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http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924000009005 


RURAL ESSAYS, 


BY 


A. Jd. DOWNING. 


EDITED, WITH A MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR, 
o BY 
®@®GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS 
AND 
A LETTER TO HIS FRIENDS, 


BY 
FREDERIKA BREMER. 


NEW-YORK : 


GEORGE P. PUTNAM AND COMPANY, 
10 PARK PLACE. 
M.DOCO,LIEL _ 


1 2 
Ewrerep, 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, 
Pronter. AND STERROTYPER, 
49 Ann-strect. 


PREFACE 


————_+-¢ « —_—__ 


YHIS, posthumous volume completes the series of Mr. 

Downing’s works. It comprises, with one or two ex- 
ceptions, all his editorial papers in the er ebvoubiuin iE 
The Editor has preferred to retain their various temporary’ 
alligeny, 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 Clarence Cook, Esq, ; 

The tribute to the’ genius and character of Downing 


iv PREFACE. 

by Migs 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, 


Nuw-Yorx, April, 1853, 


CONTENTS. 


MEMOIRS . ; : . . 

LETTER FROM MISS BREMER . Sox, Fi ‘ 
i . 
HORTICULTURE. 


L Inrgopucrory ae eZ 
IL Hints on Frower-Garpens . 
TIL. Inetvence or Horrourrore 
YV.. A Tang wirg Frora anp Pomona . aos * 
V. A Carrer on Roses. ‘ 4 ‘ 
VI. A Cuarrze on Green-Hovses 
VIL On Femme Taste IN Rourat AFrams . 5 


VIII. Economy iv Gagpenine =. - F é 
--[X. A Loox azovr us 3 ‘ a4 ; 
X. ASpsine Goss . , - ae : 
XIE. Tur Great Discovery Iv VEGETATION . 
XII. Stare anp Prosrects or HorticunturE ; ‘ 
XIII. Amwenican vs. Britiso Horricurrure . ei 


XIV. On toe Drarery or GorracEs AND GARDENS 


vi CONTENTS. 


“LANDSCAPE GARDENING. | 


: PAGE 
I. ‘Tue Purosorny or Rurat Taste Eee . : . 101 
I. Tar’ Bedvrrur ww Grounp 3 F 5 : 106 
IIL. Hivrs ro Rurat ImpPRovERS 5 F é - 110 
TV. A rew Hints on LanpscareGarpEnine é F 119 
V. Ow tae Misraxes or Crrizens in Country Lire | 2 +, 128 
VIL Citizens RETIRING TO THE CouNTRY o ‘ ‘ é 181 
VIL A Tarx azour Pusiic Parxs AnD Ganpens i i . 188 
VOI. Taz New-Yors Park . ‘ F 7 147 
EX. Pustic Cemurernms awp Pusric GARDENS ‘ : - 154 
X. How 7o cnoose a’ Sire ror A Counrry-Sear a aie ot 160 
XI How ro arraner Counvry Piacrs : ‘ - 166 
XIL Tae Managemen of Large Country Praces : = 172 
XUL Country Praces in Avromy . * 3 ‘ e La 
XIV. A Cuaptee on Lawys : é 3 : ‘ 181 
XV. Mr. Tuvor’s Garven av Nawant 5 ‘ ; . 188 
XVI. A Visirto Monrcomery Pracr’ 2 . : 192 
RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 
I. A Few Worps on Rurat ARCHITECTURE . x 265 
TL Monat Inrivence or Goop Houses , - ‘ " 209 
1. A rew Worps on OUR Progress in Burying eg. 214 
IV. CocKNEYISM IN THE Country ‘ ’ : i ~ 224 
V. On tHe Improvements or Country Vintages , 7 229 
VI. Our Country Vintages . : 7 ‘ . 286 
VIL. On SmMpLe Rorjt Corraces : 7 5 : 244 
VIII. On rar Cotor or Country Hovsrs 7 s - 252 
IX. A snort CHAPTER on Country CuurcHEs . i . : 260 
X. A Cuarrer on Sonoor-Hovses ie 7 3 ‘ . 265 
XL How ro Bunp Ioz-Hovszs ; : és 5 271 
XIL Tae Favorrre Porson or AMERICA 7 . . - 248 
TREES. 
. L Tae Beavriroy IN A Tree ‘ ‘ ‘ “ , 289 


II. How to Porutarizr tue-Tasts ror PLantina ‘ ‘ 293 ° 


* 


CONTENTS, : vii 


: . PAGE 
IL Ow Pranrine Saape-Trees ‘ . 299 
“TV. Trezs In Towns anp VILLaces ‘ ‘ . . 303 


Vz. SrA pu-Trexs in Crrizs . 


r 311 
VI Rare Evergreen Trees a : 319 
VII. A Worn i Favor or EvERGREENS~ “s ae . 827 
VII. .Tax Camzse Macnoris . . 835 
IX. Tue Nectectep American PLants . . : 889 
X Tue Arr or TRANSPLANTING TREES . - 3843 
XI On ‘TRANSPLANTING Larcs Trees § ‘ . . 849 
XIE A Caarrun on Hepers . F : x »  ° 857 
xm. On THE EMPLOYMENT OF sararila Trexs AND Sanuss iv Noara 
AMERICA $ : . 814 
AGRICULTURE. 

I. Corrrvators,—Tue Great Inpusrkian Cxass OR AMERICA . 385" 
IL Tae Natiowat Iexorance or tHe AGRicuLTeRAL INTEREST . 890 
IL. Tae Home Enucation or tar Rupa Disteicrs . 7 . 896 
Iv. How TO ENRICH ‘mz Som ee i, r : 404 
VA Cuarren ow AGricutturan Scaoois . ‘ 410 
VI. A Few Worps on tam Kircnen GarpEn. i ag 416 
VIL ‘A Caar in tae Kironen GARDEN ‘ BO a . 421 
VIL Wasuineron, tHe Farmer me F o : 427 

FRUIT. = 

_ LA Few Wonrps on Frurr Currurz , ae - 486 

IJ. Tue Feurrs nv Convention . : ‘ ‘ 5 442" 
JUL Tas Pamosorny or Manurine Ononarps a. judy . 452 
IV. Tue Vineyarps of tHe Wast ‘ ; . 4 ‘ 463 
V. On tae Improvement or VecrtasLe Races ‘ ‘ . 468 

‘LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

I Warwick Castiz: Kentiworta: Stratrorp-on-AVON » 4 


Il. Kew-Garpens: New Houses or Partiament: A Nosieman’s 
s : 485 
. es - 497 


4 


_ Sgar ; , tee og 
TIL Cuatsworta 


viii CONTENTS, 


- PAGE 
TV. Eneuise Traverzme: Happon Harz: Martock: Taz Densy 

Azgoretum: Boranic Garpen ww Rucenr’s-Park 51U 

V. Tus Istzor Wient |. eM & . - 522 

VIL Wosurn Azsry 7 Be 4 ‘ . ‘ 532 

VIL Drorwore—Enetisa Ramwars.—Socrety . r . 588 


VII. Taz Lorpon Parks = * kate — 25 ‘i é 547 


MEMOIR 


MEMOIR. 


——_*6-e—____ 


| NDREW JACKSON DOWNING was born at New- 
burgh, upon the Hudson, on the ‘spot where he always 
~ lived, and which he always Aoged 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 Yoreewhers 
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, 


xii 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 Fighkill 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, xii 


The mother, a thrifty housekeeper and a religious wo- 
than, 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 ghilhood, 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 oftén occurs ‘in literary biography, where there was great 
mutual affection and no ill feeling, ‘but a lack of that in- 
stinctive apprehension of médtives and aims, which makes 
each one perfectly tolerant of ‘each other. , 

When Andrew was seven yeats old, his: father died, 
and his elder ‘brother svicceeded to the management of the 
nursery business. Andrew's developing tastes led him to 
the natural sciences, to botany and ‘mineralogy.. As he 
grew 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 carrying his brow a little inclined 
forward, as if slightly defiant. He was a poor boy, and 


xiv - MEMOIR. 


very acon). 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 fiver 
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 thé 
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 emichen 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 uae 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., a. , 
. He, too, had been. hoping " 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 
shduld be in the shelter of a store. He, however, a youth 
of sixteen years, frésh from. the since, 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, 


a. joined his Sirsthier 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 


xvi 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 hesuty, began to enrich his life as knowledge. 
Yet I remember, as showing that with all his accurate 
science he was always a poet, he agreed in marly 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 Alwar most accurate and mreteannil, 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 votaties; and the Baron, although 
an old man, made hearty friends with Downing ; and they 
explored topetlier the hills and lowlands of the neighbor- 
hood, till it had no more vegetable nor mineral secrets from 


MEMOIR. xvii 


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. Arr 
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 éntire.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 satisfac- 
tion, as if he had been waiting for them, the fine gentle- 
men.and ladies at the Consul Genéral’s, and the wealthy 
‘neighbor’s, Mr. Armstrong, at whose country-seat he was in- 
‘troduced to Mr. Charles: dngustis Murray, when, for the first 
time, he saw one of the class that, he never eae 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 ee 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 


xviii , 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. 
Tt ‘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 fines. his first essay was written from - 
his experience ; it was a description of the “ Danskamer,” 
or Devil’s Dancing-Ground—a point on the recs 
seven miles abdve Newburgh—published i 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 
- philosopliers, 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 


ed: house, and his sruiiar and sharp eye’ in the 


nursery end 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- 
dart, mastery of his profession, was not a recognized 
authority in it, and why he had never been heard of. For 
it was. ‘remarkable i in Downing, to the end, that he always 
attracted attention and. excited speculation, The boy-of i. 
_ the Montgomery, Academy. carried ¢that slightly defiagt 
‘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 Hudgoni, 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 kindy climate and available soil, where fortunes 

_ arose in.a night, an opportunity was offered to~Art, of 
achievinga new and characteristic triumph. ‘To: fe 


xX ; MEMOIR. : 


the content lying chaotic, i in mountain, and laké,.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 hirh in’ 
every exertion, As he saw more and more of the- résults 
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, 3 in obedience to the. truest taste, and, 

to. make’ a man’s home, and its grounds, and its accésso- 

ries, as genuine works of art’ as any picture or. statue that 

the owner had brought.over the sea, was, in his mind, the 
fest step toward the great ‘result. 

At the-various places upon the river, as he ited then. 
from time to time, che 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 uals leaf, : 
examines its color, form and structure ; inspects it’ with: 
his microscope, and, having recorded his observations, pre-", 
‘sents it to his Seiad and invites him to study it,.as sug- 
gestive of pore of the first principles of rural architecture 
ahd 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 tle 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 ‘Teserved, 
but always affable and: gentle. These tra@els were netially 
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 _ with much observaiagn ape 
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 
a 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 finé old place, 
indolently lying in luxuriant decay, was the seat of bound- 
less hospitality and social festivity.’ The: spacious ‘piazzas, 
and the geutly sloping lawn, which-made the foreground of 
one of the most exquisite Gimmes of the Hudson, rang all 
summer long with happy laughter. Unider those: blossom= 
ing locust. trees were walks that led to the shore, and the’ 
moon hanging over Cro’ Nest recalled to’ all loitéerers 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 es 
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 thé 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 - Parnientier, 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 Jand- 


aa ee j _MEMOIR.. 


