growing countries (hear, hear), that the United
States was fast becoming the favored land of Pomona, who, indeed,
was always rather republican in her taste, and hated, above all
things, the fashion in aristocratic countries of tymg her up to walls,
and confining her under glass. He preferred the open air, and the:
free breath of orchards.
But, he said, it was necessary to come to business. This conven-
tion had met to discuss the propriety and necessity of passing an
alien law, by which all foreigners, on settling in this country, should
be obliged to drop their foreign names, or, rather, have them trans-
lated into plain English. The cultivators of fruit were, take them alto-
gether, a body of plain, honest countrymen, who, however they might
relish foreign fruits, did not get on well with foreign names. They
found them to stick in their throats to such a degree that they could
not make good bargains over such gibberish. The question to be
brought before this meeting, therefore, was nothing more nor less than
THE FRUITS IN CONVENTION, 445
whether things should be called by names that sounded real, or
names that had a foreign, fictitious and romantic air; whether an
honest man might be called in plain English a “ good Christian,” or
whether he should forever be doomed to be misrepresented and
misunderstood as a “ Bon Chrétien.” For his own patt, he said, he
thought it was time to assert our nationality ; and while he was the
last man to say or do any thing to prevent foreigners from settling
among us, he did think that they should have the courtesy to drop
foreign airs and come down to plain English, or plain Yankee com-
prehension. He was himself a “native American,” and he gloried
in it. He considered himself, though a plain republican, as good as
any foreigners, however high-sounding their titles; and he believed
that if fruits would be more careful about their intrinsic flavor, and
study, ashe did, how to maintain their credit perfect and unimpaired
for the longest possible period, it would in the end be found more to
their advantage than this stickling for foreign titles. His ancestors,
he said, were born in the State of New-York; and he was himself
raised in a great and well-known orchard on the Hudson. (Hear,
hear.) If any gentleman present wished to know the value of a
plain American name, he would be glad to show hin, in dollars and
cents, the income of that orchard. He was in greater favor in
Covent Garden market than any English or continental fruit ; and
such sums had been realized from the sales of that orchard, that it
was seriously proposed in the English parliament to impose a duty
on Newtown Pippins, to pay off the national debt. (@reat applause,
and a hiss from a string of Currants.) He concluded, by trust-
ing the chairman would pardon this allusion to his own affairs, which
he only gave to show that a Pippin, in plain English, was worth
as much in the market and the world’s estimation, as the finest
French title that was ever lisped in the Faubourg St. Germain.
He moved that all foreign names of fruits be done into plain Eng-
lish.
This speech produced a great commotion among the Pears on
the right, who had evidently not expected such a straightforward
way of treating the matter. For a moment all was confusion. That
little fellow, the Petit Muscat,—always the first on the carpet,—
van hither and thither gathering little clusters about him. The
446 FRUIT.
Sans-peau, or Skinless, was evidently touched to the quick. The
Pomme glacé gave all the Pippins a freezing look; and the Yon-
dante d’ Automne, a very tender creature, was so overcome that she
melted into tears at such a monstrous proposition. The Belle de
Bruxelles muttered that she had seen Newtown Pippins that were
false-hearted ; and the Poire Episcopal declared that the man who
could utter such sentiments was a radical, and dangerous to the
peace of established institutions.
Just as we were wondering who would rise on the opposition, a
tall, well proportioned Pear got up, with a pleasant Flemish aspect.
It was Van Mons’ Léon le Clerc. He said he was sorry to see this
violent feeling manifested against foreign names; and being a
foreigner, and having had a pretty long acquaintance with foreign
Pears abroad, he felt called upon to say something in theit defence.
He thought the remarks of the gentleman who had preceded him,
both uncourteous to foreigners and unreasonable. He could not un-
derstand why people should not be allowed to retain their names,
at least such as had any worth retaining, even if they did become
rooted to the soil of this country. Especially when those names
were in the most polite language in the world,—a language which
every educated person was bound to understand,—a language spoken
by Duhamel and Van Mons, the greatest of pomologists,—a lan-
guage more universal than the English,—spoken, in short, in all
civilized countries, and especially spoken by fine ladies over a dish
of fine pears at the dessert. (Great applause.)
Here, a stranger to us, the Bezi des Vétérans, rose and said :—
Sare, I have de honor to just arrive in dis country. I am very much
chagrineé at dis proposition to take away my name. I have run
away from de revolutions, what take away my property, and here
T hope to find la liberté—la paix ; and I only find les volewrs—
robbers—vat vish to take away my name. Yes, sare; and what
they will call me den ?—* wild old mans,” or “ old sojair?” Bah!
Me no like to be so, Moi, who belong to de grand bataillon—le
garde Napoléon !
Here a pleasant and amiable lady rose, evidently a little embar-
rassed. It was Louise Bonne de Jersey. She said she loved Ame-
rica. True, she had found the climate not to agree with her at first,
THE FRUITS IN CONVENTION. 447
and her children seemed to pine away; but since she had taken
that hardy creature, the Quince, for a partner, they had done won-
derfully well. For her own part, she had no objection whatever to
being called “Good Louise,” or even “Dear Louisa,” if her Ame-
rican friends and cousins liked it better. All she asked was to be
allowed to live in the closest intimacy with the Quince, and not
to have any cutting remarks made at her roots. She could not
bear that.
A very superb and stately lady next rose, giving a shake to her
broad skirts of yellow satin, and looking about her with the air of
a duchess. In fact, it was the Duchesse d’ Angouléme ; and though
she was a little high shouldered, and her features somewhat irregular,
she had still a very noble air. She remarked, in a simple and dig-
nified voice, that she had been many years in this country, and had
become very partial to the people and institutions. Naturally, she
had strong attachments to old names and associations, especially
where, as in her case, they were names that were names. But, she
added, it was impossible to live in America without mixing with
the people, if one’s very name could not be understood. It was
very distressing to her feelings to find, as she did, that French was
not taught in the common schools; and she hoped if an agricul-
tural college was established, the scholars would be taught that lan-
guage which was synonymous with every thing elegant and refined.
She trusted, in conclusion, that though names should be anglicized,
the dignity would be preserved. A duchess, in name at least, she
must always be; but if republicans preferred to call her simply the
Duchess of Angouleme, she saw nothing amiss in it. Especially,—
she remarked, with a slight toss of the head,—especially, since she
had heard an ignorant man, at the country-seat where she resided
call her repeatedly “ Duchy-Dan goes-lame;” and another, who
visits him, speak of her, as “ Dutch Dangle-um,” forgetting that she
abhorred Holland.
She was followed by the Red Streak Apple, from New Jersey,
a very blunt, sturdy fellow, who spoke his mind plainly. He said
he liked the good sense of the lady who had just spoken ; she was
a woman he should have no objection to call a Duchess himself.
About this matter he had but few words to say. Some folks were
448 FRUIT.
all talk and no ezder ; that, thank God! was not his fashion. What
he had to say he said; and that was, that he was sick of this tom-
foolery about foreign names. A name either meant something or it
did not. Any body who looked at him could see that he was a
Red-Streak, and that was all that his father expected when he named
him. Any body could believe that the last speaker was a Duchess.
But what, he should like to know, did the man mean who named a
Peach “ Sanguinole a chair adherent!” He should like to meet
that chap. It would be a regular raw-head and bloody-bones piece
of business for him. And “ Fondante du Bois ;” he supposed that
was the fond aunt of some b*hoys,—it might be the “ old boy,” for
all he knew. And “ Beurré Gris d’Hiver nouveau.” Could any
thing be more ridiculous! He should like to know how those
clever people, the pomologists, would translate that? They told
him, “new gray winter butter,” (dawghter ;) and what sort of winter
butter, pray, was that? “ Reine de Pays bas ;” what this meant,
he did not exactly know,—something, he supposed, about “ rainy
weather pays bad,” which would not go down, he could tell the
gentleman, in our dry climate. There was no end to this stuff, he
said. He seconded the Pippin. Clear it all away; boil it down to
a little pure, plain English essence, if there was any substance in it ;
if not, throw the lingo to the dogs. He hoped the Pears would ex-
cuse him. He meant no offence to them personally. But he didn’t
like their names, and he told them so to their faces.
The Minster Apple here observed that he had some moral scru-
ples about changing the names of all the fruits. It might have
a bad effect on the hearts and minds of the community. He
begged leave to present to the speaker’s consideration’ such names,
for example, as the “Ah mon Dieu,” and the “ Cuisse Madame”
Pears! There were many who grew those Pears, and, like our first
parents, did not know the real nature of the fruits in the garden.
Happy ignorance! Translate them, and they would, he feared, be-
come fruits of the tree of knowledge.
A tall Mazzard Cherry hereupon remarked (wiping his specta-
cles), that a very easy way of avoiding the danger which his worthy
friend, who had just sat down, had pointed out, would be to reject
both the Pears and the names, when they were no better than the
THE FRUITS IN CONVENTION. 449
last. He was a warm friend to progress in horticulture, and he was
fully of the opinion of the Jersey Red-Streak, that things should
not come among us, plain republicans, in disguise. How, indeed,
did we know that these Pears of France were not sent out here
under these queer names for the very purpose of corrupting our
morals; or, at least, imposing on us in some way? He had been
settled in a garden for some years, among a pleasant society of trees,
when last spring the owner introduced a new Pear from abroad,
under the fine name of “ Chat brulé.” For some time the thing
put on airs, and talked about its estate and chateau having been
destroyed by incendiaries; and it showed a petition for charity.
What was his amazement, one day, when the daughter of the pro-
prietor came in the garden, to see the contempt with which she
turned away from this Pear, and exclaimed, “ what could have in-
duced pa to have brought this ‘singed cat’ here?” Chat brulé,
indeed! He bent over the creature and switched her finely the
first stormy day. He was for translating all good fruits and damn-
ing all bad ones. (At hearing this, certain second-rate Strawber-
ries commenced running.) :
The convention grew very excited as the Mazzard sat down.
The Muscat Noir Grape looked black in the face; the Crown Bob
Gooseberry threw up his hat; and the Blood Peach, who had been
flirting with a very worthless fellow—the French soft-shelled Al-
mond—turned quite crimson all over. Cries of “order, order,”
were heard from all sides; and it was only restored when a little,
plump, Dolly-Varden-looking young girl, who was a great favorite
in good society, sprang upon a chair in order to be seen and
heard.
This was the Lady Apple. Her eyes sparkled, and set off her
brilliant complexion, which was quite dazzlingly fair. It was easy
to see that she was a sort of spoiled child among the fruits.
Mr. Speaker, she said in a very sweet voice, you will indulge
me, I am sure, with a very little speech—my maiden speech. I
should not have ventured here, but I positively thought it was to
have been a private party, and not one of these odious mass meet-
ings. I am accustomed to the society of well-bred people, and
know something of the polite language of both hemispheres. In-
29
450 FRUIT.
deed, my ancestors still live in France, though I am myself a real
American. What I have to tell is only a little of my own experience ;
which is, that one may, if one has good looks, and is a person of
taste, have her name changed without suffering the least loss of
character or reputation. Indeed, I am convinced it may often add
to her circle of admirers, by making her better understood and ap-
preciated. I am almost ashamed, ladies and gentlemen, to refer to
my own life, illustrative of this remark. (Cheers). [Here she
blushed, and looked around her very sweetly.] At home, there in
la belle France, I belong to the old and very respectable family of
the Api’s. There was not much in that; but mostly shut up in an
old dingy chateau,—no society—no evening parties—no excite-
ment. I assure you it was very dull. In this: country, where I am
known every where as the “ Lady Apple,” I am invited every where
among the most fashionable people. Yes, Mr. Speaker, this coun-
try has charmingly been called the paradise of ladies; and I would
advise all deserving and modest girls in jeune France, to come over
to younger eames, and change their names as quickly as they can.
(Hear, hear, especially from the Jonathan Apple.) If they will
take my advice, they will put off all foolish pride and fine names
that mean nothing, and try to speak plain English, and dress
in the latest republican style; (especially,—she added, as¢de, turn-'
ing to the foreign Pears,—especially as the fashions always come
from Paris.)
This lively little sally evidently made a favorable impression.
The Bartlett Pear said he was nobody in France as the Poitre Guil-
lame, while here, where the climate agreed so much better with his
constitution, he was a favorite with high and low. The Duchesse
@’ Orleans thought it best for ladies like herself, who did not expect
to associate with any but the educated class, to retain their foreign
names. The Jargonell Pear said he had heard a great deal of talk,
which to him was a mere babel of tongues. His name was the
same on both sides of the water. The Flemish Beauty said, on the
other hand, that she was a great deal more loved in this country
now, than when she first came here as the Belle de Flandres. The
Bellefleur Apple observed, she had tried to maintain her foreign
etymology in this country without success, and meant to be hence-
THE FRUITS IN CONVENTION. 451
forth plain Bellflower: and the Surprise Apple turned red, as he
attempted to say something (the Morello trying to hiss him down);
but he was only able to stammer out his astonishment that any eue
could doubt the policy of so wise a movement.