\ 


scape was yet’ untouched by the scorching July. heats’; 


and on the seventh of June, 1838,—he being then in ‘this: 


twenty-third year, — Downie 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 ¢ontinued 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 tive 
in the little red. cottage which. Downing. afterwards re- 
moved to make way- for a greeri-house. Her sons were 
men ‘now, and her daughter a woman, The necessity for 
hher 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 for which he had so long been preparing ; and very 

“properly | his first ‘work was his own house, built in the gar- 


den of hig father, and only a few rods eae 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- 
tifal, and durable, and convenient mansion, could be built 
as cheaply i 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 elepant ; “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 a Se were, harmonious, and it was. a: har- 


al 


| 
! 
+ re i 
| 


ott 


: 


© 
+ 


- Residence of the late A. J. Downititg: Newburgh, on the Huds 


st ae 


& 


‘MEMOIR. ~ xxiii 


“mony as easily achieved by taste as’ disoord 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. From the foot of the: Fishkill hills 
’ beyond. the: river, other eyes. superintended it, also, scan- 
. ning, with a telescope, the Newburgh’ garden aad 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 ape “her Le- 
ander. 

The house ¥ was at: Iength finished. A. pocstl and 
beautiful building stodd in the. garden, higher and hand- 
‘somer than the little red cottage—a very pregnant symbol 
to’ any poet who should. chance: that ey and hear the 
history of the architect. a 

Once fairly established i in his house, it ieee re seat 
of the most gracious. hospitality, and ‘was a peautiful 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- . 


' aty labor was necessarily limited by his superintendence of 

the. nursery. ° But the book was at length completed, and 
. in thé year 1841, the Author being then twenty-six years 
old, Messrs. Wiley & Putnam published in New-York and 
: ‘London, “A "Preatise on the Theory and Practice of 
Landscape Gardening, adapted to North America, with a 
view to the’ Improvement. of Country Residences. With 


xiv 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.” “Tt 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 anda. 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 ‘withthe 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 Baceu, 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 thousdrds 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 i in the literature 
and history of, rural art ; its. singular dexterity i in stating 


Bie 
spmnorzpy pus ssnoy jo vig :eoueprsey sSarzmoq IPL 


3 2 
% Ee a ant SRA 
i LE ESOS LE 
Oh 
ry = 
N 6a,° 


KITCHEN GARDE! 
ryrvyyy 


x 


“MEMOTR..° 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 i 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 tle ‘position : it has always occupied. The tes- 
timony of the men most competent to speak with author- 
ity in thé matter was grateful, because deserved, praise. 
. Loudon, ‘the editor ‘of “ Repton’s Landscape Gardening,” 
and perhaps at the time, the greatest living Gnie in. the 
department of rural art, at’ once declared it “a masterly 
work ;” and after qustine freely from its pages, remarked : 

cs ‘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, in his. “ Gardener's 
Chronicle, ” dissented from “some minor points, ” but 
-said : “On the whole, we know of no work in which the 
"aindamental principles of this profession are so well or so 
concisely expressed :” adding, “No English lands¢ape 
pardener has written so clearly, or with so much real in- 
tensity.” 

~The | “ quiet, thoughtfal, = Paes boy.” of the 
Montgomery ‘Academy had thus suddenly displayed, the 
talent which was not suspécted by his school-fellows. 
The younger partner had now justified the expectation. he 
aroused ; and the long, silent, careful years of study and 
experience insyred 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.” 


xxvi , MEMOIR. 


Rural England recognized its great value, Loudon ‘said : 
“It 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 i 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 ural art. 


. European ‘honors soon began to seek the young gardener. 


upon the Hudson. | He‘had -béen for some time in corres- 
pondence with Loudon, and the other eminent’ men of: the 
profession. He was now elécted corresponding member of 
the Royal Botanic, Society of London, of the Horticultural 
Societies of Berlin, the Low Countries, &e. Queen Amne 
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 i in a hand- 


some house as in one that shocked all sense of" propriety. 


and beauty. The, capahilities | of the landscape began to 


develop themselves to; the 1 man who looked. at it from his. 


says hit: a » gentleman ‘ iit is stuthently qualified to cae 
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, EXVil- 


it might principally be traced. to ‘Downing’s Cottage Resi-, 
dences’ and the ‘Horticulturist. ’” ‘He was naturally elect- 
ed an honorary 1 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 ‘bonor from the Agricultu- 
ral Associdtions, 

“Meanwhile ’his studies were unremitting : ee 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 Jineal 
‘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’résults 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 he 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 
iver and. ‘pass the day at “Highland Gardens,” as his place 
aas 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 Point Highlands, Butter Hill, 
Sugar-Loaf, Cro’ Nest, and Skunnymunk, is as beautiful 
a river view as can be seen’ upon a summer day.’ It was a 
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, wé had. uniformly found the spring to 
be that laughing: lie which the poets insist it, is not, 
There was no- doubt longer, however. The country was 
80 brilliant with the.tender green: that it seemed festally 
adorned, and it was easy,enough to. believe that human 
genius could have no lévelier 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 pane echoed: it, as we crossed 
the river. . 

I had read Downing’s ‘books ; and fae had given me 
the impression, naturally formed “of one 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 serlanth of the beautiful and useful that 
encircles this excellent old earth.” 

His i image in-my mind was idyllic. ‘I looked upon ae 
as akind of pastoral poet. Thad 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. . XXIX 


for the study, or the garden. His welcoming smile was. 
reserved, but genuine,—his manner ‘singularly hearty. and 
quiet, mated by the: easy’ elegance and perfect savoir 
faire which would have adorned the Escurial. We passed 
irito 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 brackets, 
-with busts of Dante, Milton, Petrarch, Franklin, Linneus, 

and Scott. There was a large. bay window opposite the 
. fireplace. The forms and odors of this room were. delight-' 
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 opinion, and an evident tenacity 
of his own, all the while, which surprised me, as the pecu- 
» Harity of the most accomplished man of the world. There 
was a certain aristocratic hawtewr 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 yeadier 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 aftairs, 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 firial. 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 a circum- - 
starices 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 fonda 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 ‘acceptitig the appearance of this re-. 
sult, where the fact‘was wanting. Hence he had a natural. 
fouilatoes for the highest circles of society—a fonduess 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 féw. 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 ce the English gentle 
man, which was life-long with him, and which ‘made him, 


MEMOIR. : xxii 


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 1 mis- °° 
understandings of poverty. 
I recall but ‘one place in which he deliberately sista 
‘this instinct’ of his, as an opinion: In the paper upon 
ee ‘Improvement, of Vegetable Races,” April, 1852, he says : 
“We are not going to be led into a physislogial digres- 
sion on the subject of the inextinguishable 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 
moré.oppésed 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 miy native land, 
and with uplifted eyes thanked the good God that, though 
. to Englarid, the country: of: my- ancestors, it had bean 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 


XXxil f 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, I 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 paras of what I gradually discovered tobe 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 Bane feel- 
ing, which. they called ee ”” eoldness,” “ pride,” 
“haughtiness,” or “ reserve,” revealed itself. That) first. 
‘morning it only heightened’ in, my mind the Spanish im- 
pression of the dark, slim. a who. so courteously’ wee 
comed us at his door. es 

Tt was May, and the aapnolies were in blossom. Un-: 
der.. cur 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 gt. the bottom of the hill, be- 
tween the garden and the water, and there was a: pad just 
at the foot of the garden. ‘But 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 
80 dexterously trimmed as to reveal the loveliest glint 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, _ leash, you ‘felt that 
here was 2 man who knew that the best part of the land- 


MEMOIR. xxxili .' 


scape sould 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- 
is el was the guest é 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 weré 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, galtinaiin, and 

' intellect. This saved him as an author from. being swiecked’ 
‘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 Q : MEMOTR. 


nothing to say, anette 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 pooliar and very lovely i ina man 
of so delicate a nervous organization. . This‘ led him to be 
" toleraint . ‘of all differences of opinion and: action, and tobe 
sensitively wary of i 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, hus : Whoever designed this, 
front, made up as‘it is: of lofty, towers. and itregular walls, 
must ‘have been’ a poet, ag well as architect, for’ its cem- 
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 rulés of 
‘art. 7 
His own home was his finest one 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 inobtruaiveness, that the fayorite flower every 
morning by the plate upon _ the breakfast-table, seemed to. 
have come there as naturally, j 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. - these 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 
ithe universal solvent: By day, there were always books, 
conversation, driving , working, lying onthe lawn, excur- 


MEMOIR. XXXV 


sions anes the mountains ‘across the river, waite: to beatu- 
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 sutton’ 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 deol 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 sév-. 


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 yerses, 
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 ix ‘the’ kind of 
a fruit, he sent him the following characteristic lines : 


XXxxvi MEMOIR, 


«0 THE DocTox, ON HIS PASSION FOR THE “DUCHESS OF 
ac OLDENBUEGH.’” F 
: Dear ie 1 white you this little effision, | 
“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 i in your clutches ; 5 
Why, ‘tis certainly: plath as the. spots in the sun, 

‘That the creature is only a fine Duteh Mignonne. 

She is Dutch—thero i 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—mosgt moving, 

eo As 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 asin! _. 
Ab-no; my dear Doctor, updn my own honor, . 
_, -Imust sénd you.a dose. of the true Bella donna!” 

5 had : adivcoseit wee delight with ‘thé magnolia, and 
‘nia 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 ue me he often wrote, “the magnolias are waiting 
for you,” as an irresistible: pllarement— which it was very 
apt to prove. Downing was in the library when I came 
down the morning after our arriyal. He had the air 
man who: has ‘been. ‘broad awake ‘and at work for ‘sorted 
chours. 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 

, u i C " 


MEMOIR. : . XXXVI 


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 lakor;, but without any apparent expense 
‘of time or means. His’ step'was so leisurely, his manner 
<BO" 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. fs 
But this composure, this reticence, this: Jeisurély air, 
were ‘all imposed upon his manner by. hig 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 recreandl and imperious. - But the 
man of shrewd common sense, with his way to miake in 'the 
world, saw clearly that, that ray wandnees ‘must be: sternly 
subjugated. Tt was 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 
mich: as any one, and often playfully endeavored to. supply, 
it. It doubtless arose, in great’ part, from too fine a: ner- 
“yous organization. Under the mask of the finished man 
of the wotld ‘he concealed the most feminine feelings; which 
aeften expressed themselves with pathetic oe to the 
only one in whom, le unreservedly ‘confided: 

. This critical reserve behind the cordial manner invésted 
“hig 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, seenied to 


afi 


EXXVili . 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 Rowan invisible i 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 fall 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 understandings 


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 feoniishins which -united him very closely to them. To 


men he was much more inaccessible. It cannot be denied 
thatrthe feeling of mystery in his character affected the i im- 
pression he made upon various porous. a might be a 
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-socking upon his part. 


I remember # 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, 4 XxxiX 


sitting in the library; and he had told me his intention of 
building a little study and’ worming avon, adjoining the 
house : ‘but I-don’t know,” he said, “where or how to 
connect it with the house.”. But I was on well convinced 
that he. would arrange it in the best possible manner, and 
was ni6t. 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-tase relly as they were, and putting 
false books behind: the glass of the doors, the appearance 
of the library 3 was entirely unaltered, while the whole ‘appa- 
rent: bookcase, doors and all, swung to and fro, at his will, 
as a, private door. During my. next visit. at hia house, I 
was sitting very late at night in the library, with a ainpla 
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 e MEMOTR. 
form ‘anticipated. His exquisite regard for the détails of 
life, gave a completeness to his household, which is nowhere : 

syrpasséd. ‘Fitness is the~first. element of beauty, and 
every thing in his arrangement was ' “appropriate. It was, 
‘hard not'to sigh, when’ conteniplating- the beautiful results 
‘he accomplished by taste and tact, and at comparatively 
little pécuniary expense, to think of the ‘sums “elsewhere 
squandered ‘upon an. ‘insufficient and shallow splendor, 3 
Yet, as beauty was, with Downing, life, and not luxury, 
although he.was, ‘in feeling and by dermal 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 . Janguor, 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, posts, 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 chis guests. The various play of different’ 
characters entertained him. Yet with all his:fondness for 
fine pines he justly estimated the tendency of. their in- 
fluence. _ He’ was not enthusiastic, he was not seduced 
into blindriess 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 ‘countty-seat than the following froin the 
paper : “A Visit to Montgomery Place.” “ It is not, we 
are sure, the spot f 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,” 


soothing as rte dampen the fire of his great’ purposes, and 
dispose him to believe that there is more dignity i in repose, 
than merit in action.” 