There was here a tumult among some of the foreign Grapes,
accustomed to live in glass-houses, who had been caught by the
Crab Apples stoning the windows, and sticking their spurs (they
were short-pruned vines) into some patient-looking old Horse Apples
from the western States. A free-soiler, who was known as the
Northern Spy, was about to sow the seeds of the apple of discord
in the convention, by bringing forward an amendment, that no
foreign fruits, and especially none which were not “on their own
bottoms,” should be allowed to settle in any of the new States or
territories, when that old favorite, the Vergal Pear, made a sooth-
ing speech, in his usual melting and buttery manner, which brought
all the meeting to a feeling of unanimity again; when they re-
solved to postpone further action, but to prepare a memorial on the
subject, to be laid before the Congress of Fruit-growers, at its meet-
ing next fall in Cincinnati.
one
THE PHILOSOPHY OF MANURING ORCHARDS.
January, 1848.
HE culture of the soil may be viewed in two very different as-
pects. In one, it is amean and ignorant employment. It is a
moral servitude, which man is condemned to pay to fields perpetu-
ally doomed to bear thorns and thistles. It is an unmeaning routine
of planting and sowing, to earn bread enough to satisfy the hunger
and cover the nakedness of the race. And it is performed in this
light, by the servants of the soil, in a routine as simple, and with a
spirit scarcely more intelligent than that of the beasts which draw
the plough that tears open the bosom of a hard and ungenial
earth !
What is the other aspect in which agriculture may be viewed?
Very different indeed. It is an employment at once the most natural,
noble, and independent that can engage the energies of man. It
brings the whole earth into subjection. It transforms unproductive
tracts into fruitful fields and gardens. It raises man out of the un-
certain and wild life of the fisher and hunter, into that where all the
best institutions of society have their birth. It is the mother of all
the arts, all the commerce, and all the imdustrial employments that
maintain the civilization of the world. It is full of the most pro-
found physical wonders, and involves an insight into the whole his-
tory of the planet, and the hidden laws that govern that most com-
mon and palpable, and yet most wonderful and incomprehensible
substance—matter! There has never yet lived one who has been
philosopher enough to penetrate farther than the outer vestibules of
THE PHILOSOPHY OF MANURING ORCHARDS, 453
its great temples of truth ; and there are mysteries enough yet un-
explained in that every-day miracle, the growth of an acorn, to ex-
cite for ages the attention and admiration of the most profound
worshipper of God’s works.
Fortunately for us and for our age, too much light has: already
dawned upon us to allow intelligent men ever to relapse into any
such degrading view of the aim and rights of the cultivator as that
first presented. We have too generally ascertained the value of
science, imperfect as it still is, applied to farming and gardening, to
be contented any more to go back to that condition of things when
a crooked tree was used for a plough, and nuts and wild berries
were sufficient to satisfy the rude appetite of man. The natural
sciences have lately opened new revelations to us of the hidden prob-
lems of growth, nutrition, and decay, in the vegetable and animal
kingdoms. Secrets have been laid bare that give us a new key to
power, in our attempts to gain the mastery over matter, and we are
continually on the alert to verify and put in practice our newly ac-
quired knowledge, or to add in every possible way to the old stock.
Men are no longer contented to reap short crops from worn-out soil.
They look for scientific means of renovating it. They would make
the earth do its utmost. Agriculture is thus losing its old character
of being merely physical drudgery, and is rapidly becoming a sci-
ence, full of profound interest, as well as a grand practical art, which,
Atlas-like, bears the burden of the world on its back.
It is not to be denied that cuemisrry is the great railroad which
has lately been opened, graded, and partially set in operation, to
facilitate progress through that wide and comparatively unexplored
territory—scientific cultivation: chemistry, which has scrutinized
and analyzed till she has made many things, formerly doubtful and
hidden, as clear as noonday. And it is by watching her move-
ments closely, by testing her theories by practice, by seizing every
valuable suggestion, and working out her problems patiently and
fairly, that the cultivator is mainly to hope for progress in the future.
No one who applies his reasoning powers to the subject will fail
to see, also, how many interesting points are yet in obscurity ; how
many important facts are only just beginning to dawn upon the pa-
tient investigator; how much is yet to be learned only by repeated
454 FRUIT.
experiments ; and how many fail who expect to get immediate re-
plies from nature, to questions whose satisfactory solution must de-
pend upor a variety of preliminary knowledge, only to be gathered
slowly and patiently, by those who are unceasing in their devotion
to her teachings.
There are no means of calculating how much chemistry has
done for agriculture within the last ten years. We say this, not in
the sanguine spirit of one who reads a volume on agricultural chem-
istry for the first time, and imagines that by the application of a few
salts he can directly change barren fields into fertile bottoms, and
raise one hundred bushels of corn where twenty grew before. But
we say it after no little observation of the results of experimental
farming—full of failures and errors, with only occasional examples
of brilliant suecess—as it is.
There are numbers of readers who, seeing the partial operations
of nature laid bare, imagine that the whole secret of assimilation is
discovered, and by taking too short a route to the end in view, they
destroy all. They may be likened to those intellectual sluggards
who are captivated by certain easy roads to learning, the gates of
which are kept by those who teach every branch of human wisdom
in siz lessons! This gallop into the futurity of laborious effort, gen-
erally produces a giddiness that is almost equivalent to the oblitera-
tion of all one’s power of discernment. And though one may, now,
by the aid of magnetism, “ put a girdle round the earth” in dess than
“forty minutes,” there are still conditions of nature that imperiously
demand time and space.
Granting, therefore, that there are hundreds who have failed in
their experiments with agricultural chemistry, still we contend that
there are a few of the more skilful and thorough experimenters who
have been eminently successful; and whose success will gradually
form the basis of a new and improved system of agriculture.
More than this, the attention which has been drawn to the value
of careful and intelligent culture, is producing indirectly the most
valuable results. Twenty years ago not one person in ten thousand,
cultivating the land, among us, thought of any other -means of en-
riching it than that of supplying it with barn-yard manure. At
the present moment there is not an intelligent farmer in the coun-
THE PHILOSOPHY OF MANURING ORCHARDS. 455
try who is not conversant with the economy and value of muck,
ashes, lime, marl, bones, and a number of less important fertilizers.
In all the older and less fertile parts of the country, where manure
is no longer cheap, the use of these fertilizers has enabled agricultu-
rists of limited means to keep their land in high condition, and add
thirty per cent. to their crops. And any one who will take the
trouble to examine into the matter in our principal cities, will find
that fifty articles, in the aggregate of enormous value for manure to
the farmer and gardener, which were until lately entirely thrown
away, are now preserved, are articles of commerce, and are all turned
to the utmost account as food for the crops.
We have been led into this train of thought by observing that
after the great staples of the agriculturist—bread-stuffs and the
grasses—have had that first attention at the hands of the chemist
which they so eminently deserve, some investigation is now going
on for the benefit of the horticulturist and the orchardist, of which
itis our duty to keep our readers informed. We allude to the
analyses which have been made of the composition of the inorganic
parts of vegetables, and more especially of some of the fruit-trees
whose culture is becoming an object of so much infportance to this
country.
We think no one at all familiar with modern chemistry or sci-
entific agriculture, can for a moment deny the value of specific ma-
nures. It is the great platform upon which the scientific culture of
the present day stands, and which raises it so high above the old
empirical routine of the last century. But in order to be able to
make practical application, with any tolerable chance of success, of
the doctrine of special manures, we must have before us careful
analyses of the composition of the plants we propose to cultivate.
Science has proved to us that there are substances which are of
universal value as food for plants ; but it is now no less certain that,
as the composition of different plants, and even different species of
plants, differs very widely, so must certain substances, essential to
the growth of the plant, be present in the soil, or that growth is
feeble and imperfect. .
A little observation will satisfy any careful inquirer, that but
little is yet practically known of the proper mode of manwring
456 FRUIT.
orchards, and rendering them uniformly productive. To say that
in almost every neighborhood, orchards will be found which bear
large crops of fine fruit, while others, not half a mile off, produce
only small crops; that in one part of the country a given kind of
fruit is always large and fair, and in another it is always spotted and
defective; that barn-yard manure seems to produce but little effect
in remedying these evils; that orchards often nearly cease bearing
while yet the trees are in full maturity, and by no means in a worn-
out or dying condition: to say all this, is only to repeat what every
experienced cultivator of orchards is familiar with, but for which few
or no practical cultivators have the explanation ready.
We have seen a heavy application of common manure made to
apple-trees, which were in this inexplicable condition of bearing no
sound fruit, without producing any good effects. The trees grew
more luxuriantly, but the fruit was still knotty and inferior. In this
state of things, the baffled practical man very properly attributes it
to some inherent defect in the soil, and looks to the chemist for aid.
We are glad to be able to say, this aid is forthcoming, Many
valuable analyses of the ashes of trees and plants, have been made
lately at Giessen, and may be found in the appendix to the last edi-
tion of Liebig’s Agricultural Chemistry.* And still more recently,
Dr. Emmons, of Albany, wel! known by his labors in the cause of
scientific agriculture, + has devoted considerable time and attention
to ascertaining the elements which enter into the composition of the
inorganic parts of trees.
The result of this investigation we consider of the highest im-
portance to the fruit cultivator and the orchardist. In fact, though
still imperfect, it clears up many difficult points, and gives us some
basis for a more philosophical system of manuring orchards than has
yet prevailed.
The importance of the gaseous and more soluble manures—am-
monia, nitrogen, etc., to.the whole vegetable kingdom, has long been
pretty thoroughly appreciated. The old-fashioned, practical man,
dating from Noah’s time, who stands by his well-rotted barn-yard
* Published by Wiley & Putnam, New-York.
+ See his quarto vol. on the Agriculture of New-York, lately published,
and forming part of the State survey.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF MANURING ORCHARDS. 457
compost, and the new-school disciple, who uses guano and liquid
manures, are both ready witnesses to prove the universal and vital
importance of these animal fertilizers——manures that accelerate the
growth, and give volume and bulk to every part of a tree or plant.
But the value and importance of the heavier and more insoluble
earthy elements have often been disputed, and, though ably demon-
strated of late, there are still comparatively few who understand
their application, or who have any clear and definite ideas of their
value in the economy of vegetable structure
To get at the exact quantities of these ingredients, which enter
‘ into the composition of plants, it is necessary to analyze their ashes.
It is not our purpose, at the present moment, to go beyond the
limits of the orchard. We shall therefore confine ourselves to the
most important elements which make up the wood and bark of the
apple, the pear, and the grape-vine.
According to Dr. Emmons’s analysis, in 100 parts of the ashes
of the sap-wood of the apple-tree, there are three elements that
greatly preponderate, as follows: 16 parts potash, 17 parts phosphate
of lime, and 18 parts lime. In the bark of this tree, there are
4 parts potash and 51 parts lime.
100 parts of the ashes of the sap-wood of the pear-tree, show
22 parts potash, 27 parts phosphate of lime, and 12 parts lame ; the
bark giving 6 parts potash, 6 parts phosphate, and 30 parts divne.
The analysis of the common wild grape-vine, shows 20 parts pot-
ash, 15 parts phosphate of lime, and 17 parts lime, to every 100 parts ;
the bark giving 1 part potash, 5 parts phosphate of lime, and 39
parts lime.
Now, no intelligent cultivator can examine these results (which
we have given thus in the rough* to simplify the matter) without
* The following are Dr. Emmons’s exact analyses:
ASH OF THE PEAR.
Sap-wood. Bark.
Potash, : : 5 4 » 22:25 6°20
Soda, : 5 . ; A 1:84
Chlorine, : 6 7 5 Ol 1‘70
Sulphuric acid, . > : ° 0°50 1:80
Phosphate of lime, . < : . 27°22 6°50
458 FRUIT.
being conscious at a glance, that this large necessity existing in
these fruit-trees for potash, phosphate of lime, and lime, is not at all
Sap-wood. Bark.
Phosphate of peroxide of iron, . ° 0°31
Carbonie acid, ; : 6 ~ 2069 37°29
Lime, Bef : ? 12°64 30°36
Magnesia, : : : : . 38°00 9°40
Silex, .. ; / 0°30 0-40
Coal, . : : é : . O17 0°65
Organic matter, . : : : 4:02 4:20
100°25 98°30
ASH OF THE APPLE.