‘Bo, certainly, ie believed, as. thé May ‘days passed, and 
found me still lingering 1 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 mote 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, oe are, 
perhaps, the most complete memorial of the man. Theit 
genial simplicity fascinated all kinds of persons. A cor- 
respondence which might be called affectionate, sprang up 
between the editor and scores of his readers: They want- 
ed instruction and Advice. They confided to him théiz 
plans. and hopes ; to him—the personally 1 unknown “we” 
of their. monthly magazine—the reserved man whom pub- 
lishers and others found “ stiff,’ and “ cold,” and ‘“ 4 lit- 

tle haughty,” and whose fine points of character stood out, 

like sunny mountain peaks against a mist, These letters, 
it’ appears; were ‘personal, and full of feeling. The 


writers wished to know the man, to see his portrait, and 
ont) a3 6 «cats, Aces OR att nd So tha. @ Harti 


e 


xhi ’ MEMOIR. 


culturist.” ‘When in his neighborhood, these correspond- 
ents came to visit him. “They were anxious “to seethe 
man who had.written books which..had enabled them to 
make their, houses beautiful, — which had helped their 
wives in the flower-garden, ‘and. had shown them how, with 
little expense, to decorate their humble parlors, and add a 
grace to the barrennen of daily life.” el this was better : 
than Queen Anné’s “ magnificent ring.” ... «- 
_ Meanwhile, business. in the , nursery. looked a little 
‘threatening.. Money was always dropping from the- hospi- 
table hand of the owner. Expenses: increased—affairs 
‘became . complicated. It is not. the genius of men like 
Downing to manage the. finances very skilfully. eas 
tree that he. sold for-a dollar, cost him ten shillings ;’ 
which is not a money-making process. He was: ete 
too, lavish, too careless, too sanguine, ‘‘ Had ‘his income 
been a millon. a minute, he would always have been 
in debt,” says one who Bnav? hith well:. The composed 
manner was as unruffled as ever ; the regal will preserved 
the usual appearance ‘of. things, but in the winter: of. 
1846-7 Mr. Downing. was seriously embarrassed, It was 
avery grave juncture, for it was. likely that he. would 
_ be obliged to. leave his house and begin life again.. But 
his friends rallied to the rescue. _ They. assured .to him 
his house .and grounds; and he, without ‘losing. time, 
‘without repining, andwith the old ‘detertninatifn, went to 
work more industriously than ever. His attention was 
unremitting to the “Horticulturist,” and to all the projects 
he-had undertaken. His interest in the management of the 
nursery, however, decreased, and he devoted’ himself’ with 
more energy to rural architecture and landscape gardening, 
until: he gradually discontinued altogether the raising of 
trees for, sale. His house was still the resort of the: most 


2 : -MEMOIR. ; xliti 


brilliant:society ; still—as it always had been, and was, until 
the end—the seat of beautiful hospitality. — He was often 
enough perplexed in his affairs—hurried by. the ‘monthly 
recurring necessity of “ the ‘eader, ” and not ‘quite satgsfied 
at any time until; that literary task was accomplished. 
His business contined and. interested him; his large cor- 
respondence was promptly: managed but. hs was still san- 
guine, under that Spanish reserve, and still spent profusely. 
He hada thousand interests ; a State agricultural school, 
a national agricultural bureau at Washington, designing pri- 
vate and public buildings, laying out large estates, pursuing 
his own scientific and literary studies, and preparing a_ work 
upon Rural Architecture. From his elegant home he was 
scattering, in the Horticulturist, pearl-seed of precious 
suggestion, which fell in all kinds of secluded and remote 
regions, and bore, and are bearing, costly fruit. 

-In ‘1849, Mr. John Wiley published “ Hints to Young 
Architects, by George® Wightwick, Architect ; with Ad- 
ditional. Notes and Hints to Persons about Building in 
this: Country, py A. J. Downing.” It was.a work prepar- 
atory: to the original one he designed to publish, and full 
of most valuable suggestions. For in every thing he was 
American. His sharp sense. of propriety as the primal 
element of beauty, led him constantly to insist that. the 
place, and circumstances, and time, should always be care-, 
fully considleréd, before any step was taken. The satin 
shoe was a grace. in the parlor, but a deformity i ‘in the gar- 
den. The Parthenon was perfect in a certain climate, 
under certain conditions, and for certain purposes. But 
the Parthenon.as a country mansion in the midst of 
American woods.and fields was. unhandsome and offensive. 
His:aim in building a house was to adapt ‘it to the site, 
and . to the means and. character of the owner, 


xliv MEMOIR. 


-It was in the autumn of 1849 that Frederik Bre- 
_mer came to America. She. had been for: several years 
in “intimate. correspondence with Mr. Downing, and was 
closaly attracted.to him by a .profound sympathy with | his 
view of the dignity’ and influence of the home. He’ e= 
‘ceived Miss Bremer upon her arrival, and she went with 
him to his house, where she staid AGA weeks, and wrote 
there the saiteodnotion to the authorized American edition 
of her works. - It is well for us, perhaps, that as she has 
written,a work upon ce The Homes of the United States,” 
she should have taken her first impression, of them from 
that of Mr, Downing: During all ‘her travels in this 
country’ she constantly corresponded with him and his 
wife, to whom she was very tenderly. attached. Her letters 
were full of cheerful. humor and. shrewd. observation. She 
went bravely about alone, and was treated, almost without 
exception, with consideration aid courtesy. And after her 
journey: was over, and she was,abdtt to return home,.she 
came to say f farewell where she had first. greeted America, 
in Downing’ sgarden., , 

In this year he finally resolyed to oe himself entirely 
to architecture and building, and, in order to benefit by the 
largest variety of experience. in alepantt rural life, and to se- 
cure the services of an accomplished and able architect, 

thoroughly trained to thé business he proposed, Mr. Dowsing 
went to England in the summer of 1850, having arranged 
with Messrs. D. Appleton & Co. for the publication of 
“The Architecture of Country Houses ; ; including Degigns 
for Cottages, Farm-houses, and Villas.” 

' Already in ‘correspondence with the jeading Englishmen 
in his department, .Mr.. Downing was at once. cordially 
welcomed. He showed the admirable, and not the un- 
friendly, qualities ; of his countrymen, ‘and was directly en- 


MEMOIR. xlv 


gaged in a series of | estas to: the most ' ee and 
remarkable of English country sedts,. where he was an 
honored ‘guest... The delight of ‘the position was beyond 
words to’ a man of his peculiar character and’ habits. 
He saw on ‘every hand’the perfection. of elegant rural life, 
which was his ideal of life. He saw thé boundless’ parks, 
the cultivated landscape, the tropics imprisoned i in glass ; 
he saw spacious Italian villas, more Italian’ than in Italy ; 
every various’ triumph of park, garden, and country- 
house. But with these, also, he met in the- pleasantest 
way much fine English society, which was his ideal of 
society. “There was nothing wanting to gratify his fine 
ahd fastidious taste; but the passage already quoted from 
his’ letter at Warwick Castle shows how firmly his faith 
was set upon his native land, while his: private letters are 
full of affectionate longing to return. It is easy to figure 
hin moving with courtly grace ‘through the rooms of 
palaces, gentle, respectful, low in tone, never exaggerating, 
welcome-to lord and lady for’ his good sense, his practical 
knowledge, his exact detail ; pleasing the English man and 
woman by his English sympathies, and interesting them by 
his manly and genuine, not boasting, assertions of Ameri- 
can genius: ‘and success. . Looking at the picture, one re+ 
members again that eanlier: one of the boy coming home 
from Montgomery Academy, i in Orange County, and intro- 
duced, at the wealthy neighbor's to the English gentleman. 
The ‘instinct that remembered so slight. an event secured 
his appreciation of all that England offered. No Ameri- 
can ever visited England with a mind more in tune with 
all that is nobly characteristic of her. ' He remarked, upon 
his return, that he had. been ‘much impressed by the quiet, 
religious life and ‘habits which he found in many great 
Enolich honses. It is not a voint of Enolish life ‘often 


am MEMOIR. 


ee nor presupposed, but it was “doubly gratéful to 
him, because he was always a Christian. believer, and ‘be- 
cause all parade was repugnant to him. His letters before 
his marriage, and during the last years of his life, evince 
the most genuine Christian faith and feeling. 

' His residence in England was very brief—a summer 
trip. He crossed to Paris and saw- French . life. For- 
tunately, as his” time was short, he saw more in a day 
than most men in a month, because he was prepared 
to see, and knew where to look. He found the assistant 
vhe wished in Mr. Calvert Vaux, a young English  ar-- 
chitect, to whom he was. sebsodnsed by’ the. Secretary 
of the Architectural Association, and with whom, 50: 
mutual was the satisfaction, he directly concluded ‘an 
agreement, Mr. Vaux sailed with him froni Liverpool 
-in September, presently became his partner in business, 
and commanded, to the end, Mr. Downing’s ‘unreserved 
confidence and respect. 

T remernber a Christmas visit to Downing i in 1850, thee 
his return from Europe, when we all danced to a fiddle upon . 
the’ marble pavement of the hall, by the light of rustic. 
chandeliers wreathed with Christmas. green, and under the 
antlers, and’ ‘pikes, and. helmets; and breastplates, and’ 
plumed hats of cavaliers, that hung upon the walls.. ‘ The 
very genius of English Christmas ruled the revel. 

During these years he was engaged: in superintending 
the various new editions of his works, and. looking forward. 
to larger achievements with maturer years,” He designed 
a greatly enlarged edition of the “ Fruit- -Trees,” and 
spoke occasionally ofthe ‘“ Shade-Trees,” as a work which 
would -be of the’ greatest practical value. He was much | 
interested. in the éstablishment of the Pomological Con- 
gress, was chairman of its fruit comnfittee from'the begin- 


MEMOIR, xlvii 


fy 


ning, arid drew up the “Rules of American Pomology.” 
Every moment had its work. There was not a more use- 
ful man in America ; but his visitor found still the same 
quiet ‘host, leisurely, disengaged ; -picking his favorite 
flowers before breakfast + driving here and there, writing, 
studying, as if rather. ion amusement ; and at twilight 
stepping into the wagon for a loitering drive along the 
river. 
His: love of ‘lis country and faith in rural influences 
were too genuine for him not to be deeply interested in the 
improvement, of cities by means of public ‘parks and gar- 
dens. Not only for their sanitary use, but for their ele- 
gance and refining influence, he was anxious ‘that all our 
ities should be richly endowed with them. He alluded 
frequently. to. the subject in the columns of his magazine, 
and when it was resolved by Congress to turn the public 
grounds in Washington, near the Capitol, White House, 
and Smithsonian Institute, into a’public garden and pro- 
menade, ‘Downing’ was naturally the man invited by the 
President, in April, 1851, to design the arrangement of the 
grounds and to superintend their execution. © All the de- 
signs and much of the work were completed before his 
death. This new labor, added to the rest, while it in- 
creased his income, consumed much of his time. He went 
once every month to ‘Waslangon, and was absent ten or 
‘twelve days. 

He was not suffered to be at peace in this position. 
‘Bhere were plenty of jealousies and rivalries, and much 
sharp questioning about the $2500 annually paid to an 
accomplished artist for laying out the public’ grounds of 
the American Capital, in a manner worthy the nation, and 
for reclaiming: many acres from waste and the breeding of 
miasma, At length the matter was discussed in Congress. 


xdviii : MEMOIR. 