Sap-wood. Bark.
Potash, c 5 c ° | LET9 4930
Soda, ; : : : 311 3°285
Chloride of sedan, : 7 : . 0°42 0540
Sulphate of lime, . : : 0:05 0-637
Phosphate of peroxide ai iron, : . 0°80 0°375
Phosphate of lime, é - : 17°50 2°425
Phosphate of magnesia, : 6 a OY
Carbonic acid, . F : : 29°10 44°830
Lime, . : : . é . 18°63 51578
Magnesia, . : : ; ; 8-40 0°150
Silica, . ‘ ; ; . 0°85 0-200
Soluble silica, : c 5 : 0:80 0-400
Organic matter, . C ; - 4:60 2°100
100°65 109°450
COMMON WILD GRAPE-VINE.
Wood. Bark.
Potash, . 5 5 2 7 20°84 177
Soda, . : ; : ; 7206 0:27
Chlorine, . ; : ; ; 0-02 0°40
Sulpburie acid, ; c j oy 0:28 trace.
Phosphate of lime, ‘i ; : 15:40 5°04
Phosphate of peroxide of iron, See c20 5:04
Carbonie acid, . : : ; 34°83 32°22
Lime, . : 5 ; . ess 39°32
Magnesia, . : . 4 : 4:40 0°80
Silex, . : ; ‘ i ye 2780 14:00
Soluble silica, , : wee 0:00 0°30
Coal and organic matter, A : ~ e20 170
100-21 100°86
THE PHILOSOPHY OF MANURING ORCHARDS. 459
provided for by the common system of manuring orchards. Hence,
in certain soils, where a part or all of these elements naturally exist,
we see both the finest fruit and extraordinary productiveness in the
orchards. In other soils, well suited perhaps for many other crops,
orchards languish and are found unprofitable.
More than this, Dr. Emmons has pointed out what is perhaps
known to few of our readers, that these inorganic substances form,
as it were, the skeleton or bones of all vegetables as they do more
tangibly in animals. The bones of animals are lime—in the form
_ of phosphate and carbonate—and the frailer net-work skeleton of
trunk, leaves and fibres in plants, is formed of precisely the same
substance. The bark, the veins and nerves of the leaves, the skin
of fruit, are all formed upon a framework of this organized salt of
lime, which, in the growth of the plant, is taken up from the soil,
and circulates freely to the outer extremities of the tree or plant in
all directions.
As these elements, which we have named as forming so large a
part of the ashes of plants, are found in animal manures, the latter
are quite sufficient in soils where they are not naturally-deficient.
But, on the other hand, where the soil is wanting in lime, potash
and phosphate of lime, common manures will not and do not an-
swer the purpose. Experience has abundantly proved the latter po-
sition; and science has at length pointed out the cause of the
failure. .
The remedy is simple enough. Lime, potash and bones (which
latter abound in the phosphate) are cheap materials, easily obtained
in any part of the country. If they are not at hand, common
wood ashes, which contains all of them, is an easy substitute, and
one which may be used in much larger quantities than it is com-
monly applied, with the most decided benefit to all fruit-trees.
The more scientific cultivator of fruit will not fail, however, to
observe that there is a very marked difference in the proportion of
these inorganic matters in the ashes of the trees under our notice.
Thus, potash and phosphate of lime enter much more largely into
the composition of the pear than they do in that of the apple tree ;
while lime is much more abundant in the apple than in the pear;
the ashes of the bark of the apple-tree being more than half lime.
460 FRUIT.
Potash and lime are also found to be the predominant elements of
the inorganic structure of the grape-vine.
Hence potash and bone dust will be the principal substances to
nourish the structure of the pear-tree ; lime, the principal substance
for the apple; and potash for the grape-vine; though each of the
others are also highly essential.
Since these salts of lime penetrate to the remotest extremities of
the tree; since, indeed, they are the foundation upon which a
healthy structure of all the other parts must rest, it appears to us a
rational deduction that upon their presence, in sufficient quantity,
must depend largely the general healthy condition of the leaves and
fruit. Hence, it is not unlikely that certain diseases of fruit, known
as the bitter rot in apples, the mildew in grapes, and “ cracking” in
pears, known and confined to certain districts of the country,
may arise from a deficiency of these inorganic elements in the soil
of those districts, (not overlooking sulphate of iron, so marked in
its effect on the health of foliage.) Careful experiment will deter-
mine this; and if such should prove to be the case, one of the
greatest obstacles to universal orchard culture will be easily re-
moved.*
What we have here endeavored to convey of the importance
of certain specific manures for fruit-trees, is by no means all theory.
We could already give numerous practical illustrations to fortify it.
Two will perhaps suffice for the present.
The greatest orchard in America, most undeniably, is that at
Pelham farm, on the Hudson. How many barrels of apples are raised
* It will be remembered that, in our work on Fruits, we opposed the
theory that all the old pears, liable to crack along the sea-coast, and in some
other sections of the country, were “worn out.” We attributed their ap-
parent decline to unfavorable soil, injudicious culture and ungenial climate,
A good deal of observation since those views were published, has convinced
us that “cracking” in the pear is to be attributed more to an exhaustion, or
a want of certain necessary elements in the soil, than to any other cause.
Age has little or nothing to do with it, since Van Mon’s Leon Le Clere, one
of the newest and most vigorous of pears, has cracked in some soils for the
past two years around Boston, though perfectly fair in other soils there, and
in the interior.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF MANURING ORCHARDS. 461
there annually, we are not informed. but we do know, first, that
the crop this season, numbered several thousand barrels of New-
town pippins, of a size, flavor and beauty that we never saw sur-
passed ; and second, that the Pelham Newtown pippins are as well
known in Covent Garden market, London, as a Bank of England
note, and can as readily be turned into cash, with the highest pre-
mium over any other goods and chattels of the like description.
Now the great secret of the orchard culture at the Pelham farm, is
the abundant use of lime. Not that high culture and plenty of
other necessary food are wanting; but that lime is the great basis
of large crops and smooth, high-flavored fruit.
Again, the greatest difficulty in fruit culture in America, is to
grow the foreign grape in the open air. It is not heat nor fertility
that is wanting, for one section or another of the country can give
both these in perfection; but in all sections the fruit mildews, and
is, on the whole, nearly worthless. An intelligent cultivator, living
in a warm and genial corner of Canada West, (bordering on the
western part of Lake Erie,) had been more than usually successful
for several seasons in maturing several varieties of foreign grapes
in the open air. At length they began to fail—even upon the
young vines, and the mildew made its appearance to render nearly
the whole crop worthless. Last season, this gentleman, following a
hint in this journal, gave one of his grape borders a heavy dressing
of wood ashes. ‘These ashes contained, of course, both the potash
and the lime so necessary to the grape. He had the satisfaction of
raising, this season, a crop of fair and excellent grapes, (of which
we had occular proof,) from this border, while the other vines of the
same age (and treated, otherwise, in the same way) bore only mil-
dewed and worthless fruit. We consider both these instances ex-
cellent illustrations of the value of specific manures.
We promise to return to this subject again. In the mean time
it may not be useless to caution some of our readers against pursu-
ing the wholesale course with specifics which all quack doctors are so
fond of recommending—i. e., “if a thing is good, you cannot give
too much.” A tree is not all bones, and therefore something must
be considered besides its anatomical structure—important as that
462 FRUIT.
may be. The good, old-fashioned, substantial nourishment must not
be withheld, and a suitable ration from the compost or manure
heap, as usual, will by no means prevent our orchards being bene-
fited all the more by the substances of which they have especial
need, in certain portions of their organization.
IV.
THE VINEYARDS OF THE WEST.
August, 1850.
O sit under our own vine and fig-tree, with no one to make us
afraid, is the most ancient and sacred idea of a life of security,
contentment, and peace. In a national sense, we think we may be-
gin to lay claim to this species of comfort, so largely prized by our
ancestors of the patriarchal ages. The southern States have long
boasted their groves and gardens of fig-trees ; and there is no longer
any doubt regarding the fact, that the valley of the Ohio, with its
vine-clad hills, will soon afford a resting-place for millions of cultiva-
tors, who may sit down beneath the shadow of their own vines,
with none to make them afraid.
There has been so much “stuff,” of all descriptions, made in va-
rious parts of the country under the name of domestic wine—ninety-
nine hundredths of which is not half so good or so wholesome as
poor cider—that most persons whose palates are accustomed to the
fine products of France, Spain, or Madeira, have, after tasting of the
compounds alluded to, concluded that it was either a poor piece of
patriotism, or a bad joke,—this trying to swallow American wine.
On the other hand, various enterprising Frenchmen, observing
that the climate of a large part of the Union ripened peaches and
other fruits better than their own country, naturally concluded that
if they brought over the right kinds of French wine grapes, wine
must be produced here as good as that made at home. Yet, though
the experiment has been tried again and again by practical vigne-
rons, who know the mysteries of cultivation, and wine merchants
464 FRUIT.
who had an abundance of capital at their command, there is no
record of one single case of even tolerable success. In no part of
the United States is the climate adapted to the vineyard culture of
the foreign grape.
So much as this was learned, indeed, twenty years ago. But
was the matter to be given up in this manner? Could it be possi-
ble that a vast continent, over which, from one end to the other, the
wild grape grows in such abundance that the Northmen, who were
perhaps the first discoverers, gave it the beautiful name of Vrntanp,
should never be the land of vineyards?) There were at least two
men who still believed wine-making possible; and. who, twenty
years or more ago, noticing that the foreign grape proved worthless
in this country, had faith in the good qualities of the indigenous
stock.
We mean, of course, Major Adlum, of the District of Columbia,
and Nicholas Longworth, Esq., of Ohio. Both these gentlemen,
after testing the foreign grape, abandoned it, and took up the most
promising native sorts; and both at last settled apon the Catawba,
as the only wine grape, yet known, worthy of cultivation in Ame-
rica.
Major Adlum planted a vineyard, and made some wine, which
we tasted. It was of only tolerable quality; but it proved that
good wine can be made of native grapes, the growth of our own
soil. And though Adlum was not a thorough cultivator, he pub-
lished a volume on the culture of native grapes, which roused pub-
lic attention to the subject. He made the assertion before he died,
that in introducing the Cawtaba grape to public attention, he had
done more for the benefit of the country than if he had paid
off our then existing national debt. And to this sentiment there
are many in the western States who are ready now to subscribe
heartily.
Mr. Longworth is a man of different stamp. With abundant
capital, a great deal of patriotism, and a large love of the culture of
the soil, he adds an especial talent for overcoming obstacles, and
great pertinacity in carrying his point. What he cannot do him-
self, he very well knows how to find other persons capable of doing,
Hence he pursued quite the opposite system from those who under-
THE VINEYARDS OF THE WEST. 465
took the naturalization of the foreign grape. He advertised for na-
tive grapes of any and every sort, planted all and tested all; and at
last, he too has come to the conclusion that the Catawba is the
wine grape of America.
“What sort of wine does the Catawba make ?” inquires some
of our readers, who like nothing but Madeira and Sherry ; “and
what do you think will be the moral effect of making an abundance
of cheap wine?” asks some ultra temperance friend and reader.
We will try to answer both these questions.
The natural wine which the Cawtaba makes is a genuine hock—
a wine so much like the ordinary wines of the Rhine, that we could
put three of the former bottles among a dozen of the latter, and
it would puzzle the nicest connoisseur to select them by either color
or flavor. In other words, the Catawba wine (made as it is on the
Ohio, made without adding either alcohol or sugar) is a pleasant
light hock,—a little stronger than Rhine wine, but still far lighter
and purer than nineteen-twentieths of the wines that find their way
to this country. Its subacid flavor renders it especially grateful, as
a summer drink, in so hot a climate as ours; and the wholesome-
ness of the Rhine wine no one will deny.* Indeed, certain mala-
dies, troublesome enough in other lands, are never known in hock
countries; and though the taste for hock—like that for tomatoes—
is an acquired one, it is none the less natural for that; any more
than walking is, which, so far as our observation goes, is not one of
the things we come into the world with, like seeing and hearing.
As to the temperance view of this matter of wine-making, we
think a very little familiarity with the state of the case will settle
this point. Indeed, we are inclined to adopt the views of Dr. Flagg,
of Cincinnati. “The temperance cause is rapidly preparing public
sentiment for the introduction of pure American wine. So long as
public taste remains vitiated by the use of malt and alcoholic drinks,
it will be impossible to introduce light pleasant wine, except to a
very limited extent; but just in proportion as strong drinks are
abandoned, a more wholesome one will be substituted. Instead of
* Mr. Longworth is now making large quantities of sparkling Catawba
wine, of excellent quality—perhaps more nearly resembling sparkling hoek
than Champagne.
30
466 FRUIT.
paying millions tc foreigners for deleterious drinks, let us produce
from our own hillsides a wholesome beverage, that will be within
reach of us all—the poor as well as the rich.”
Very few of the friends of temperance are perhaps aware of two
facts. First, that pure light wines, such as the Catawba of this coun-
try, and the Hock and Clarets of Europe, contain so little aleohol
(only 7 or 8 per cent.) that they are not intoxicating unless drank
in a most inordinate manner, to which, from the quantity required,
there is no temptation. On the other hand, they exhilarate the spi-
rits, and act in a salutary manner on the respiratory organs. We
do not mean to say that men could not live and breathe just as well,
if there were no such thing as wine known ; but that since the time
of Noah, men will not be contented with merely living and breath-
ing; and it is therefore better to provide them with proper and
wholesome food and drink, than to put improper aliments within
their reach.
Second, that it is universally admitted that in all countries where
light wines so abound that the peasant or working-man may have his
pint of light wine per day, drunkenness is a thing unknown. On the
other hand, in all countries which do not produce claret, hock, or
some other wholesome light wine, ardent spirits are used, and drunk-
enness is the invariable result. As there is no nation in the world
where only cold water is drank, (unless opium is used,) and since
large bodies of men will live in cities, instead of forests and pas-
tures, there is not likely to be such a nation, let us choose whether
it is better to have national temperance with light wines, or national
intemperance with ardent spirits. The question resolves itself into
that narrow compass, at last.
As we think there are few who will hesitate which horn of the
dilemma to choose, (especially, as an Irishman would say, “ where
one is no horn at all,”) it is, we think, worth while to glance for a
moment at the state of the vine culture in the valley of the Ohio.
We have before us a very interesting little pamphlet, full of
practical details and suggestions on the subject.* It is understood
* A Treatise on Grape Culture in Vineyards in the vicinity of Cinein-
nati: By a member of the Cincinnati Horticultural Society. Sold by L F.
De Silver, Main-street, Cincinnati.
THE VINEYARDS OF THE WEST. 467
to be from the pen of R. Buchanan, Esq., president of the Cincin-
nati Horticultural Society. It deals more with facts, actual expe-
rience, and observation, and less with speculation, supposition, and
belief, than any thing on this topic that has yet appeared in the
United States. In other words, a man may take it, and plant a
vineyard, and raise grapes with success. He may even make good
wine; but no book can wholly teach this latter art, which must
come by the use of one’s eyes and hands in the business itself.
Among other interesting facts, which we glean from this pam-
phlet, are the following: The number of acres of vineyard culture,
within twenty miles of Cincinnati, is seven hundred and forty-three.
Those belong to 264 proprietors and tenants. Mr. Longworth owns
122 acres, cultivated by 27 tenants.
The average product per acre in 1848 (a good season) was 300
gallons to the acre. In 1849 (the worst year ever known) it was
100 gallons. One vineyard of two acres (that of Mr. Rentz) has
yielded 1300 gallons in a season. New Catawba wine, at the press,
brings 75 cents a gallon. When ready for sale, it readily commands
about $1.25 per gallon.
The best vineyard soil on the Ohio, as in the old world, is one
abounding with lime. A “dry caléareous loam” is the favorite soil
near Cincinnati. This is well drained and trenched, two or three
feet deep, before planting the vines; trenching being considered in-
dispensable, and being an important part of the expense. The vines,
one year old, may be had for $6 per 100, and are usually planted
three by six feet apart—about 2,420 vines to the acre. They are
trained to single poles or stakes, in the simple mode common in
most wine countries; and the product of the Catawba per acre is
considerably more than that of the wine-grape in France.
V.
ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF VEGETABLE RACES.
April, 1852.
OTWITHSTANDING all the drawbacks of the violent ex-
tremes of climate, the United States, and especially all that
belt.of country lying between the Mohawk and the James Rivers, is
probably as good a fruit country as can be found in the world.
Whilst every American, travelling in the north of Europe, observes
that very choice fruit, grown at great cost, and with the utmost care,
is more certainly to be found in the gardens of the wealthy than
with us, he also notices that the broad-cast production of tolerably
good fruit in orchards and gardens, is almost nothing in Europe,
when compared to what is seen in America. As we have already
stated, one-fourth of the skill and care expended on fruit culture in
the north of Europe, bestowed in America, would absolutely load
every table with the finest fruits of temperate climates.
As yet, however, we have not made any progress beyond com-
mon orchard culture. In the majority of cases, the orchard is planted,
cultivated two or three years with the plough, pruned’ badly three
or four times, and then left to itself. It is very true, that in the
fruit gardens, which begin to surround some of our older cities, the
well-prepared soil, careful selections of varieties, judicious culture
and pruning, have begun to awaken in the minds of the old fash-
ioned cultivators a sense of astonishment as to the size and perfec-
tion to which certain fruits can be brought, which begins to react
on the country at large. Little by little, the orchardists are begin-
ning to be aware that it is better to plant fifty trees carefully, in
ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF VEGETABLE RACES. 469
well-prepared soil, than to stick in five hundred, by thrusting the
roots in narrow holes, to struggle out an imperfect existence ; little
by little, the horticultural shows and the markets have proved, that
while fruit-trees of the best standard sorts cost no more than those
of indifferent quality—the fruit they bear is worth ten times as
much; and thus by degrees, the indifferent orchards are being reno-
vated by grafting, manuring, or altogether displaced by new ones of
superior quality.
Still, there are some important points in fruit culture overlooked.
One of the most conspicuous of these is, that varieties may be
found, or, if not existing, may be originated to suit every portion of
the United States. Because a fruit-grower in the State of Maine, or
the State of Louisiana, does not find, after making a trial of the
fruits that are of the highest quality in New-York or Pensylvannia,
that they are equally first rate with him, it by no means follows that
such wished-for varieties may not be produced. Although there
are a few sorts of fruits, like the Bartlett Pear, and the Roxbury
Russet Apple, that seem to have a kind of cosmopolitan constitu-
tion, by which they are almost equally at home in a cool or a hot
country, they are the exceptions, and not the rule. The English
Gooseberries may be said not to be at home any where in our
country, except in the cool, northern parts of New England—Maine,
for example. The foreign grape is fit for out-of-door culture no-
where in the United States, and even the Newtown Pippin and the
Spitzenberg apples, so unsurpassed on the Hudson, are worth little or
nothing on the Delaware. On the other hand, in every part of the
country, we see fruits constantly being originated—chance seedlings
in the orchards, perfectly adapted to the climate and the soil, and
occasionally of very fine quality.
An apple-tree which pleased the emigrant on his homestead on
the Connecticut, is carried, by means of grafts, to his new land in
Missouri, and it fails to produce the same fine pippins that it did at
home. But he sows the seeds of that tree, and from among many
of indifferent quality, he will often find one or more that shall not
only equal or surpass its parent in all its ancient New England fla-
vor, but shall have a western constitution, to make that flavor per-
manent in the land of its birth.
470 FRUIT.
In this way, and for the most part by the ordinary chances and
results of culture, and without a direct application of a scientific
system, what may be called the natural limits of any fruit-tree or
plant, may be largely extended. We say largely, because there are
certain boundaries beyond which the plants of the tropics cannot
be acclimated. The sugar cane cannot, by any process yet known,
be naturalized on Lake Superior, or the Indian corn on Hudson’s
Bay. But every body at the South knows that the range of the
sugar cane has been gradually extended northward, more than one
hundred miles; and the Indian corn is cultivated now, even far
north in Canada.
It is by watching these natural laws, as seen here and there in
irregular examples, and reducing them to something like a system,
and acting upon the principles which may be deduced from them,
that we may labor diligently towards a certain result, and not trust
to chance, groping about in the dark, blindly.
Although the two modes by which the production of a new va
riety of a fruit or flower—the first by saving the seeds of the very
fruit only, and the other by cross-breeding when the flowers are
about expanding—are very well known, and have been largely prac-
tised by the florists and gardeners of Europe for many years, in
bringing into existence most of the fine vegetables and flowers, and
many of the fruits that we now possess, it is remarkable that little
attention has been paid in all these efforts to acclimating the new
sorts by scientific reproduction from seed. Thus, in the case of
flowers—while the catalogues are filled with new verbenas every
year, no one, as we can learn, has endeavored to originate a hardy
verbena, though one of the trailing purple species is a hardy herba-
ceous border flower—and perhaps hybrids might be raised between it
and the scarlet sorts, that would be lasting and invaluable ornaments
to the garden. So with the gooseberry. This fruit shrub, so fine
in the damp climate of England, is so unsuited to the United States
generally—or at least most of the English sorts are—that not one
bush in twenty, bears fruit free from mildew. And yet, so far as
we know, no horticulturist has attempted to naturalize the cultivated
gooseberry in the only way it is likely to become naturalized, viz
by raising new varieties from seed in this country, so that they may
ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF VEGETABLE RACES. 471
have American constitutions, adapted to the American climate--
and therefore not likely to mildew. The same thing is true of the
foreign grape. Millions of roots of the foreign grape have, first
and last, been planted in the United States. Hardly one can be
pointed to that actually “succeeds” in the open-air culture—not
from want of heat or light—for we have the greatest abundance of
both; but from the want of constitutional adaptation. And still
the foreign grape is abandoned, except for vineries, without a fair
trial of the only modes by which it would naturally be hoped to ac-
climate it, viz.—raising seedlings here, and crossing it with our best
native sorts.
Every person interested in horticulture, must stumble upon facts
almost daily, that teach us how much may be done by a new race
or generation, in plants as well as men, that it is utterly out of the
question for the old race to accomplish. Compare, in the Western
States, the success of a colony of foreign emigrants in subduing the
wilderness and mastering the land, with that of another company
of our own race—say of New Englanders. The one has to contend
with all his old-world prejudices, habits of labor, modes of working ;
the other being “ to the manor born,” &c., seizes the Yankee axe,
and the forest, for the first time, acknowledges its master. While
the old-countryman is endeavoring to settle himself snugly, and
make a little neighborhood comfortable, the American husbandman
has cleared and harvested a whole state.
As in the man so in the plant. A race should be adapted to
the soil by being produced upon it, of the best possible materials.
The latter is as indispensable as the first—as it will not wholly suffice
that a man or a tree should be indigenous—or our American In-
dians, or our Chickasaw Plums, would never have given place to
either the Caucasian race, or the luscious “Jefferson ;’—but the
best race being taken at the starting point, the highest utility and
beauty will be found to spring from individuals adapted by birth,
constitution, and education, to the country. Among a thousand na-
tive Americans, there may be nine hundred no better suited to labor
of the body or brains, than so many Europeans—but there will be
five or ten that will reach a higher level of adaptation, or to use a
472 FRUIT.
western phrase, “ climb higher and dive deeper,” than any man out
of America.
We are not going to be led into a physiological digression on
the subject of the inextinguishable rights of a superior organization
in certain men and races of men, which nature every day reaffirms,
notwithstanding the socialistic and democratic theories of our poli-
ticians. But we will undertake to say, that if the races or plants
were as much improved as they might be, and as much adapted to
the various soils and climates of the Union, as they ought to be,
there is not a single square mile in the United States, that might
not boast its peaches, melons, apples, grapes, and all the other luxu-
ries of the garden now confined to a comparatively limited range.
And this is not only the most interesting of all fields for the
lover of the country and the garden, but it is that one precisely
ready to be put in operation at this season. The month of April is
the blossoming season over a large part of the country, and the blos-
som governs and fixes the character of the new race, by giving a
character to the seed. Let those who are not already familiar with
hybridizing and cross-breeding of plants—always effected when they
are in bloom—vread the chapter on this subject in our “ Fruit Trees,”
or any other work which treats of this subject. Let them ascertain
what are the desiderata for their soil and climate, which have not
yet been supplied, and set about giving that character to the new
seedlings, which a careful selection from the materials at hand, and
a few moments light and pleasant occupation will afford. If the
man who only made two blades of grass grow where one grew be-
fore, has been pronounced a benefactor to mankind, certainly he is
far more so who originates a new variety of grain, vegetable, or
fruit, adapted to a soil and climate where it before refused to grow
—-since thousands may continue to reap the benefit of the labors of
the latter for an indefinite length of time, while the former has only
the merit of being a good farmer for the time being.
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LETTERS FROM ENGLAND.
WARWICK CASTLE: KENILWORTH: STRATFORD-ON-
¥ AVON.
July, 1850.