On the 24th March, 1852, during. a debate upon various, 
appropriations, , Mr.. Jones, ‘of Tennessee, moved to strike 
out. the sum of-$12,000, proposed to complete the’ im- 
provements around the -President’s house ; complained that 
there were great abuses under the proviso of this appro- 


priation, and declared, quite directly, that Mr. Downing. 


was overpaid for his services. Mr. Stanton, of Kentucky, 


replied :—“ It is astonishing to my mind—and I have no 


doubt to the minds of others—with what: facility other- 
wise intelligent and respectable gentlemen on this floor 
can deal: out wholesale denunciations of men about whom 
they know nothing,. and will not inform themselves ; and 


how much the legislation: of the country is esutegiled by-. 


prejudices thus invoked and. clamor, thus raised.” After. 


speaking of the bill under which the improvements were 
making, he continued : “The President. was authorized td 


appoint some competent person to superintend the carrying 
out of the plan adopted. He appointed Mr. Downing. And ° 


who is he ? One of the most accomplished gentlemen in his / 


profession in- the Union ; 4 man known to the world as pos- 
sessing rare skill as a rural architect’ and landscape garden- 
er, as well as a man of great scientific intelligence. * * * *% 


™~ 


I deny that he has neglected his duties, as the gentlemai 


from Tennessee has charged. Instead of being here only 


three days in the month, he has been’ here vigilantly: dis- « 


charging his duties at all times when those duties: ‘required 
him to be here. He has superintended, directed, and 


carried out the: plan adopted, as fully as the funds apprg- - 


priated have enabled him to do. If all the officers of the 
‘Government had- been asconscientious and scrupulous i in 
the discharge of their duties as he has been since his 


appointment, there would: be no ground. for reproaches « 


against those who have control of the Government.” 


‘MEMOIR. xlix 
cd 


Mr. Downing was annoyed by this continual carping and 
bickering, and anxious to have the matter definitely ar- 
ranged, he requested the President to summon the Cabinet. 
The Secretaries assembled, and Mr. Downing was presented. 
He explained the case as he understood it; unrolled his 
plans, stated, his duties, and the time he devoted to 
them, and the salary. he received, ‘He then added, that: 
che iahod the arrahgement ‘to be clearly understood, 
If. the President..and Cabinet thought that his require- 
ments were extravagant, he'was perfectly willing to roll up 
-his plans, and return home. If they.approved them, he. 
would gladly remain, -but upon the express condition that 
he was to be relieved from the annoyances of the quarrel. 
The President and Cabinet.agreed that his plans were the 
best, and his demands reasonable ; ; and the Sue went on 
in peace from that time, 

The- year 1852_ ‘oat upon Downing, i in the, gar 
den. where he had -played and dreamed alone, while the 
father tended the trees; and.to which he had clung, with 

indefeasible instinct, when thé busy mother had suggested 
that’ her delicate boy would: thrive better as a drygoods 
clerk. ’ He was just past his thirty-sixth birth-day, and 
the Fishkill mountains, that had watched the boy depart- 
ing for the.academy where he was to show rio sign of 
his power, now beheld: him, in. the bloom of manhood, 
honored at-home and: abroud —n6 man, in fact, more 
honored at home than he.. Yet the honor sprang: from 
the work. that had. been achieved in that garden. It 
was -there - he ‘had thought,-and studied, and observed. 
it mes to that home. he returned from his little excur- 
sions, to ponder upon’ the new things he’ had seen and 
heard,.to. try them by the immutable principles of taste, 
and to test them by rigorous proofs. Tt was from that 

4 


: 
1 MEMOIR. 


home that he looked upon’ the landscape which, as it 
allured his youth, now satisfied his manhood. The moun- 
tains, upon whose shoreward slope his wife was born under 
the blossoming locusts on the very day on which he was 
‘born in the Newburgh garden, smiled upon his success and 
shared it. He owed them a debt he. never disavowed. 
Below his house flowed the river of which he so proudly 
wrote in the preface to the ‘‘Fruit-Trees ”—“ A’ man born 
on the banks of one of the noblest and most fruitful rivers 
in America, and whose best days’ have‘been spent in gardens 
and orchards, mayperhaps be pardonéd for talking about 
friit-trees.” . Over the gleaming bay which the river's ex- 
pansion at Newburgh forms, glided the dazzling summer 
days; or the black thunder-gusts swept suddenly out ' 
from the bold highlands of West’ Point ; or the winter 
landscape lay calmaround the garden:, From his windéws 
he saw all the changing glory of the year. New-York was 
of easy access by the steamers that constantly passed:to 
and from Albany and the river towns, and the railroad 
‘prought the city within three hours of his door. It 
brought constant visitors also, from the city. and beyond ; 
‘and scattered up and down the banks of the Hudgon were 
the beautiful homes of friends, with whom he was con- 
stantly'in the exchange of ‘the most unrestrained hospi- 
tality. He'added to his house the working-room commu- 
nicating with the library by the mysterious door, and was 
deeply engaged in the planning and building of country- 
houses in every direction. Among these I may mention, as 
among the last and finest, the summer residence of Daniel 
Parish, Esq., at’ Newport, R. I Mr. Downing knew that 
Newport was the great social exchange of the country, that 
men of wealth and taste yearly assembled there, and that 
a fine house of his designing erected there would be of the-. 


MEMOIR. li 


greatest service to his art. This house is at once simple, 
massive, and graceful, as becomes the spot. It is the work 
of.an artist, in the finest sense, harmonious with the bare 
cliff and the sea. But even where his personal services | 
were not required, his books were educating taste, and his 
influence was visible in hundreds -of houses. that he had 
never seen. He edited, during this year, Mrs. Loudon’s 
Gardening for Ladies, reli was published by Mr, J ohn 
Wiley. No man was a more practically useful friend to 
thousands who did not know him. Yet’ if, at any time, 
while his house was full of visitors, business summoned 
him, as it freqifently did, he apped quietly out: of the 
gate, left the visitors .to a care‘as thoughtful and beav-. 
tiful as his own, and. his house was made their home 
for the time they chose to remain. Downing was in 
his’ thirty-seventh year, in the fulness of his' fame and 
power, The difficulties of the failure were gradually dis- 
appearing behind him like clouds rolling away. He stood 
in his golden prime, as in his summer garden; the Fu- 
ture smiled upon him like the blue Fishkill hills beyond 
the river. That’ Future, also,-lay beyond the river. 

_ At the end of June, 1852, I-went to pass a few days 
with him. He held an annual feast of roses with as many 
friends as he could gather and his house could hold. The 
days of my visit had all the fresh sweetness of early sum- 
mer, and the garden and the landscape were fuller than 
ever of grace and beauty. It was an Arcadian chapter, 
with the roses and blossoming figs upon the green-house 
wall, and the. music by moonlight, and reading of songs, 
cand tales, and games upon the lawn, under the Warwick 
vase. Boccaccio’s groups in their Fiesole: garden, were not 
gayer; nor the blithe circle of a summer's day upon Sir 
Walter Vivian’s lawn. Indeed it was precisely in Down-. 


hi MEMOIR. 


ing’s garden that the poetry of such old traditions became 
fact—or rather the fact. was lifted into that old poetry. 
He had achieved in it the beauty of'an extreme civiliza- 
tion, without losing the natural, healthy vigor of his coun- 
try and time. ; 
One evening—the moon was fall—!we crossed in a tow- 
boat to the Fishkill shore, and floated upon the gleaming 
river under the black banks of foliage to a quaint old coun- 
try-house, in whose small library the Society’ of the Cin- 
cinnati was formed, at the close of the Revolution, and ‘in 
whose rooms a plensind party was gathered that summer 
‘evening. The doors and windows were open. We stood 
in the rooms or loitered upon the piazza, looking into the 
unspeakable beauty of the night. ‘A lady was pointed out 
to me ‘as the heroine of a romantic. history—a handsome 
woman, with the traces of hatd experience in her fate, 
standing in that little peaceful spot of summer moonlight, 
as a child snatching a brief dream of peace between 
spasms of mortal agony. As we returned at midnight 
across the river, Downing told us more of the. stranger 
lady, and of his early feats‘of swimming from Newburgh 
to Fishkill; and so we drifted homeward upon the oily 
calm with talk, and song, and silence—a brief,- beautiful 
voyage. upon the water, where the same summer, while: yet 
unfaded, should see him embarked upon a longer journey. 
In these last days he was the same generous, thoughtful, 
quiet, effective person I ‘had always found him. Friends 
peculiarly dear to him were in his house. .'The ‘Washing- 
ton work was advancing finely: he was much interested in 
his Newport ‘plans, and we looked forward’ to a gay meet- 
‘ing there in the later summer. The time for his monthly 
trip to Washingtoti arrived while I was still his guest. 
“We shall meet in Newport,” I said. “Yes,” he an- 


MEMOIR, li 


swered, “but you miust stay and as house with my 
wife until I return.” 

I was gone before he reached home- again, but, with 
many who wished t¢é consult him about ‘houses: they were 
building, and with many whom he honored -and wished to 
know, awaited his promised visit at Newport. 

Mr. Downing had intended to leave Newburgh with his 
wife upon Tuesday, the 27th of-July, when they would 
have taken one of the large river steamers for New-York, 
But his business prevented his leaving upon that day, and it 
was postponed to ‘Wednesday; the 28th of July, on which 
day only the two smaller boats, the “Henry Clay” and 
the “ Armenia” were running. Upon reaching the wharf, 
Mr.:and Mrs. Downing met: her mother, Mrs. De Wint, 
with her youngest son and daughter, and the lady who had 
been pointed out as’the heroine of a tragedy. But this 
morning she was as sunny as the-day,-which was one of 
the loveliest of summer. 

The two steamers were already in sight, coming down 
the river, and there was a little discussion in the party as 
to which they would take. But the “Henry Clay” was 
the largest. and reached the wharf first. Mr. Downing 
and his party embarked, and soon perceived that the two 
boats were desperately racing. The circumstance was, 
however, too common to excite any apprehension in ie 
minds of the party, or even to occasion remark, » They sat 
upon the deck enjoying’ the graceful shores that fled ‘by 
them-—a picture on the air. Mr. Downing was engaged 
in lively talk with his companion, who had never beén to 
Newport and was very:curious to see and share its brilliant 
life. They had dined, and the boat was within twenty 
miles of New-York, in a broad reach of the river between 
the Palisades and the town of Yonkers, when Mrs. Down- 


liv MEMOIR. 


ing observed a slight smoke blowing toward them from the 
centre of the boat. She spoke of it, rose, and said they 
had better go into the cabin. Her Toshand) replied, n0, 
that they were as safe where:they then were as any where. 
Mrs. Downing, however, went into the cabin where . her 
mother was sitting, knitting, with her daughter by her 
side. There was little time to say any thing. The smoke 
rapidly increased ; all who could reach it hurried into the 
cabin. The. (iiokening smoke peared: in after the crowd, 
who were nearly suffocated. 

The dense mass-choked the. door, and Mr. Down- 
ing’s party instinctively rushed to the cabin windows to 
escape. They. climbed through them to the, narrow pas- 
sage between the cabin and the bulwarks of the boat, 
the crowd pressing ‘heavily, shouting, crying, despairing, 
and suffocating in the smoke that now fell upon the 
in black clouds. Suddenly Mr. Downing. ‘said, “‘ They are 
running her ashore, and we shall all be taken off.” He 
led them round to the stern of the boat, thinking to escape 
more readily from the other side, but - there saw a person 
upon the shore waving them back, so they returned to 
their former place. The flames pepan now to crackle and 
roar as they crept along the woodwork from the boiler, and 
the pressure of the throng: toward the stern was frightful. 
Mr. Downing was seen by his wife to step upon the railing, 
with his coat tightly buttoned, ready for a spring upon the 
upper deck. At that moment she was borne away by the 
crowd and saw him no more. Their friend, who had been 
conversing with Mr. Downing, was calm but pale with 
alarm. ‘What will become of us?” said one of these 
women, i in this frightful extremity of peril, as they held 
each other’s hands and were removed from all human help. 
“May ‘God have mercy upon us,” answered the other. 