Y DEAR SIR :—As, after looking at some constellation in a
summer night, one remembers most vividly its largest and
most potent star, so, from amid a constellation of fine country-seats,
I can write you to-day only of my visit to one, but that one which,
for its peculiar extent, overtops all the rest-—Warwick CASTLE.
Warwick Castle, indeed, combines in itself perhaps more of ro-
mantic and feudal interest than any actual residence in Europe, and
for this very reason, because it unites in itself the miracle of exhib-
iting at the same moment hoar antiquity, and the actual vivid pre-
sent, having been held and maintained from first to last by the same
family. In most of the magnificent country-seats of England, it is
rather vast extent and enormous expense which impresses one. If
they are new, they are sometimes overloaded with elaborate details ;*
* Like Eton Hall, near Liverpool, perhaps visited by more Americans
than any other seat—though the architecture is meretricious, and the whole
place as wanting in genuine taste as it is abounding in evidences of immense
wealth. Warwick Castle bears, to an American, the same relation to all
modern castles that the veritable Noah’s ark, if it could be found still in full
preservation, would to a model made by an ingenious antiquarian.
176 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND.
if old, they are often modernized in so tasteless a manner as to des-
troy all sentiment of antiquity. Plate glass windows ill accord with
antique casements, and Paris furniture and upholstery are not in
keeping with apartments of the time of Elizabeth.
In Warwick Castle and all that belongs to it, I found none of
this. All was entire harmony, and I lingered within and about it,
enjoying its absolue perfection, as if the whole were only conjured
up by an enchanter’s spell, and would soon dissolve into thin air.
And yet, on the contrary, I knew that here was a building which is
more than nine hundred years old; which has been the residence
of successive generations of the same family for centuries ; which
was the fortress of that mightiest of English subjects, Warwick,
“the great king-maker,” (who boasted that he had deposed three
English sovereigns and placed three in their vacant throne,) which,
long before the discovery of America, was the scene of wild jarring
and haughty chivalry, bloody prowess—yes, and of gentle love and
sweet affections, but which, as if defying time, is still a castle, as
real in its character as a feudal stronghold, and yet as complete a
baronial residence, as the imagination can conceive. To an Ameri-
can, whose country is but two hundred years old, the bridging over
such a vast chasm of time by the domestic memorials of a single
family, when, as in this case, that family has so made its mark upon
the early annals of his own race, there is something that approaches
the sublime.
The small town of Warwick, a quaint old place, which still
bears abundant traces of its Saxon origin, is situated nearly in the
centre of England, and lies on one side of the castle, to which it is
a mere dependency. It is placed on arising hill or knoll, the castle
oceupying the highest part, though mostly concealed from the town
by thick plantations. Around the other sides of the castle flows
_ the Avon, a lovely stream, whose poetical fame has not belied its
native charms; and beyond it stretch away the broad lands which
belong to the castle.
The finest approach for the stranger is from the pretty town of
Leamington, about two miles east of Warwick. At a turn, a few
hundred rods distant from the castle, the road crosses the Avon by
WARWICK CASTLE! KENILWORTH: STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 477
a wide bridge with a mossy stone balustrade, and here, looking
upward,
“ Bosomed high in tufted trees,
Towers and battlements he sees.”
The banks of the stream are finely fringed with foliage; beyond
them are larger trees; upon the rising ground in the rear grow lofty
and venerable chestnuts, oaks, and elms; and over this superb fore-
ground, rises up, grand and colossal, the huge pile of gray stone,
softened by the effects of time, and the rich masses of climbers that
hang like floating drapery about it. For a few moments you lose
sight of it, and the carriage suddenly stops before a high embattled
wall, where the porter answers the knock by slowly unfolding the
massive iron gates of the portal. Driving through this gateway you
wind through a deep cut in the solid rock, almost hidden by the
masses of ivy that hang along its sides, and in a few moments find
yourself directly before the entrance front of the castle. Whoever
designed this front, made up as it is of lofty towers and irregular
wall, must have been a poet as well as architect, for its composition
and details struck me as having the proportions and congruity of a
fine scene in nature, which we feel is not to be measured and defined
by the ordinary rules of art. And as it rose up before me, hoary
and venerable, yet solid and complete, I could have believed that it
was rather a magnificent effort of nature than any work of mere
tools and masonry.
In the central tower opened another iron gate, and driving
through a deep stone archway, I found myself in the midst of a
large open space of nearly a couple of acres, carpeted with the
finest turf, dotted with groups of aged trees and shrubs, and sur-
rounded on all sides by the castle walls. This is the inner court-
yard of the castle. Around it, forming four sides, are grouped in
the most picturesque and majestic manner, the varied forms and
outlines of the vast pile, partly hidden by the rich drapery of ivy
and old mossy trees. On the most sheltered side of the circular
walk which surrounds this court-yard, among many fine evergreens,
I noticed two giant Arbutuses (a shrub which I have vainly attempt-
ed to acclimatize in the northern States,) more than thirty feet high,
478 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND,
with trunks a couple of feet in diameter, the growth of more than
200 years.
On the south side of this court lies the principal mass of the
castle, affording an unbroken suite of rooms 333 feet long. At the
northeast, Czesar’s tower, built in Saxon times,—the oldest part of
the whole edifice, whose exact date is unknown—which rises dark,
gloomy and venerable, above all the rest; while at the southeast
stands the tower built by the great Warwicx—broader and more
massive, and partly hidden by huge chestnuts. The other sides are
not inhabited, but still remain as originally built,—a vast mass of
walls, with embattled parapets broken by towers with loopholes and
positions for defence—but with their sternness and severity broken
by the tender drapery of vines and shrubs, and the luxuriant beauty
of the richest verdure.
In the centre of the south side of this noble court-yard, you
enter the castle by a few steps. Passtng through the entrance hall,
you reach the great hall, vast, baronial and magnificent—the floor
paved with marble—and the roof carved in oak. Along the sides,
which are panelled in dark cedar, are hung the armor and the
weapons of every age since the first erection of the castle. I was
shown the leather shirt, with its blood-stains blackened by time,
worn by an ancestor of the present earl, who was slain at the battle
of Litchfield, and many other curious and powerful weapons used
by the great warriors of the family through a course of centuries.
On either side of this hall, to the right and left, in a straight
line, extend the continuous suite of apartments. The first on the
right is the ante-drawing-room, the walls crimson and gold; next,
the cedar drawing-room—the walls richly wainscoted with wood of
the cedar of Lebanon ; third, the great drawing-room, finely propor-
tioned and quite perfect in tone—its walls delicate apple-green, re-
lieved by a little pure white, and enriched with gilding; next,
Queen Anne’s state bedroom, with a superb state bed presented to
the then Earl of Warwick, by that queen, being antique, with tapes-
try, and decorated with a fine full-length picture of Queen Anne ;
and beyond this a cabinet filled with the choicest specimens of an-
cient Venetian art and workmanship. Behind the hall is the chapel,
and on the left the suite is continued in the same manner as on the
WARWICK CASTLE: KENILWORTH: STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 479
right. Of course a good deal of the furniture has been removed
from time to time, and large portions of the interior have been re-
stored by the present earl. But this has been done with such admi-
rable taste that there is nothing which disturbs the unity of the whole.
The furniture is all of dark wood, old cabinets richly inlaid with
brass, old carved oaken couches, or those rich mosaic tables which
were brought to England in the palmy days of the Italian states.
Every thing looks old, genuine and original. The apartments were
hung with very choice pictures by Van Dyck, Titian and Rubens—
among which I noticed a magnificent head of Cromwell, and
another of Queen Mary, that riveted my attention—the former by
its expression of the powerful selfcentred soul, and the latter by
the crushed and broken-hearted pensiveness of the countenance—
for it was Mary at 40, just before her death—still beautiful and
noble, but with the marks in her features of that suffering which
alone reveals to us the depth of the soul.
Not to weary you with the interior of what is only the first floor
of the castle, let me take you to one of the range of large, deep,
sunny windows which lights the whole of this suite of apartments
on their southern side. Each window is arched overhead and wain-
scoted on the side, and as the walls of the castle are 10 to 12 feet thick,
and each window above 8 feet wide, it forms almost a little room
or closet by itself. And from these windows how beautiful the land-
scape! Although we entered these apartments by only a few steps
from the level of the court-yard, yet on looking from these windows
I found myself more than 60 feet above the Avon, which almost
washes the base of the castle walls on this side, winding about in
the most graceful curve, and losing itself in the distance among
groups of aged elms. On this side of the castle, beyond the Avon,
stretches away the park of about a thousand acres. As far as the
eye reaches it is a beautiful English landscape, of fresh turf and fine
groups of trees—and beyond it, for several miles, lie the rich farm
lands of the Warwick estate. There are few pictures more lovely
than such a rural scene, and perhaps its quietness and serenity were
enhanced by contrast with the sombre grandeur of the feudal court-
yard where I first entered.
Passing through a gate in the castle wall, I entered the pleasure
480 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND.
grounds, and saw in the orangery or green-house, the celebrated
Warwick vase—the giant among vases. It is a magnificent mass
of marble, weighing 8 tons, of beautiful proportions, of which re-
duced copies are now familiar to us all over the world. It was
brought from the temple of Vesta, and is larger than I had been led
to believe, holding nearly two hogsheads. It is also rather more
globular in form, and more delicate in detail than one would sup-
pose from the copies.
In the pleasure grounds my admiration was riveted by the
“ cedar walk”—a fine avenue of cedars of Lebanon—that noblest of
evergreens—some sixty feet high, a tree which in its stately sym-
metry and great longevity, seemed a worthy companion of this
princely castle. But even the cedar of Lebanon is too short-lived,
for the two oldest trees which stand almost close to the southern
walls of the castle, and which are computed to be about five hun-
dred years old—gigantic and venerable in appearance—have lately
lost several of their finest branches, and are evidently fast going to
decay. It was striking to me to see, on the other hand, how much
the hoary aspect of the outer walls of the castle were heightened
by the various beautiful vines and climbers intermingled with hare-
bells, daisies and the like, which had sprung up of themselves on
the crevices of the mighty walls that overhang the Avon, and, sus-
tained by the moisture of its perennial waters, were allowed to grow
and flower without molestation, though every thing else that hastens
the decay of the building is jealously guarded against.
If any thing more were wanting to heighten the romantic interest
of this place, it would be found in the relics which are kept, partly
in the castle, and partly in the apartments at the outer portal, of the
famous Guy, Earl of Warwick, who lived in Saxon times, and whose
history and exploits heretofore always seemed as fabulous to me as
those of Blue-Beard himself. Still, here is his sword, an enormous
weapon six feet long, which it requires both hands to lift, his breast-
plate weighing fifty-two pounds, and his helmet seven pounds. The
size of these (and their genuineness is beyond dispute,) shows that
he must have been a man whose gigantic stature almost warrants the
belief in the miracles of valor which he performed in battle—as an
enormous iron “ porridge pot” of singular clumsy antique form, which
WARWICK CASTLE: KENILWORTH: STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 481]
holds 102 gallons, does any amount of credulity as to the digestive
powers necessary to sustain the Colossus who slew all the dragons
of his day.
While I was at Warwick, I ascended on a fine moonlight evening,
the top of the highest tower, commanding the whole panorama of
feudal castle, tributary town, and lovely landscape. It would be
vain to attempt to describe the powerful emotions that such a scene
and its many associations, under such circumstances, awakened
within me; but I turned my face at last, westward, toward my native
land, and with uplifted eyes thanked the good God, that, though to
England, the country of my ancestors, it had been given to show
the growth of man in his highest development of class or noble, to
America has been reserved the greater blessing of solving for the
world the true problem of all humanity—that of the abolition of all
eastes, and the recognition of the dive rights of every human
soul.
This neighborhood is equally beautiful to the eye of the pictu-
resque or the agricultural tourist. I was shown farms on the War-
wick estate which are let out to tenants at over £2 per acre—and
everywhere the richness of the grain-fields gave evidence both of
high cultivation and excellent soil. The chief difference, after all,
between an English rural landscape and one in the older and better
cultivated parts of the United States, is almost wholly in the univer-
sality of verdant hedges, and the total absence of all other fences.
The hedges (for the most part of hawthorn) divide all the farm-
fields, and line all the roadsides—and even the borders of the rail-
ways, in all parts of the country. I was quite satisfied with the
truth of this conjecture, when I came accidentally, in my drive yes-
terday, upon a little spot of a few rods—where the hedges had been
destroyed, and a temporary post and rail fence, ke those at home,
put in their place. The whole thing was lowered at once to the
harshness and rickety aspect of a farm at home. The majority of
the farm hedges are only trimmed once a year—in winter—and
therefore have, perhaps, a more natural and picturesque look than
the more carefully trimmed hedges of the gardens. Hence, for a
farm hedge, a plant should be chosen that will grow thick of itself
with only this single annual clipping, and which will adapt itself to
31
482 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND.
all soils. I am, therefore, confirmed in my belief, that the buck-
thorn is the farmer’s hedge plant for America, and I am also «satis-
fied that it will make a better and far more durable hedge than the
hawthorn does, even here.
Though England is beautifully wooded, yet the great preponder-
ance of the English elm—a tree wanting in grace, and only grand
when very old, renders an English roadside landscape in this
respect, one of less sylvan beauty than our finest scenery of like
character at home. The American elm, with its fine drooping
branches, is rarely or never seen here, and there is none of that
variety of foliage which we have in the United States. For this
reason (leaving out of sight rail fences), I do not think even the
drives through Warwickshire so full of rural beauty as those in the
valley of the Connecticut—which they most resemble. In June
our meadows there are as verdant, and our trees incomparably more
varied and beautiful. On the other hand, you must remember that
here, wealth and long civilization have so refined and perfected the
details, that in this respect there is no comparison—nothing in short
to be done but to admire and enjoy. For instance, for a circuit of
eight or ten miles or more here, between Leamington and Warwick
and Stratford-on-Avon, the roads, which are admirable, are regularly
sprinkled every dry day in summer, while along the railroads the
sides are cultivated with grass, or farm crops or flowers, almost to
the very rails.
The ruins of Kenilworth, only five miles from Warwick, have
been so often visited and described that they are almost familiar to
you. Though built long after Warwick castle, this vast palace,
which covered (including the garden walls) six or seven acres, is
entirely in ruins—like most of the very old castles in England. The
magnificent suites of apartments where the celebrated Earl of Lei-
cester, the favorite of Elizabeth, entertained his sovereign with such
regal magnificence, are roofless and desolate—only here and there a
fragment of a stately window or a splendid hall, attesting the beauty
of the noble architecture. Over such of the walls and towers as are
yet standing, grows, however, the most gigantic trees of ivy—abso-
lutely trees—with trunks more than two feet in diameter, and rich
masses of foliage, that covered the hoary and crumbling walls with
WARWICK CASTLE! KENILWORTH! STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 4838
a drapery so thick that I could not fathom it with an arm’s length.
When the ivy gets to be a couple of hundred years old, it loses
something of its vine-like character, and more resembles a gigantic
laurel tree, growing against and partly hiding the venerable walls.
In the ancient pleasure-grounds of Kenilworth—those very
pleasure-grounds whose alleys, doubtless Elizabeth and Leicester had
trodden together, I saw remaining the most beautiful hedges of old,
gold and silver holly—almost (to one fond of gardening) of them-
selves worth coming across the Atlantic to see—so rich were they
in their variegated glossy foliage, and so large and massive in their
growth. As these ruins are open to the*public, and are visited by
thousands, the keepers find it to their account to preserve, as much as
possible, the relics of the old garden in good order, though the pal-
ace itself is past all renovation.
In this neighborhood, at a distance of eight miles, is also that
spot dearest to all who speak the English language, and all who re-
spect human genius, Stratford-on-Avon. The coachman who drove
me thither from Warwick Castle, and whose mind probably mea-
sures greatness by the size of the dwelling it inhabits—volunteered
the information to me on the way there that it was “a very smallish
poor sort of a house,” that I was going to see. As I stood within
the walls of the humble room, little more than seven feet high, and
half a dozen yards long, where the greatest of poets was born and
passed so many days of his life, I involuntarily uncovered my head
and felt how much more sublime is the power of genius, which
causes this simplest of birth-places to move a deeper chord in the
heart than all the pomp and external circumstance of high birth or
heroic achievements, based as they mostly are, upon the more selfish
side of man’s nature. It was, indeed, a very “smallish” house, but
it was large enough to be the home of the mightiest soul that Eng-
land’s sky ever covered. )
Not far distant is the parish church, where Shakspeare lies
buried. An avenue of lime-trees, singularly clipped so as to form
an arbor, leads across the churchyard to the porch. Under a large
slab of coarse stone, lies the remains of the great dramatist, bearing
the simple and terse epitaph composed by himself; and above it,
upon the walls, is the monumental bust which is looked upon as the
484 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND.
most authentic likeness. It has, to my eye, a wooden and unmean-
ing expression, with no merit as a work of art—and if there ig any
truth in physiognomy could not have been a likeness—for the upper
lip is that of a man wholly occupied with self-conceit. I prefer
greatly, the portrait in Warwick Castle—which shows a face paler
and strongly marked with traces of thought, and an eye radiant
with the fire of genius—but ready with a warm, lightning glance,
to read the souls of others.
I write you from London, where I have promised to make a
visit to Sir William Hooker, who is the director of the Royal Bo-
tanic Garden at Kew, and, have accepted an invitation from the
Duke of Northumberland to see the fine trees at Sion House,
JER
KEW-GARDENS: NEW HOUSES. OF PARLIAMENT: A
NOBLEMAN’S SEAT.
August, 1850
Y DEAR SIR :—I intended to say something to you in this
letter of the enormous parks of London—absolute woods and
prairies, in the midst of a vast and populous city; but the subject
is one that demands more space than I have at my disposal to-day,
and I shall therefore reserve it for the future. I will merely say,
en passant, that every American who visits London, whether for the
first or the fiftieth time, feels mortified that no city in the United
States has a public park—here so justly considered both the highest
luxury and necessity in a great city. What are called parks in
New-York, are not even apologies for the thing; they are only
squares, or paddocks. In the parks of London, you may imagine
yourself in the depths of the country, with, apparently, its bound-
less space on all sides; its green turf, fresh air, and, at certain times
of the day, almost its solitude and repose. And at other times,
they are the healthful breathing zone of hundreds of thousands of
citizens !
Tue Narronan Garpen at Kew.—I have just come from a
visit to Sir William Hooker's, at Kew Park. He is the director
of the Royal Gardens at Kew,—a short distance from his house,—
where we spent almost the entire day together, exploring in detail
the many intersting features of this place, now admitted to be the
finest public botanic garden in Europe.
It is only within a few years that Kew Gardens have been given
486 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND.
up to the public; and it is wholly owing to the spirited administra-
tion of Sir William Hooker—so well known in both hemispheres
for his botanical science—that it has lately reached so high a rank
among botanical collections. Originally, the place is interesting, as
having been the favorite suburban residence of various branches of
the royal family. George III. lived here; and here Queen Char-
lotte died. The botanical taste of the latter is well known, and
has been commemorated in that striking and beautiful plant, the
Strelitzia, named in her honor* by Sir Joseph Banks. For a
long time the garden was the receptacle of all the rare plants eol-
lected by English trayellers—Capt. Cook, Sir Joseph Banks, Cun-
ningham, and others. What was formerly of little value has, how-
ever, lately become a matter of national pride; and this is owing
to the fact, that the present queen has wholly given Kew up to the
public, even adding a considerable sum annually from her private
purse towards maintaining it. The old “Kew Palace,” which
stands in the grounds, is a small, simple, brick mansion, without the
least pretension to state, and shows very conclusively that those of
the Hanover family who lived here did it from real attachment to
the place—like Queen Charlotte, from love of botany; as there is
nothing about it to please the tastes of an ambitious mind.
As Kew has been already described by one of the correspond-
ents of this journal, I shall not go into those details which might
otherwise be looked for. I shall rather prefer to give you a com-
prehensive idea of the attractions of the place, which, though about
eight miles from London, was visited last year by one hundred and
thirty-seven thousand persons. The only requisite for admission is
to be decently dressed.
When you hear of a garden, in America, you fancy some little
place, filled with borders and beds of shrubs and flowers, and laid
out with walks in various styles. Dispossess your mind at once,
however, of any such notions as applied to Kew. Fancy, on the
other hand, a surface of about two hundred acres; about sixty of
which is the botanic garden proper, and the rest open park or plea-
sure-grounds. The groundwork of the whole is turf; that is,
* She was Princess of the house of Mecklenberg Strelitz.
KEW GARDENS. 1487
smoothly-mown lawn in the sixty acres of botanic garden, and park-
like lawn, occasionally mown, in the remainder. Over this, is pic-
turesquely disposed a large growth of fine trees—in the botanic
garden, of all manner of rare species, every exotic that will thrive
in England—growing to their natural size without being in the least
crowded—tall pines, grand old Cedars of Lebanon, and all sorts of
rare deciduous trees. Between the avenues and groups are large open
glades of smooth lawn, in which are distributed hot-houses, orna-
mental cottages, a large lake of water, parterres of brilliant flowers
for show, and a botanical arrangement of plants, shrubs, and trees
for scientific study.
In the centre of a wide glade of turf rises up the new palm-
house, built in 1848. It is a palace of glass—362 feet in length,
and 66 feet high
though of great strength; for the whole, framework and sashes, is
of cast iron, glazed with 45,000 feet of glass. You open the door,
and, but for the glass roof that you see instead of sky above your
head, you might believe yourself in the West Indies. Lofty palm
trees, thirty or forty feet high, are growing, rooted in the deep soil
beneath your feet, with the same vigor and luxuriance as in the
West Indies. Huge clusters of golden bananas hang across the
walks, and cocoa-nut trees, forty-two feet high, wave their tufts of
and fairy-like and elegant in its proportions,
leaves over your head. The foliage of the cinnamon and camphor
scents the atmosphere, and rich air-plants of South America dazzle
the eye with their strange and fanciful blossoms. Most beautiful
of all are the tree ferns, with trunks eight or ten inches in diameter,
and lofty heads, crowned with plume-like tufts of the most delicate
and graceful of all foliage. From the light iron gallery, which runs
round the inside of this tropical forest-conservatory, you look down
on the richest assemblage of vegetable forms that can be conceived ;
while over your head clamber, under the iron rafters, in charming
luxuriance, the richest passion flowers and other vines of the East
Indian islands.
If you are interested in exotic botany, you may leave this palm
house, and pass the entire day in only a casual inspection of the
treasures of other climates, collected here from all parts of the
world. Green-houses, the stoves, the orchidaceous house, the Aus-
488 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND.
tralian house, the New-Zealand house, and a dozen other glass
structures, contain all the riches of the vegetable kingdom which will
not bear the open air,—and each in the highest state of cultivation.
Giant cactuses from Mexico, fourteen feet high, and estimated to be
four hundred years old, and rock gardens under glass, filled with all
the ferns and epiphytes of South America, detain and almost satiate
the eye with their wonderful variety, and grotesqueness of forms
and colors.
In the open grounds are many noble specimens of hardy trees,
of great beauty, which I must pass by without even naming them.
I saw here the old Deodar cedar and araucaria imbricata in Eng-
land, each about twenty-five feet high, and justifying all the praises
that have been lavished upon them; the former as the most grace-
ful, and the latter the boldest and most picturesque of all evergreens.
The trunk of the largest araucaria, or Chili pine, here, is of the
thickness of a man’s leg; and the tree looks, at a distance, like a
igantic specimen of deep green coral from the depths of the ocean.
was glad to know, from experience, that those two noble ever-
reens are quite hardy in the northern States. You may judge of
the scale on which things are planned in Kew, when I mention that
there is a wide avenue of Deodars, newly planted (extending along
one of the vistas from the palm-house), 2,800 feet long. A steam
engine occupying the lower part, and a great reservoir the upper
part of a lofty tower, supplies, by the aid of concealed pipes, the
whole of the botanic garden with water.
I should not omit the museum—a department lately com-
menced, and upon which Sir William Hooker is expending much
time. It is in some respects, perhaps, the most useful and valua-
ble feature in the establishment. Here are collected, in a dried
state, all the curious and valuable vegetable products—especially
those useful in the arts, medicine, and domestic economy—all the
raw vegetable materials—the fibre—the manufactured products, ete.
Here, one may see the gutta percha, of the East Indies, in all its
states—the maple sugar of America—the lace-bark of Jamaica—
the teas of China,’and a thousand other like useful vegetable pro-
ducts, arranged so as to show the stages of growth and manufac-
¢
=
gg Ms
NEW HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT. 489
ture. Collections of all the fine woods, and specimens of interesting
seeds, are also kept in glass cases duly labelled.
Now that I have perhaps feebly given you a coup d’wil of the
whole (omitting numberless leading features for want of time and
space), you must, in order to give the scene its highest interest,
imagine the grounds, say at 2 o'clock, filled with a thousand or
twelve hundred men, women and children, of all ages,—well dress-
ed, orderly and neat, and examining all with interest and delight.