MEMOIR. lv 


Upon the cgi they were. separated by the swaying 
crowd, but Mrs. Downing still kept near her- mother, and 
sister, and brother. The flames were now within thes 
yards of them, and her brother said, “We must get over- 
board.” Yet she still held some books and a parasol in 
her hand, not yet able to believe that this was Death creep- 
ing lene the deek. She tured and looked for her hus- 
band.’ She could not see him and called his name. Her 
voice-was lost in that wild whirl and chaos of frenzied de- 
spair, and her brother again said to her, “ You must get 
overboard.” In that moment the daughter looked upon 
the mhother—the mother, who had said to her daughter’s 
husband when he asked her hand, “ She has been the comfort 
of her mother’s heart, and the solace of her hours,” and 
she saw that her mother’s face was “ full of the terrible re- 
ality and inevitable necessity” that awaited them. The 
crowd choked them, the flames darted. toward them ; the 
brother helped them upon the railing and they leaped into 
the water. 

Mrs. ‘Downing stretched out her hands, and grasped 
two chairs that floated near her, and lying quietly upon 
her back, was buoyed up by the chairs ; then seizing an- 
other that was passing her, and holding two in one hand 
arid one in the. other,.she floated away from the smoking 
and blazing wreck, from the shrieking and drowning crowd, 
past the stern of the boat that lay head in to the shore, 
past the blackened fragments, away from the roaring death 
struggle into the calm water of the river, calling upon God 
to, save her. She could see the burning boat below her, 
three hundred yards, perhaps, but the tide was coming in, 
and after floating some little distance up the river, a current 
turned her directly toward the shore. “Where the water 
was yet too deep for her to stand, she was grasped by a 


lvi MEMOIR. 


man, drawn toward the bank, and there, finding that she 
could stand, she was led out of the water by.two men. 
With. the rest of the bewildered, horror-stunned people, 
she walked up and down the margin of the. river looking 
for her husband. Her brother and sister met her as she 
walked’ here—a meeting more sad than, joyful. Still the 
husband did not come, nor the mother, nor that. friend 
who had implored the mercy of God. Mrs. Downing was 
sure that her husband was safe. He had come ashore 
above—he was still floating somewhere—he had been pick- 
ed up—he had swam out to some sloop in the river—he. 
was busy rescuing the drowning—he was doing his duty 
somewhere—he could not be lost. 

She was persuaded into.a little house, where she sat at 
a window until nightfall, watching the wreck and the con- 
fusion: . Then: she was taken: home upon the railroad. ,The 
neighbors and. friends came to’her to pass the night. They 
sat partly in the house and partly stood: ‘watching at the 
door and upon the piazza, waiting,for news from the mes- 
sengers who came constantly from the wreck. Mr. Vaux 
and others left directly for the wreck, and remained there 
until the end. The wife clung to. her hope,. but lay very 
ill,.in, the care of the physician. The day dawned over 
that blighted garden, and in the afternoon they told her 
that the -body of her husband. had been found, and they 
were bringing it - home, A young woman who had been 
saved from the wreck and. sat trembling in the house, then 
said what until then it had been impossible for her to say, 
that, at the last moment, Mr. Downing had told her how 
to sustain herself in the water, but that before she was 
compelled to leap, she saw him striggling in the river 
with. his friend and . others clinging to him. Then she 
heard him utter a prayer to-God, and saw him no more. 


MEMOIR. Wii 


Another had seen him upon the upper deck, probably 
just after his.wife lost sight of him, throwing chairs into 
the river to serve as supports; nor is it too improbable 
. ‘that the chairs upon which his wife floated to shore were 
- * among those he had so thoughtfully provided. 

In the afternoon, they brought him home, and laid him 
in his library. A terrific storm burst over. the river and 
crashed.among the hills, and the wild sympathy of nature 
surrounded that blasted home. But its master lay serene 
in the peace of the last prayer he uttered. Loving hands 
had woven garlands of the fragrant blossoms of the Cape 
jessamine, the sweet clematis, and the royal roses he-loved 

go well. The next morning was calm and bright, and he 
was laid in the graveyard, where his father and mother 
lie. The quiet Fishkill mountains, that won the love of the 
shy boy in the garden, now.watch the grave of the man, 
who was buried, not yet thirty-seven years old, but, with 
‘great duties done in this world, and with firm faith in the 
divine goodness. 


“Unwatch’d, the garden bough shall sway,’ 
The tender blossom flutter down, 
Unloved, that beech will gather brown, 

‘This maple | burn itself away; \ 


ef Unloved, the sun-flower, shining fair 
Ray round with flame her disk of seed, 
And many a rose-carnation feed 
With summer spice the humming air. 


“Unlovéd, by many a sandy bar 
The brook shall babble down the plain, + 
At noon, or when the lesser wain 
Is twisting round the polar star ; 


“ Uncared for, gird the windy grove, 
And flood the haunts of hern and crake; 


lviii ‘ MEMOIR. 


Or into silver arrows break, 
The sailing moon in creek and cove; 


“Till from the garden and the wild, 
A fresh association blow, 
And year by year, the landscape grow 
Familiar to the stranger’s child ; 


“ As, year by year, the laborer tills 
His wonted glebe, or lops the glades ; 
And year by year our memory fades 
From all the circle of the hills.” 


A LETTER, FROM MISS BREMER. 


1° 


TO THE FRIENDS OF A. J. DOWNING. 


o 


oe 


StovxHoim, November, 1852. 

ERE, before me, are the pages on which a noble and 

refined spirit has breathed his mind. He is gone, he 
breathes no more on earth to adorn. and ennoble it ; but’ 
in these-pages his mind still speaks to us—his ee his 
discerning spirit still guides,and directs us. Thank God, 
there is immortality even on earth! Thank God, the, work 
of the good, the word of the noble and intelligent, has in 
it seeds of eternal growth ! \ 

Friends of my friend, let. us rejoice,-while we weep, 
that we still have So) nigh of him left, so much of him 
with us, to learn by, to beautify our homes, our loves, our 
lives ! 

Let us be thankful that we can turn to these pages, 
which bear his words and works, and again there enjoy his 
conversation—the peculiar glances of his mind and eye at 
the objects of life ;‘let us thank the Giver of all good things 
for the gift of such a nind as his to this imperfect world ; 
for he understood and knew the perfect, and worked for 
perfection wherever his word or work could reach. But 
not as that personage ascribed to Shakspeare, to whom it 
is said : “ You seem to me somewhat surly and critical,” 


xii A LETTER FROM MISS BREMER. 


and who answers, “It is that I have early seen the perfect 
beauty.” ed 

‘Our friend had—even — seen the atteok beau- 
ty, but he was not ‘surly when he saw what was not. so. 
His- criticism, unflinching’ as was his eye, looked upon 
things ‘mpertoct or mistaken with a quiet rebuke, more of 
commiseration than of scorn. A smile of gentle, good- 
humored. sarcasm, or a simple, earnest, statement of. the 
truth, were his modes of condemnation, and the peauty of 
the Ideal and his faith in its power would, as a heavenly 
light, pierce through his frown. So the real diamond will, 
-by a ray of superior power, criticize the false one, and 
make it darken-and shrink into nothingness. 

Oh! let*me speak of my friend to you, his friends, 
‘though you saw him more and knew him for a longer time 
than I, the stranger, who came to his home: and went, as a 
passing bird. Let, me speak of him to you, for, thouzh:’ 
you saw him more and knew him longer, I loved him het- 
ter than all, save one—the sweet wife who made all his 
days days of peace and pleasantuess, And the eye of love 
is clairvoyant. Let me plead also with you my right as a 
stranger ; for the stranger comes to a new world with fresh 
eyes, as those ac ustomed to snowy climates would be ,more 
alive to the peculiar beauty of tropical. life, than‘ those who 
see it every day. And it’ was so that, glen I saw him, 
our departed friend, I became aware of a kind of individanl 
beauty and finish, that I had little anticipated to find in 
the New World, and indeed, had never seen before, any 
where. 

« At war with the elegant refinements and beauties of 
life, to which I was secretly bound by strong sympathies, 
but which I looked upon as Samson should have looked upon 
Delilah, and i in love with the ascetic severities of life, with 


‘A LETTER FROM MISS BREMER, Ixiii 


St. John and St. Theresa,—I used to have a little pride 
in my disdain of things that the greater part of the world 
look upon as most desirable. Still; I could not but believe: 
that things beautiful and refined—yea, even the luxuries 
of life, had a right to citizenship in the kingdom of God. 

And I had said to myself, as the young Quakeress said to 
her mother, when reproached. by her for seeking more the 


gayeties of this world than the things made of God ; 


: “ He made the flowers and the rainbow. i 


But again, the saints and the Puritans after them, had 
said, “ Beauty is Temptation,” and’ so it has been_ a all 
times. - 


When I came to the’ Naw World, I wast met on. ‘es 
shore’ by A. J. Downing, who had invited me.to his house. ‘ 


Bg some of his books that I'had seen, as well as by his let- 


; ters, T knew him to’ be a man of a refined and noble mind. 


When f saw him, I was struck, as we are by a natural ob- 
ject of uncommon ¢ast or beauty. He took me gently by 
the hand, and led me to thts home. “That he became to me 
as a, brother, —that his discerning eye and mind guided my 


‘untutored spirit with a careless:grace, but not the. ‘ess im- 


pressively, to look upon things and persons most influertial 
and leading i in the formation of the life and mind of the 
people of the United States, was much to me ;° ‘that he 
became to me a charthing friend, whose care and attention 
followed me every where during my pilgrimage,—that he 
made a new summer life, rich with the, charm of America’s 
Indian summer, come in’ my heart, though the affection 
with which he inspiréd me, was much to me; yet what was 
still more, was, that in him I learned to understand a new 
nature, and through him, to appreciate a new realin of 
life. 


lxiv A LETTER FROM MISS BREMER, 


You will understand this easily from what I have just 
stated, and when you think of him, and look on these,pages 
where he has written down his individual mind ; for .if; 
ever writer incarnated his very nature in his mate truly 
and entirely, it was done by A. J. Downing. - And-if his 
words and works have won authority all over the United’ 
States, wherever the mind of the people has risen to the 
sphere of intelligence and beauty ; if under the snowy roofs 
of Concord in the-Pilgrim State, as under the orange and 
oak groves of. South Carolina, I heard the same words— 
“Mr. Downing has done much for this country ;” if even 
in other countries I hear the same appreciation of his 
works, and not a single contradiction ; it is that his peculiar 
nature and t&lent were so one and whole, so in one gush 

“out of the hand of the Creator, that he-won authority and 
faith by the force of those primeval laws to ‘which we 
bow by a divine necessity as ‘we recognize in them the mark - 
of divine truth. 

God had given to our friend to understand the ini 
beauty ; Christianity had elevatefl the. moral standard of 
his mind ; the spirit of the New World had breathed on him 
its enlarging influence ; and so he became a judge of beau- 
ty'in a new sense. The beauty that he saw, ‘that inspired 
him, was no more the Venus Anadyomene of tif heathen 
world still living on through all ages, even in the Christian 
one, mingling the false with the true and carrying abomi- 
nations under her golden mantle. It was the Venus Ura- 
nia, radiant with the pure glory of the Virgin, mother of 
divinity on earth. The beauty that inspired him was in 
accordance with all that was true and good, nor would he 
ever see the first severed. from the two eae It was the 
_ beauty: at home in the’ Kingdom of God. m 

In Mr. Downing’s homé on the Buda 7 was impressed 


A LETTER FROM MISS BREMER,, lxv 


with the chastity in forms and colors, as well as with the 
perfect grace and nobleness even in the slightest things. A 
soul, a pure and elevated soul,’seemed to have breathed 
through them, and modelled them to expressions of its in- 
nermost life and taste. -How earnest was the home-spirit 
breathing throughout the house and in every thing there, 
and yet how cheerful, how calm, and yet how full of life ; 
how silent and yet how suggestive, how full of noble 
teaching !: 

When I saw the master of the house in, the quiet of 
his home, in every day life, I ceased to think of his art, 
but I began to-admire his nature. And his slight words, 
his smile, even his silence, became to me as revélations of 
new ceuithes, “You must see it also, you. must recognize it 
in these pages, through which he still speaks to. us; you 
roust recognize in them a special gift, a power of inspired, 
not acquired, kind ; what, is acquired, others may acquire 
also, but what is gis by the grace of God is the exclu- 
sive property of the favored. one. 

When I saw how my friend worked, I saw how it was 
with him. For he worked not as the workman does ; he 
worked as the lilies in the field, which neither toil nor spin, 
but ‘unconsciously, smilingly, work out their glorious robes 
and breathe forth their perfumes. 

To me it is.a labor to write a letter, especially on busi- 
ness; he discharged every day, ten or twelve letters, as 
-epidly as the wind carries flower-seeds on its wings over the 
land. ; 

He never spoke of. business—of faeiti much to. do; . 
he never seemed to have. much to do. With a careless 

ease and grace, belonging naturally to him, he did many 
things as if they were nothing, and had plenty of leisure 
and pleasantness for his friends. He seemed. quietly. and 


lxvi A LETTER FROM MISS BREMER. 


joyfully, without any effort, to breathe forth the life and 
light. given him. It was his nature. In a flower-pot ar-. 
ranged by his hand, there was’a.silent lecture on true taste, 

_ applicable to all objects and arrangements in life. His 
slight and delicately formed hand, “la main ame,” as Vi- 
éomte d’Agincourt would have named it, could not touch 
things to arrange them without giving. ‘them a soul of 
beauty. 

Though Zarate silent and retired, there was in his 
very presence something that made you feel a secret influ- 
ence, a secret speaking, in appreciation or in criticism— 
that made you feel that the Judge was there ; yea, though 
kind and benevolent, still the Judge, severe to the thing, : 
the expression, Chong indulgent to the individual. Often 
when travelling with him on his beloved Hudson, and: in 
deep silence sitting by his side, a glance of his eye, a smilé, 
‘half melancholy, half arch, would direct my looks to.some 
curious things passing, or some words would break the si- 
Jence, slightly’ spoken, without accent, yet with meaning’ 
and power enough never to be Tamatien, His appre- 
ciation of things always touched the characteristic points. 
He could not help it, it was his nature. 

And so, while I heen impressed with that nature, as 
a peculiar finished work of God, and the true spirit and 
aim of the refinements and graces of. civilized life became 
through him mere dlear to me, I felt a very great joy to 
see that the New World—the world of my hopes—had ip 
him a leading, mind, through which its realm of beauty 
might rise out of the old heathenish chaos and glittering 
falsities, to the pure region where beauty is connected with 
what is chaste, and noble, and dignified in every form and 
application. 

A new conception of beauty and refinement, in all 


A LETTER FROM MISS BREMER. Ixvii 


_ realms of life, belongs to the New World, the new home of 
the people sf peoples, and it was given through A. J. 
Downing. 

T am not sure of being right in my observation, but it 
seemed to'’me that in the course of no long time, the mind 
of my friend had undergone a change in some views that to 
me seem of” importance. When I knew him at first he 
seemed to me a little too exclusive,.a little aristocratic, as 
T even told him, and used to tenn him with, half in earn- 
est, half in play and we had about. that theme some skir- 
ieange: just good to stir up a fresh breeze over the smooth 
waters of daily life and intercourse. I thought that he 
still wanted a baptizing of a more Christian, republican 
spirit. Later I thought the baptizing nee come, gentle 
and pure as heavenly dew. 

’ And before my leaving America I ea to see the 
soul of my friend rise, expand, and becore more and more 
enlarged and sinigereal ‘It could not be otherwise, a soul 
so gifted must scatter its divine gifts as the sun its rays, 
and the flower its seeds, ovey the whole land, for the whole 
people, for one and for all. The good and gifted man would 
not else be a true republican. It was with heartfelt delight 
that I, on my last visit to the home of my friend, did read 
in the epost number of the Horticulturist hese words 
in a leading article by him, on the New-York Park. 

“ Social doubters, who-:intrench themselves in the cit~ 
adel of exclusiveness in republican America, mistake our 
people and its destiny. If we would but have listened to 
them, our magnificent river and: lake steamers, those real 
palaces of ' the million, would have no velvet couches, no 
splendid mirrors, no luxurious carpets ; such costly and 
rare appliances of civilization, they would have told us, 
could only be rightly used by: the privileged’ families of 


Ixviil A LETTER FROM MISS BREMER. 


wealth, and would be trampled upon and utterly ruined 
by the democracy of the country, who travel one hundred 
miles for half a dollar. And yet these our floating palaces, 
and ‘our monster hotels, with their purple and fine linen, 
are they not respected by the majority who usé them as 
truly-as other palaces by their rightful sovereigns? Alas, 
for thé faithlessness of the few who possess, regarding. the 
capacity for culture of the many who are wanting. — 
“Even upon the lower platform of liberty and education 
that the masses stand in Europe, we see the elevating influ- 
ences of a wide popular enjoyment of galleries of art, pub- 
lic libraries, parks and gardens, which have raised the peo- 
ple in social civilization and social culture, to a far: higher 
level ‘than we have yet attained in republican’ America, 
And yet this broad ground of popular refinement must be 
taken in republican Ametica, for it belongs of right’ more 
truly here than elsewhere.. It is republican in its very idea 
and tendency. It takes up popular education where the 
common school and ballot-box leave it, and raises up the 
working man to the same level of enjoyment with the man 
of leisure and accomplishment. The higher social and 
artistic elements of every man’s nature lie dormant within’ 
him, and every laborér is a possible gentleman ; not: ‘by the 
possession of money or fine clothes,: but’ through the refin- 
ing influence of intelligent.and moral culture. | Open wide 
therefore the doors ‘of your libraries, and picture-galleries, 
all ye true republicans ! ! Build halls where knowledge shall 
be freely diffused. among men, and not shut up within the 
narrow walls of narrower institutions. Plant spacious parks 
in your cities, and unloose their gates as wide as the gates 
of the morning, to the whole people. ' As there are no dark 
places at noonday, so education and culture—the’true sun- 
shine of the soul—will banish the plague-spots of democ- 


A LETTER FROM MISS BREMER, lxix 


racy; and the dread of the ignorant exclusive who has 
no faith in the refinement of a republic, will stand. abashed 
in the next century, before'a-whole peoplé whose. ‘system of 
_voluntary education embraces (combined with, perfect indi- 
vidual freedom) not only common schools and rudimentary 
knowledge, but common enjoyments for-all classes in the 
higher realms of art, letters, science, social recreations and 
enjoyments. Were our legislators ae enough to under~ 
stand to-day the destinies of the New World, the gentility 
of Sir Philip.Sidney made universal, would ‘be not half so 
much a miracle fifty years hence in America, as ‘the ‘idea 
of.a whole, nation of laboring men reading and writing was, 
in his day, in England.” a 
In one of my. latest ‘conversations with my friend, as 
he followed me down to the sea-shore, he spoke with’ great 
satisfaction of Miss Cooper’s work, t Rural Hours,” just 
"published, and expressed again a hope I had lieard him 
express more than ‘once, that the taste for rural science 
and occupations would ‘more and more be cultivated, by 
the women of America, It was ‘indeed: a thing for which 
I felt most grateful, and that marked my friend as a true 
_American man, namely, the interest he took in’ the eleva- 
tion of woman’s culture and social influence, e 
His was a mind alive to every thing good and beautiful 
and true, in every department of life, and he would fain 
have made them all, and every species of excellence, adorn 
‘ his native country. 
~ Blessed be his words and wks, on the soil of the New 
World. As he was to his stranger friend, so may he be to 
millions yet to come in his land, a giver of "Hesperian fruits, 
a sure guide through the wilderness ! 


lxx A LETTER FROM MISS BREMER. 


When I was in Cuba, I remember being strongly 
impressed with a beauty € nature and existence, of 
which I hitherto had formed no ‘idea, and that enlarged 
my conceptions of the realms of nature as well as of art. 
I remember writing of it to Mr. Downing, saying (if not 
exactly in the same words, at least’ to the same pur- 
port) :: 

“You must come here, my brother, you must see these 
trees and flowers, these curves and colors, and take into 
your soul the image-of this earthly paradise, while you are 
still on earth ; and then, when God shall call you to that 
other world, to: ‘be there a gardener of His own, and you 
will have a star of your own to plant and’ perfect—as of 
course you will have—then you will mingle the palms and 
bamboo groves of Cuba with your own American oaks and 
elms, and taking models out of the beautiful objects of all 
nature and all climates, you will build houses and temples . 
of which even ‘The Seven Lamps of Architecture’ give 
but distant ideas. You will build a cathedral, where 
every plant and every creature will be as.a link rising 
upwards, joining in one harmonious Apocelypse revealing” 
the glory of the Creator.” 

And now, when the call has come, und my friend is 

‘taken away, anil much of the charm of this world is taken 
from me with him, I solace my fancy with the vision I thus 
anticipated. I see my friend working in some more perfeet 
world, out of more perfect matter, the ideas of beauty and 
perfection which were lifggof his life, so to make it a fit 
abode for pure and heavenly spirits. 

Why should it not beso? I think it must be so, as 
God’s gifts are of immortal cost as well as the individual 
spirit to whom they were given. 1s not all that is beauti-. 
ful in nature, true and charming in art, based upon laws 


A ‘LETTER FROM MISS BREMER.. Ixxi 


and affinities as eternal as the Spirit which recognizes 
them? Are these laws not manifested through the 
whole, universe, from — planet to planet, from, sun to 
sun P. 

Verily, the. immortal Spirit will ever reproduce its in- 
-ward world, even if the scene of action is changed, and 
the stuff for working is changed. | Every man will, as it 
was said -by the prophet of old, “awake in his own part, 
when the days (of sublunary life) will be ended 1” 

I know that in my final hopes beyond this world, I 
shall ‘look forward. i in prayer and hope, to a home among 
trees.and flowers planted by the hand of my friend, there 
to.see him again and with him to explore a new world — 


with him to adore ! 
FREDERIKA’ BREMER. 


HORTICULTURE. 


HORTICULTURE. 


I. 


INTRODUCTORY. 


July, 1846. 

RIGHT and beautiful June! Embroidered with clusters of 

odorous roses, and laden with ruddy cherries and strawberries ; 
rich with the freshness of spring, and the luxuriance of summer,— 
leafy June! If any one’s heart does not swell with the unwritten 
thoughts that belong to this season, then is he only fit for “treasons, 
stratagems and spoils.” He does not practically believe that “God 
made the country.” 

«Flora and Pomona, from amid the blossoming gardens and 
orchards of June, smile graciously as we write these few intro- 
ductory words to their circle of devotees. Happy are we to know 
that it is not to us a new or strange circle, but to feel that large 
numbers of our readers are already congenial and familiar spirits. 
Angry volumes of politics have we written none; but peaceful 
books, humbly aiming to weave something more into the fair gar- 
land of the beautiful and useful, that encircles this excellent old 
Earth. . 