You see that they have access, not only to the open grounds, but
all the hot-houses, full of rare plants and flower-gardens, gay with
the most tempting materials for a nosegay. Yet, not a plant is
injured—not the least harm is done to the rarest blossom. Sir
William assured me that when he first proposed to try the experi-
ment of throwing the whole collection open to the public, many
persons believed it would prove a fatal one; that, in short, Anglo-
Saxons could not be trusted to run at large in public gardens, full
of rarities. It has, however, turned out quite the contrary, as he
wisely believed ; and I learned with pleasure (for the fact has a
bearing at home), that on days when there had been three thousand
persons in the garden at a time, the destruction did not amount to
the value of fourpence! On the other hand, the benefits are not
only felt indirectly, in educating, refining, and elevating the people,
but directly in the application of knowledge to the arts of life. I
saw, for example, artists busy in the garden, who had come miles
to get an accurate drawing of some plant necessary to their studies ;
and artisans and manufacturers in the museum, who had been
attracted there solely to investigate some matter connected with
their business, in the productions of the loom or the workshop.
In short, I left Kew with the feeling, that a national garden in
America might not only be a beautiful, but a most useful and popu-
lar establishment; one not too dearly bought, even at the expense
bestowed annually upon Kew.
Toe New Houses oF ParitiamMent.—I spent a whole morn-
ing with Mr. Barry, the distinguished architect of the new houses
of Parliament, in examining every part in detail. It is a common
feeling that the age for such gigantic works in architecture as the
Gothic cathedrals, has gone by. Perhaps this may be the case,
490 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND.
with religious edifices; though I doubt even that, with such a great
church and state empire as Russia growing up, and already casting
a gigantic, though yet vague shadow over Europe. But here is cer-
tainly a flat denial of the opinion, in this new legislative hall of
Great Britain—quite the masterpiece of modern Gothic architecture
(excepting perhaps the cathedral of Strasbourg). Concisely, this vast
pile, not yet finished, covers, with its courts, about eight acres of
ground. Ten years have been consumed in its erection; and as
many more will probably be required for its completion. You must
remember, too, that not only have as many as 3000 men been em-
ployed on it at a time, but all appliances of steam-lifting and other
machinery are used besides, which were not known in the days of
cathedrals.
The style chosen by Mr. Barry is the perpendicular, or latest
decorated Gothic—the exterior, rather very nearly akin to that of
the beautiful town halls of the Low Countries, than that of any
English examples. The stone isa hard limestone from Yorkshire,
of a drab color; and the decorative sculpture is elaborate and beau-
tifulin the highest degree. What particularly charmed me, was
the elegance, resulting from the union of fine proportions and select
forms of modern cultivated tastes, with the peculiarly grand and ve-
nerable character of Gothic architecture. One is so accustomed to
see only strength and picturesqueness in middle-age examples, that
one almost limits the pointed style to this compass. But Mr. Barry
has conclusively shown that that elegance—which is always and
only the result of fine proportions—is a beauty of which Gothic archi-
tecture is fully capable. Of the splendor of the House of Lords, and
the richness and chasteness of many other portions of the building,
you have already had many accounts. I will therefore only say, at
present, that so carefully has the artistic effect of every portion of
this vast building been studied, that not a hinge, the key of a door,
or even the candlesticks on the tables, has been bought at the deal-
er’s ; but every detail that meets the eye has been especially design-
ed for the building. The result, as you may suppose, is a unity
and harmony throughout, which must be seen to be thoroughly ap-
preciated.
The profession has often found fault with the employment of a
A NOBLEMAN’S SEAT. 49]
florid Gothic architecture for this building. Certainly, it looks like
throwing away such delicate details—to pile them up amid the
smoke of London, which is, indeed, already beginning to blacken and
deface them. But, on the other hand, the beauty and fitness of the
style for the interior seem to me unquestionable. The very com-
plexity appears in keeping with the intricate machinery of a gov-
ernment, that rules an empire almost extending over half the
globe.
Picture oF A Nosieman’s Sear—l shall finish this letter with
a sketch of a nobleman’s seat, where I am just now making a visit;
and can therefore give you the outlines in a better light than travel-
lers generally can do. The seat is called Wimpole—the property
of the Earl of H , and is situated in the fine agricultural district
of Cambridgeshire. It is not a “show place ;” and though a resi-
dence of the first class, especially in extent, it is only a fair speci-
men of what you may find, with certain variations, in many counties
in England.
The landed estate, then, amounts to more than thirty-seven thou-
sand acres—a large part admirably cultivated. The mansion, which
stands in the midst of one of those immense and beautiful parks
which one only finds in England, is a spacious pile in the Roman
style, four hundred and fifty feet front; rather plain and antique
without, but internally beautiful, and in the highest degree complete
—both as regards arrangement and decoration. The library, for
example, is sixty feet long, quite filled with a rich collection of books.
The suite of drawing-rooms abounds with pictures by Van Dyck,
Rubens, and other great masters; and there is a private chapel, in
which prayers are read every morning, capable of containing a
couple of hundred persons.
In front of the house, a broad level surface of park stretches be-
fore the eye, and is finely taken advantage of as a position for one
of the noblest avenues of grand old elms that I have seen in Eng-
land; an avenue three miles long, and very wide—not cut in two
by a road,* but carpeted with grass, like a broad aisle of verdure.
Place at the end of this a distant hill, and let the avenue be the
* The approach is at the side.
492 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND.
central feature to a wide park, that rises into hills and flows inte
graceful swells behind the house, and fill it with herds of deer and
groups of fine cattle, and you have a general idea of the sylvan fea-
tures of Wimpole.
But it is not yet complete. Behind the house, and separated
from the park by a terrace walk, is a parterre flower-garden, lying
directly under the windows of the drawing-rooms. Like all Eng-
lish flower-gardens, it is set in velvet lawn—each bed composed of
a single species—the most brilliant and the most perpetual bloom-
ers that can be found. Something in the soil or culture here seems
admirably adapted to perfect them, too; for nowhere have I seen
the beds so closely covered with foliage, and so thickly sprinkled
with bloom. Some of them are made of two new varieties of scar-
let geraniums, with variegated leaves, that have precisely the effect
of a mottled pattern in worsted embroidery.
Beyond this lie the pleasure-grounds,—picturesque, winding
walks, leading a long way, admirably planted with groups and
masses of the finest evergreens and deciduous trees. Here is a weep-
ing ash, the branches of which fall over an arbor in the form of half
a globe, fifty feet in diameter; and a Portugal laurel, the trunk of
which measures three feet in circumference. A fine American black-
walnut tree was pointed out to me as something rare in England.
And the underwood is made up of rich belts and masses of rhodo-
dendrons and English laurels.
I must beg you to tell my lady friends at home, that many of .
them would be quite ashamed were they in England, at their igno-
rance of gardening, and their want of interest in country life. Here,
for instance, I have been walking for several hours to-day through
these beautiful grounds with the Countess of H., who, though a
most accomplished person in all other matters, has a knowledge of
every thing relating to rural life, that would be incomprehensible to
most American ladies. Every improvement or embellishment is
planned under her special direction. Every plant and its culture
are familiar to her; and there is no shrinking at barn-yards—no
affected fear of cows—no ignorance of the dairy and poultry-yard.
On the contrary, one is delighted with the genuine enthusiasm and
knowledge that the highest class (and indeed all classes) show in
A NOBLEMAN’S SEAT. 493
the country life here, and the great amount of health and happiness
it gives rise to. The life of an English woman of rank, in the coun-
try, is not the drawing-room languor which many of my charming
country-women fancy it. Far from it. On the contrary, it is full
of the most active duties and enjoyments. But it must be admitted
that the cool and equal temperature of the summers here, is greatly
more inviting to exercise than our more sultry atmosphere at home.
We measured, in the course of the morning’s ramble, several
English elms, with which the park here abounds, from fifteen to
eighteen feet in circumference.* I was not so much surprised at
this, as at the grandeur of the horse chestnuts, which are truly ma-
jestic—many measuring not less in girth, with a much greater
spread of branches ; each lower branch of the dimensions of an or-
dinary trunk, and, after stretching far out from the parent stem,
drooping down and resting upon the turf, like a giant’s elbow, and
then turning up again in the most picturesque manner. The trees
in England have a more uniform deep green tint than with us, which
I think rather lessens the richness and variety of the landscape.
The queen made a visit here in 18443; and_as every thing which
royalty does in a monarchy is commemorated—and especially when,
as in the present case, the character of the sovereign is a really good
one—I was shown a handsome new gate at the side of the park,
opposite to that which I entered, with a striking lodge in the Italian
taste, bearing the royal arms, and called the “Victoria gate.”
What interested me much more, was an alms-house, built and man-
aged wholly by Lady H., as a refuge for deserving persons, grown
old or infirm in the service of the family, and unable, through ill
health or incapacity, to take care of themselves. The building—
cottage-like—is not only quite an ornamental structure in the old
English manner, but the interior is planned so as to secure the great-
est comfort and convenience of the inmates. Nothing could be
more delightful than the kind interest felt and acknowledged be-
tween the benevolent originator of this charity and those who were
its recipients. The eyes of an infirm old woman, to whom my hay-
* But, after all, not so noble or beautiful as, in their heads, the American
elms in the Connecticut valley,
494 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND.
ing come from America was mentioned, and who had sons in the
new world, brightened up with a strange joy at seeing one from a
land where her heart had evidently been of late more busy than at
home. “It was a good country,” she said; “her sons had bought
land, and were doing famous.” For a working man to own land,
in a country like this, where the farmers are almost all only tenants
of the few great proprietors, is to their minds something like hold-
ing a fee-simple to part of paradise.
The morning yesterday was spent on horseback in examining the
agriculture of the estate. The rich harvest-fields, extending over the
broad Cambridgeshire plains, afford, at this season, a fine picture of
the great productiveness of England. About a thousand acres are
farmed by Lord H., and the rest let to tenants. I was glad to hear
from him that he has endeavored, with great success, to abolish the
enormous consumption of malt liquor among laborers of all classes
here, by giving them only a very small allowance joined to a sum
equal to the largest allowance on othér estates, in the shape of an
addition to their wages. He confirmed my previous impressions of
the bad effects produced by this monstrous guzzling of beer by the
working men of England; a consumption actually astounding to one
accustomed to the abstinent and equally hard working farmers of the
United States.*
Farming, here, is a vastly more scientific and carefully studied
occupation than with us; and the attention bestowed upon landed
estates, (many of which yield a revenue of $50,000 or $60,000 a |
year, and some much more,) is, as you may suppose, one of no tri-
fling moment. Hence the knowledge of practical agriculture, by
the owners of many of these vast English estates, is of a very high
order; and Iam glad, from considerable observation, to say that
the relations between owner and tenant are often of the most con-
siderate and liberal kind. No doubt the present free trade prices
* At the celebrated farm of Mr. W., in this county, his cellar contained,
at the commencement of harvest, twenty-four hogsheads of beer; barely
enough, as I was told, for the harvest labor—about nine pints per day to
each man. There was nearly a strike among the workmen for ten pints;
indeed, a gallon per day is no very uncommon thing for a beer drinker in
England!
A NOBLEMAN’S SEAT 495
of corn make a hard market for many of the tenant farmers of Eng-
land. Yet, as the interests of the ]andlord and tenant run in paral-
lel lines, it is clear that rents must be modified accordingly. Upon
this estate, this has been done most wisely and judiciously. The
good understanding that exists between both parties is therefore very
great; as a proof of which, I will mention that the Earl gives a din-
ner twice a year, to which all his tenants are invited. At the last
festival of this sort, he took occasion to speak publicly of the low
prices of bread-stuffs, and the complaint so frequently made of the
high rents at which farms are still held. To meet the state of the
times, he added, that he had, from time to time, altered the scale
of his rents; and had now resolved to make a still further reduction
of a certain number of shillings per acre to all who would apply for
the same after that day. He now mentioned to me, that although
nearly two months had now elapsed, not a single application had
been made ; and this, perhaps, solely because the tenants appreci-
ated the justice and liberality with which the estate had been man-
aged, and knew the free trade policy, where this is the case, falls as
heavily on the landlords as on themselves.
Nothing can well be more complete, of its kind, than this highest
kind of country life in England. I leave out of the question now,
of course, all republican reflections touching the social or political
bearing upon other classes. Taken by itself, it has been perfected
here by the long enjoyment of hereditary right, united to high cul-
tivation and great natural taste for rural and home pleasures, till it
is difficult to imagine any thing (except, perhaps, a little more sun-
shine out of doors) that would add to the picture. In the first
place, an Englishman’s park, on one of these great estates, is a spe-
cies of kingdom by itself—a vast territorial domain, created solely
for his own enjoyment, and within the bounds of which his family
and guests may ride, drive, walk, or indulge their tastes, without in
the least interfering with any one, or being interfered with, by the
presence of any of the rest of the world. In the next place, the cli-
mate not only favors the production of the finest lawns and pleasure-
grounds in the world, but promotes the out-of-door interest in, and
enjoyment of them. Next, these great domestic establishments (so
immense and complete that we have nothing in America with which
496 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND.
to compare them) are still managed (owing to the exercise of the
service and the division of labor) with an ease and simplicity quite
incomprehensible to an American, who knows from experience how
difficult it is to keep a household of half a dozen domestics together,
even in the older parts of the Union. Here, there are sixty ser-
vants, and I have been in houses in England where there are above
a hundred, and yet all moving with the quiet precision of a chrono-
meter. There are few people in England, I think, who seem in-
clined to say amen, to the doctrine that
“Man wants but little here below.”
I would however be quite willing to subscribe to it, so far as re-
gards one’s domestic establishment in America, if, alas! we could
have “ that little”—good /
I must close my letter here, with a promise to give you some
aecount of Chatsworth in my next, which stands, in some respects,
at the head of all English places.
Ul.
CHATSWORTH.
[Mr. Downing’s remarks upon introducing a friend’s “Impressions of
Chatsworth,” in the Horticulturist for January, 1847, will well precede his
own letters from that place. ]
HAT one would do if he were a Duke, and had half a million
a year? is a question which, if it could be audibly put by a
magician or a fairy, as in the bygone days of wands and enchant-
ments, would set all the restless and ambitious directly to air-castle-
building. Visions of the enjoyment of great estates, grand palaces,
galleries of pictures, richly stored libraries, stately gardens, and
superb equipages, would no doubt quickly crowd upon the flushed
imaginations of many even of our soberest readers. Each person
would give an unlimited scope, in the ideal race of happiness, to his
favorite hobby, which nothing but the actual trial would convince
him that he could not ride better and more wisely than all the rest
of his fellow-men.
We have had placed in our hands some clever and graphic notes
of a visit to Chatsworth, the celebrated seat of the Duke of Devon-
shire. This place, asa highly artistical country residence, is admit-
ted to stand alone even in England, and therefore in the world. To
save our readers the trouble of perplexing their own wits to conjec-
ture what they would do, if they were burdened or blessed with the
expenditure of the best ducal revenue in Great Britain, we beg leave
to refer them to the notes that follow.
We may give a personal relish to the account, by observing that
32
498 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND.
the Duke of Devonshire is a bachelor; that it is a principle with
him to expend the most of his enormous income on his estate, and
that gardening is his passion. He is the President of the London
Horticultural Society, where he is, among enthusiastic amateurs, the
most enthusiastic among them all. He sends botanical collectors
to the most distant and unexplored countries, in search of new plants
at his own cost. He travels, with his head gardener, all over Eu-
rope, to examine the finest conservatories, and returns home to build
one larger and loftier than them all. He goes to Italy, to study the
effect of a ruined aqueduct, that he may copy it on a grand scale in
the waterworks at his private country-place ; and he takes down a
whole village near the borders of his park, in order to improve and
rebuild it in the most tasteful, comfortable, and picturesque manner.
Butit is not only in gardening, that the Duke of Devonshire dis-
plays his admirable taste. Chatsworth is not less remarkable for the
treasures of art collected within its walls. Its picture galleries, its
library, its hall of sculpture, its Egyptian antiquities, its stores of
plate, each is so remarkable in its way, that it would make a repu-
tation for any place of less note. In his equipage, though often
simple enough, the Duke has an individuality of his own, and we
remember reading a description by that excellent judge of such
matters, Prince Puckler Muskau, of the Duke’s turn-out at Doncaster
races—a coach with six horses and twelve outriders, which in point
of taste and effect, eclipsed all competitors, even there.
But this is of little moment to our readers, most of whom,
doubtless, relish more their Maydukes, than anecdotes of even the
Royal Dukes themselves. But there is a certain satisfaction, even
to the humble cultivator of a dozen trees or plants, or a little plat
of ground, in feeling that his dearest hobby—gardening is also the
favorite resource of one of the wealthiest and most cultivated Eng-
lish nobles. It is, perhaps, doubtful whether the former does not
gather with a stronger satisfaction, the few fruits and flowers so
carefully watched and reared by his own hands, than the latter ex-
periences in beholding the superb desserts of hot-house growth,
which every day adorn his table, but which he does not know indi-
vidually and by heart—which others have reared for him—thinned,
watered, and shaded—watched the sunny cheek redden, and the
CHATSWORTH. 49S
bloom deepen—without any of that strong personal interest which
glads the heart of the possessor of asmall, dearly-prized garden. He
gains by the possession of the mighty whole, but he loses as much by
losing the familiar interest in the inexhaustible little. Such is the
divine nature of the principle of compensation /
August, 1850.
Cuatsworts, the magnificent seat of the Duke of Devonshire,
has the unquestionable reputation of being the finest private country
residence in the world. You will pardon me, then, if I bestow a
few more words on it, than the passing tourist is accustomed to do,
I ought to preface my account of it by telling you that the pre-
sent Duke, now about sixty, with an income equal to what passes for
a very large fortune in America, has all his lifetime been remark-
able for his fine taste, especially in gardening: and that this resi-
dence has an immense advantage over most other English places, in
being set down in the midst of picturesque Derbyshire, instead of
an ordinary park level. In consequence of the latter circumstance,
the highest art is contrasted and heightened by the fine setting of a
higher nature.
If you enter Chatsworth, as most visitors do, by the Edensor
gate, you will be arrested by a little village—Edensor itself; a
lovely lane, bordered by cottages, just within the gate, that has been
wholly built by the present Duke. It is quite a study, and is pre-
cisely what everybody imagines the possibility of doing, and what
no one but a king or a subject with a princely fortune, and a taste not
always born with princes, could do, In short, it is such a village as
a poet-architect would design, if it were as easy to make houses of
solid materials as it is to draw them on paper. There may be thirty
or forty cottages in all, and every one most tasteful in form and pro-
portions, most admirably built, and set in its appropriate framework
of trees and shrubbery,—making an ensemble such as I saw no-
where else in England. There are dwellings in the Italian, Gothie,
Norman, Swiss, and two or three more styles; each as capital a
500 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND.
study as you will find in any of the architectural works, with the
advantage which the reality always has over its counterfeit.
From this little village to Chatsworth House, or palace, is about
two miles, through a park, which is a broad valley, say a couple of
miles wide by half a dozen long. It is indeed just one of those
valleys which our own Durand loves to paint in his ideal landscapes,
backed by wooded hills and sylvan slopes, some three hundred or
four hundred feet high, with a lovely English river—the Derwent—
running like a silver cord through the emerald park, and grouped
with noble drooping limes, oaks, and elms, that are scattered over
its broad surface. After driving about a mile, the palace bursts upon
your view—the broad valley park spread out below and before it—
the richly wooded hill rising behind it—the superb Italian gardens
lying around it—the whole, a palace in Arcadia. On the crest of
the hill, from the top of a picturesque tower, floats the flag which
apprises you that the owner of all that you see on every side—the
park of twelve miles circuit (filled with herds of the largest and most
beautiful deer I have yet seen), valley, hills, and the little world
which the horizon shuts in—is at home in his castle.
The palace is a superb pile, extending in all some eight hundred
feet. It is designed in the classical style, and is built of the finest
material,—a stone of a rich golden brown tint, which harmonizes
well with the rich setting of foliage, out of which it rises.
Cavendish is the family name of the Duke of Devonshire, and
this estate became the property of Sir W. Cavendish, in the time of
Elizabeth. The main building was erected by the first Duke in 1702,
and the stately wings, containing the picture and sculpture galleries,
by the present Duke. Every portion, however, is in the finest pos-
sible order and preservation ; and it would be difficult for the stran
ger to point out which part of the palace belongs to the eighteenth,
and which to the nineteenth centuries.
You enter the gilded gates at the fine portal at one end of the
range, and drive along a court some distance, till you are set down
at the main entrance door of the palace. The middle of the court
is occupied by a marble statue of Orion, seated on the back of a
dolphin, about which the waters of a fountain are constantly play-
ing. From the chaste and beautiful entrance hall rises a broad
CHATSWORTH, 501
flight of stairs, which leads to the suite of state rooms, sculpture
gallery, collection of pictures, ete.
The state rooms—a magnificent suite of apartments, with win-
dows composed each of one single plate of glass, and commanding
the most exquisite views—are hung with tapestry, or the walls are
covered with stamped leather, enriched with gilding. In these
rooms are the matchless carvings in wood, by Gibbons, of which,
like everybody else curious in such matters, I had heard much, but
which fairly beggar all praise. No one can conceive carving so
wonderfully beautiful and true as this. The groups of dead game
hang from the walls with the death flutter in the wings of the birds,
and a bit of lace ribbon, which ties one of the festoons, is—more
delicate than lace itself. The finest pictures of Raphael could not
have astonished me so much as these matchless artistic carvings in
wood.
A very noble library, a fine collection of pictures, and the
choicest sculpture gallery in England (over one hundred feet long,
especially rich in the works of Canova, Thorwalsden, and Chantrey),
along corridor, completely lined with original sketches by the great
masters, and a very richly decorated private chapel, are among the
show apartments of Chatsworth.
So much of the palace as I have enumerated, along with all the
out-of-door treasures of the domain, is generously thrown open to
the public by the Duke; and you may believe that the opportunity
of gratifying their curiosity is not thrown away, when I tell you
that upwards of 80,000 persons visited Chatsworth last year. Hay-
ing heard this before I went there, I fancied the annoyance which
all this publicity must give to the possessor and his guests. But
when I saw the vast size of the house, and how completely distinct
the rooms of the guests and the private apartments of the Duke are,
from the portion seen by the public, I became aware how little
inconvenience the proper inmates of the palace suffered by the relin-
quishment of the show rooms. The private suite of drawing-rooms,
appropriated to the guests at Chatsworth, is decorated and furnishea
in a far more chaste and simple style than the state rooms, though
with the greatest refinement and elegance. Among these adornings,
I observed a superb clock, and some very large vases of green mala-
502 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND.
chite, presented by the Emperor of Russia; Landseer’s original
picture of Bolton Abbey, and that touching story of Belisarius—
old, blind, and asking alms—told upon canvass by Murillo, so pow-
erfully as to send a thrill through the dullest observer.
In the ground floor, opening on a level with the Italian gardens,
is the charming suite of apartments, occupied chiefly by the Duke
when his guests are not numerous. Nothing can well be imagined
more tasteful than these rooms,—a complete suite, beginning with
a breakfast-room, and ending with the most select and beautiful of
small libraries, and including cabinets of minerals, gems, pictures,
etc. The whole had all that snugness and cosiness which is so ex-
actly opposite to what one expects to find in a palace, and which
gave me the index to a mind capable of seizing and enjoying the
delights of both extremes of refined lite. The completeness of
Chatsworth House, as you will gather from what I have said, is
that it contains under one roof suites of apartments for living in
three different styles—that of the palace, the great country house,
and the cottage orneé. With such a prodigality of space, you can
easily see that the Duke can afford, for the greater part of the year,
to throw the palace proper, i. e., the state rooms, open to the enjoy-
ment of the public.
The next morning after my arrival at Chatsworth, was one of
unusual brilliancy. The air was soft, but the sunshine was that of
our side of the Atlantic, rather than the mild and tempered gray of
England. After breakfast, and before making our exploration of
the gardens and pleasure-grounds, the Duke had the kindness to
direct the whole wealth of fountains and grandes eaux to be put in
full play for the day,—a spectacle not usually seen; as indeed the
Emperor fountain is so powerful and so high that it is dangerous to
play it, except when the atmosphere is calm.
We enter the Italian gardens. And what are the Italian gar-
dens? you are ready to inquire. I will tell you. They are the
series of broad terraces, on two or three levels, which surround the
palace, and which, containing half a dozen acres or more of highly
dressed garden scenery, separate the pleasure-grounds and the house
from the more sylvan and rural park. As the house is on a higher
level than most of the valley, you lean over the massive Italian
CHATSWORTH. 503
balustrade of the terrace (all of that rich golden stone), and catch
fine vistas of the park scenery below and beyond you. Of course,
the Italian gardens are laid out in that symmetrical style which
best accords with a grand mass of architecture, and are decorated
with fine vases, statues, and fountains.