To the thousands, who have kindly made our rural volumes part 
of their household library, we offer this new production, which be- 
gins to unfold itself now, in the midsummer of the year. In its 
pages, from month to month, we shall give them a collection of all 


4 HORTICULTURE. 


that can most interest those whose feelings are firmly rooted in the - 
soil, and its kindred avocations. The garden and the orchard; the 
hof-house and the conservatory; the park and the pleasure-grounds; 
all, if we can read them rightly, shall be made to preach useful 
lessons in our pages. All fruitful and luxuriant grounds shall we 
revel in, and delight to honor. Blooming trees, and fruitful vines, 
we shall open our lips to praise. And if nature has been over-par- 
tial to any one part of the globe, either in good gardens, fair flowers, 
or good fruits,—if she has any where lavished secret vegetable trea-. 
sures that our cultivators have not yet made prizes of, we promise 
our readers to watch closely, and to give a faithful account of them. 

Skilful cultivators promise to make these sheets the repository of 
their knowledge. Sound practice, and ingenious theory will be con- 
tinually developed and illustrated. The humblest cottage kitchen 
garden, as well as the most extended pleasure-grounds, will occupy 
the attention of the pens in our service., Beautiful flowers shall 
picture themselves in our columns, till even our sterner utilitarians 
shall be tempted to admire and cultivate them; and the: honeyed, 
juicy gifts of Pomona shall be treated of till every one who reads 
shall discover that the most delicious products of our soil are no 
longer forbidden fruits. 

Fewer, perhaps, are there, who have watched as closely as our- 
selves the zeal and enthusiasm which the last five years have 
begotten in American Horticulture’ Every where, on both sides 
of the Alleghanies, are our friends rapidly turning the fertile soil into 
luxuriant gardens, and crying out loudly for more light and more 
knowledge. Already do the readers of rural works in the United 
States number more than in any cisatlantic country, except garden- 
ing: England. Already do our orchards cover more acres than 
those of any other country. Already are the banks of the Ohio 
becoming famous for their delicate wines. Already are the suburbs 
of our cities, and the banks of our broad and picturesque rivers, 
studded with the tasteful villa and cottage, where a charming taste 
in ornamental gardéning is rapidly developing itself. The patient 
toil of the pioneer and settler has no sooner fairly ceased, than our 
people begin to enter with the same zeal and spirit into the refine- 
ments and enjoyments which belong to a country life, and a country 


ee Ta 


INTRODUCTORY. 5 


“home. A fortunate range of climate—lands fertile and easily 
acquired, tempt persons even of little means and leisure into the 
delights of gardening. Where peaches and melons, the richest 
fruits of the tropics, are raised without walls—where apples and 
pears, the pride of the temperate zones, are often grown with little 
more than the trouble of planting them—who would not be tempted 
to join in the enthusiasm of the exclamation, 


“Allons mes amis, il faut cultiver nos jardins,” 


Behold us then, with all this growing zeal of our countrymen 
for our beautiful and favorite art, unable to resist the temptation of 
commencing new labors in its behalf Whatever our own feeble 
efforts can achieve, whatever our more intelligent correspondents 
can accomplish, shall be done to render worthy this monthly record 
of the progress of horticulture and its kindred pursuits. If it is a 
laudable ambition to “ make two blades of grass grow where only 
one grew before,” we shall hope for the encouragement, and assistance, 
and sympathy of all those who would see our vast territory made 
smiling with gardens, and rich in all that makes one’s country 
worth living and dying for. 


Il. 


HINTS ON FLOWER-GARDENS. 


April, 1847. ° 

E are once more unlocked from the chilling embraces of the 
Ice-King! Apri, full of soft airs, balm-dropping showers, - 

and fitful gleams of sunshine, brings life and animation to the mil- 
lions of embryo leaves and blossoms, that, quietly folded up in the 


‘bud, have slept’ the mesmeric sleep of a northern winter—ApriL, 


that first gives us of the Northern States our proper spring flowers, 
which seem to succeed almost by magic to the barrenness of the 
month gone by. <A few pale snowdrops, sun-bright crocuses, and 
timidly blushing mezereums, have already gladdened us, like the 
few faint bars of golden and ruddy light that usher in the full radi- 
ance of sunrise ; but Apri scatters in her train as she goes out, the 
first richness and beauty that really belong to a temperate spring. 
Hyacinths, and daffodils, and violets, bespread her lap and fill the 
air with fragrance, and the husbandman beholds with joy his orchards 
gay with the thousand blossoms—beautiful harbingers of luscious 
and abundant crops. 

All this resurrection of sweetness and beauty, inspires us with 
a desire to look into the Mlower-Garden, and to say a few words 
about it and the flowers themselves. We trust there are none of 
“our parish,” who, though they may not make flower-gardens, can 
turn away with impatient or unsympathizing hearts from flowers 
themselves. If there are such, we must, at the very threshhold of 
the matter, borrow a homily for them from that pure and eloquent 
preacher, Mary Howitt : 


HINTS ON FLOWER-GARDENS, ‘ vi 


“God might have made the earth bring forth 
Enough for great and small, 
The oak tree and the cedar tree, 
Without a flower at all. 


“Our outward life requires them not— 
Then wherefore had they birth? 
To minister delight to man, 
To beautify the earth. 


“To comfort man, to whisper hope 
Whene’er his faith is dim; 

For who so careth for the flowers, 

Will much more eare for him!” 


Now, there are many genuine lovers of flowers who have at- 
tempted to make flower-gardens—in the simplicity of their hearts 
believing it to be the easiest thing in the world to arrange so many 
beautiful annuals and perennials into “a living knot of wonders”— 
who have quite failed in realizing all that they conceived of and 
fairly expected when they first set about it. It is easy enough to 
draw upon paper a pleasing plan of a flower-garden, whether in the 
geometric, or the natural, or the “ gardenesque ” style, that shall 

satisfy the eye of the beholder. But it is far more difficult to plant 
and arrange a garden of this kind in such a way as to afford a 
constant succession of beauty, both in blossom and leaf. Indeed, 
among the hundreds of avowed flower-gardens which we have 
seen in different parts of the country, public and private, we cannot 
name half-a-dozen which are in any considerable degree satisfactory. 

The two leading faults in all our flower-gardens, are the want 
of proper selection in the plants themselves, and a faulty arrange- 
ment, by which as much surface of bare soil meets the eye as is 
clothed with verdure and blossoms. 

Regarding the first effect, it seems to us that the entire beauty 
of a flower-garden almost depends upon it. However elegant or 
striking may be the design of a garden, that design is made poor 
or valueless, when it is badly planted so as to conceal its merits, or 
filled with a selection of unsuitable plants, which, from their coarse 
or ragged habit of growth, or their remaining in bloom but a short 


8 HORTICULTURE. 


time, give the whole a confused ahd” meagre effect. A flower-gar- 
den, deserving the name, should, if possible, be as rich as a piece 
of embroidery, during the whole summer and autumn. In a botan- 
ical garden, or the collection of a curious amateur, one expects to 
see variety of species, plants of all known forms, at the expense of 
every thing else. But in a flower-garden, properly so called, the 
whole object of which is to afford a continual display of beautiful 
colors and delicious odors, we conceive that every thing should be 
rejected (or only most sparingly introduced), which does not com- 
bine almost perpetual blooming, with neat and agreeable habit of 
growth. 

The passion for novelty and variety among the lovers of flowers, 
is as great as in any other enthusiasts. But as some of the greatest 
‘of the old painters are said to owe the success of their master- 
‘pieces to the few colors they employed, so we are confident the most 
beautiful flower-gardens are those where but few species are intro- 
duced, and those only such as possess the important qualities ye 
have alluded to. 

Thus among flowering shrubs, taking for illustration the tribe 
of Roses, we would reject, in our choice flower-garden, nearly all the 
old class of roses, which are in bloom for a few days and but once 
a year, and exhibit during the rest of the season, for the most, part, 
meagre stems and dingy foliage. We would supply their place by 
Bourbons, Perpetuals, Bengals, etc., roses which offer an abundance 
of“Blossoms and fine fresh foliage during the whole growing season. 
Among dnnuals,'we would reject every thing short-lived, and intro- 
duce offly thosé like the Portulaccas, Verbenas, Petunias, Mignon- 
ette, Phlox Drummondii, and the like, which are always in bloom, 
and fresh and pretty-in habit.* 

After this we would add to the effect of our selection of perpet- 
ual blooming plants, by abandoning altogether the old method of 
intermingling species and varieties of all colors and habits of growth, 


* Some of the most beautiful of the perpetual blooming plants for the 
flower-garden, are the Salvias, Bowardias, Scarlet Geraniums, &e., properly 
green-house plants, and requiring protection in a pit or warm cellar in win- 
ter. “Bedded out” in May, they form rich flowing masses till the frosts of 
autumn. ; 


HINTS ON FLOWER-GARDENS. 9. 


and substitute for it the opposite mode of grouping or massing colors 
and particular species of plants. Masses of crimson and white, of 
yellow and purple, and the other colors and shades, brought boldly 
into contrast, or disposed so as to form an agreeable harmony, will 
attract the eye, and make a much more forcible and delightful im- 
pression, than ‘can ever be produced by a confused mixture of shades 
and colors, nowhere distinct enough to give any decided effect to 
the whole. The effect of thus collecting masses of colors in a flower- 
garden in this way, is to give it what the painters call breadth of 
effect, which in the other mode .is entirely frittered away and de- 
stroyed. 

This arranging plants in patches or masses, each composed of 
the same species, also contributes to do away in a great degree with 
the second fault which we have alluded to as a grievous one in 
most of. our flower-gardens—that of the exhibition of bare surface 
of soil—parts of beds not covered by foliage and flowers. 

In a hot climate, like that of our summers, nothing is more un- 
pleasing to the eyes or more destructive to that expression of soft- 
ness, verdure, and gayety, that should exist in the flower-garden, than 
to behold the surface of the soil in any of the beds or parterres un- 
clothed with plants. The dryness and parched appearance of such 
portions goes far to impair whatever air of freshness and beauty 
may be imparted by the flowers themselves. Now whenever beds 
are planted with a heterogeneous mixture of plants, tall and short, 
spreading and straggling, it is nearly impossible that considet#ble 
parts of the surface of the soil should not be visible. Om the con- 
trary, where species and varieties of plants, chosert*for théir excel- 
lent habits of growth and flowering, are planted in masses; almost 
every part of the surface of the beds may be hidden from the eye, 
which we consider almost a sine qua non in all ‘good flower-gardens. 

Following out this principle—on the whole perhaps the most 
important in all flower-gardens in this country—that there 
should, if possible, be no bare surface soil visible, our own taste 
leads us to prefer the modern English style of laying out flower- 
gardens upon a groundwork of grass or turf, kept scrupulously 
short. Its advantage over a flower-garden -composed only of beds 
with a narrow edging and gravel walks, consists in the greater soft- 


10 HORTICULTURE, 


ness, freshness and verdure of the green turf, which serves as a set- 
ting to the flower beds, and heightens the brilliancy of the flowers 
themselves. Still, both these modes have their merits, and each is 
best adapted to certain situations, and harmonizes best with its ap- 
propriate scenery. 

There are two other defects in many of our flower-gardens, 
easily remedied, and about which we must say a word or two in 
passing. 

One of these is the common practice, brought over here by 
gardeners from England, of forming raised convex beds for flowering 
plants. This is a very unmeaning and injurious practice in this 
country, as a moment's reference to the philosophy of the thing will 
convince any one. In a damp climate, like that of England, a bed 
with a high convex surface, by throwing off the superfluous water, 
keeps the plants from suffering by excess of wet, and the form 
is an excellent one. In this country, where most frequently our 
flower-gardens fail from drouth, what sound reason can be given 
for forming the beds with a raised and rounded surface of six inches 
in every three feet, so as to throw off four-fifths of every shower ? 
The true mode, as a little reflection and experience will convince 
any one, is to form the surface of the bed nearly level, so that it 
may retain its due proportion of the rains that fall. 

Next to this is the defect of not keeping the walks in flower- 
gardens full of gravel. In many instances that we could name, 
the level of the gravel in the walk is six inches below that of the 
adjoining bed or border of turf. This gives a harsh and ditch-like 
character to the walks, quite at variance with the smoothness and 
perfection of details which ought especially to characterize so ele- 
gant a portion of the grounds as this in question. “Keep the walks 
brimful of gravel,” was one of the maxims most strongly insisted 
on by the late Mr. Loudon, and one to which we fully subscribe. 

We insert here a copy of the plan of the celebrated flower-gar- 
den of Baron Von Higel, near Vienna. This gentleman is one of 
the most enthusiastic devotees to Horticulture in Germany. Jn the 
Algemeine Garten Zeitung, a detailed account is given, by the Se- 
cretary of the Imperial Horticultural Society of Vienna, of the resi- 
dence and grounds of the Baron, from which we gather that they 


' The Roccoco Garden of Baron Hugel, near Vienna. 


HINTS ON FLOWER-GARDENS, 11 


are not surpassed in the richness and variety of their botanical trea- 
sures by any private collection on the Continent. “A forest of 
Camellias almost makes one believe that he is in Japan.” Some 
of these are 22 feet high, and altogether the collection numbers 
1000 varieties. The hot-house devoted to orchids, or air plants, 
contains 200 varieties, and the various green-houses include equally 
tich collections of the exotics of various climates. Regarding the 
Baron’s flower-garden itself, we quote the words of M. Peinter. 

“ But still another most delightful scene is reserved, which is a 
mosaic picture of flowers, a so-called Rococo garden. . We have to 
thank Baron Von Hiigel for giving the first example of a style, since 
pretty largely copied, both here and in the adjacent country. , A 
garden, laid out in this manner, demands much cleverness atid skill 
in the gardener, both in the- choice and the arrangement “f' the 
flowers. He must also take care that, during the whole summer, 
there are no portions destitute of flowering plants. It is but justice 
to the Baron’s head gardener, to affirm that he has completely ac- 
complished this task, and has been entirely successful in carrying 
out the design or purpose of this garden. The-connoisseur does not 
indeed see the usual collection of ornamental plants in this sea of 
flowers, but a great many varieties; and, in short, here, as every- 
where else, the zsthetic taste of the Baron predominates. Beau- 
tiful is this garden within a garden, and hence it has become the 
model garden of Austria. Around it the most charming landscape 
opens to the view, gently swelling hills, interspersed with pretty 
villages, gardens and grounds.” 

In the plan of the garden, a and } are masses of shrubs ; ¢, 
circular beds, separated by a border or belt of turf, ¢, from the ser- 
pentine bed, d. The whole of this running pattern is surrounded. 
by a border of turf, f; g and h are gravel walks; 7, beds, with 
pedestal and statue in the centre; &, small oval beds, separated from 
the bed, J, by a border of turf; m, n, 0, p, irregular or arabesque 
beds, set in turf. * 

As a good deal of the interest of such a flower-garden as this, 
depends on the plan itself, it is evident that the beds should be 
filled with groups or masses, composed mostly of fow growing 
flowers, as tall ones would interfere with, or break up its effect as 


12 HORTICULTURE. 


a whole. Mr. Loudon, in some criticisms on this garden, in the 
Gardener's Magazine, says, that the running chain pattern of beds, 
which forms the outer border to the design, was originated in Eng- 
land, by the Duchess of Bedford, about the year 1800. “It is,” 
he remarks, “ capable of producinga very brilliant effect, by plant- 
ing the circular beds, ¢, with bright colors, each alternating with 
white. For example, beginning at. c, and proceeding to the right, 
we might have dark red, white, blue, white, yellow, whzte, scarlet, 
white, purple, white, and so on. The interlacing beds, d, might be 
planted on exactly the saine principle, but omitting white. Pro- 
ceeding to the right from the bed, d, which may be yellow, the next 
may be crimson, the next purple, the next orange, and so on.” 

This plan is by no means faultless, yet as it is admirably planted 
with ever-blooming flowers, and kept in the highest order, it is said 
to attract universal admiration, and is worthy of the examination of 
our floral friends. We should imagine it much inferior, in design 
and general effect, to the very beautiful new flower-garden Bt 
Montgomery Place, the seat of Mrs. Edward Livingston, on the 
Hudson, which is about double its size, and is undoubtedly one of 
the most beautiful and most tastefully managed examples of a flower- 
garden in America. , 


OL 


INFLUENCE OF HORTICULTURE. 


July, 1847. 
ni tages multiplication of Horticultural Societies is taking place so 
rapidly. of late, in various parts of the country, as to lead one 
to reflect somewhat on their influence, and that of the art they 
foster, upon the character of our people. 

Most persons, no doubt, look upon them as performing a work 
of some usefulness and elegance, by. promoting the culture of fruits 
and. flowers, and introducing to all parts of the country the finer 
species of vegetable productions. In other words, they. are thought 
to add very considerably to the amount of physical. gratifications 
which every American citizen endeavors, and has a right to endea- 
vor, to assemble around him. 

Granting all. the foregoing, we are inclined to claim also, for 
horticultural pursuits, a political and. moral influence vastly more 
significant and important than the mere gratification of the senses, 
We think, then, in a few words, that Horticulture and its kindred 
arts, tend strongly to fix the habits, and elevate the character, of our 
whole rural population. 

One does not need to be much ofa philosopher to remark that one 
of the most striking of our national traits, is the sPrRir OF UNREST. 
It is the grand energetic element which leads us to clear vast forests, 
and settle new States, with. a rapidity unparalleled in the world’s 
history; the spirit, possessed with which, our yet comparatively 
scanty people do not find elbow-room enough in a territory already 
in their possession, and vast enough to hold the greatest of ancient 


J 


14 HORTICULTURE, 


empires; which drives the emigrant’s wagon across vast sandy de- 
serts to California, and over Rocky Mountains to Oregon and the 
Pacific; which builds up a great State like Ohio in 30 years, so 
populous civilized and productive, that the bare recital of its growth 
sounds like a genuine miracle to European ears; and which over- 
runs and takes possession of a whole empire, like that of Mexico, 
while the cabinets of old monarchies are debating whether or not it 
is necessary to interfere and restore the balance of power in the new 
world as in the old. 

~ This is the grand and exciting side of the picture. Turn it in an- 
other light, and study it, and the effect is by no means so agreeable 
to the reflective mind. The spirit of unrest, followed into the bosom 
of society, makes of man a feverish being, in whose Tantalus’ cup 
repose is the unattainable drop. Unable to take root any where, he 
leads, socially and physically, the uncertain life of a tree transplanted : 
from place to place, and shifted to a different soil every season. 

It has been shrewdly said that what qualities we do not possess, 
are always in our mouths, Our countrymen, it seems to us, are 
fonder of no one Anglo-Saxon word than the term seééle.* It was 
the great object of our forefathers to find a proper spot to settle. 
Every year, large numbers of our population from the older States _ 
go west to settle; while those already west, pull up, with a kind of 
desperate joy, their yet new-set stakes, and go farther west to settle 
again. So truly national is the word, that all the business of the 
country, from State debts to the products of a “truck farm,” are 
not satisfactorily adjusted till they are “ settled ;” and no sooner is a 
passenger fairly on board one of our river steamers, than he is 
politely and emphatically invited by a sable representative of its 
executive power, to “call at the captain’s office and settle /” 

Yet,.as a people, we are never settled. It is one of the first 
points that strikes a citizen of the old world, where something of 
the dignity of repose, as well as the value of action, enters into their 


ideal of life. De Tocqueville says, in speaking of our national 
trait: 


* Anglo-Saxon sath-lian, from the verb settan, to set, to cease from mo- 
tion,| to fix a dwelling-place, to repose, ete. 


INFLUENCE OF HORTICULTURE. 15 


“ At first sight, there is something surprising in this strange un- 
rest of so many happy men, restless in the midst of abundance. The 
spectacle itself is, however, as old as the world. The novelty is to 
see a whole people furnish an exemplification of it. 

“Tn the United States a man builds a house to spend his latter 
years in, and sells it before the roof ison; he brings a field into 
tillage, and leave other men to gather the crops; he embraces a 
profession, and gives it up; he settles in a place, which he soon 
after leaves, in order to carry his changeable longings elsewhere. If 
his private affairs leave him any leisure he instantly plunges into 
the vortex of politics; and if at the end of a year of unremitting 
labor, he finds he has a few days’ vacation, his eager curiosity whirls 
him over the vast extent of the United States, and he will travel 
fifteen hundred miles in a few days, to shake off his happiness.” 

Much as we admire the energy of our people, we value no less 
the love of order, the obedience to law, the security and repose of 
society, the love of home, and the partiality to localities endeared 
by birth or association, of which it is in some degree the antagonist. 
And we are therefore deeply convinced that whatever tends, without 
checking due energy of character, but to develope along with it 
certain virtues that will keep it within due bounds, may be looked 
upon as a boon to the nation. 

Now the difference between the son of Ishmael, who lives in 
tents, and that man who has the strongest attachment to the home 
of his fathers, is, in the beginning, one mainly of outward circum- 
stances. He whose sole property is a tent and a camel, whose ties 
to one spot are no stronger than the cords which confine his habita- 
tion to the sandy floot of the desert, who can break up his encamp- 
ment at an hour’s notice, and choose a new and equally agreeable 
site, fifty miles distant, the next day—such a person is very little 
likely to become much more strongly attached to any one spot of 
earth than another. 

The condition of a western emigrant is not greatly dissimilar. 
That long covered wagon, which is the Noah’s ark of his preserva- 
tion, is also the concrete essence of house and home to him. He 
emigrates, he “ squats,” he “ locates,” but before he can be fairly 
said to have a fixed home, the spirit of unrest besets him ; he sells 


16 HORTICULTURE, 


his “ diggins” to some less adventurous pioneer, and tackling: the 
wagon of the wilderness, migrates once more. , 

Tt must not be supposed, larga as is the infusion of restlessness 
in our people that there are not also large exceptions to the’ general 
rule. Else there would never be growing villages and prosperous 
towns. Nay, it cannot be overlooked by a ‘careful observer, that 
the tendency “to settle” is slowly but gradually on the increase, 
and that there is, in all the older portions of the country, growing 
evidence that the Anglo-Saxon love of home is gradually developing 
itself out of the Anglo-American love of change. 

It is not difficult to see how strongly horticulture contributes to 
the development of local attachments.” In it lies the most powerful 
phaltre that civilized man has yet found to charm him to one spot 
of earth. Jt transforms what is only a tame meadow and a bleak 
aspect, into an Eden of interest and delights. It. makes all the 
difference between “Araby the blest,” and a pine barren. It gives 
a bit of soil, too insignificant to find a place in the geography of the 
earth’s surface, such an importance in the eyes of its possessor, “that 
he finds it more attractive than countless acres of unknown and un- 
explored “territory.” In other words, it contains the mind and soul 
of the man, materialized in many of the fairest and richest forms of 
nature, so that he looks upon it as tearing himself up, root and 
branch, to ask him to move a mile to the right or the left. Do we 
need to say more, to prove that it is the panacea that really “settles” 
mankind ? 

It is not, therefore, without much pleasurable emotion, that we 
have had notice lately of the formation of five new Horticultural 
societies, the last at St. Louis, and most of them west of the Alle- 
ghanies. Whoever lives to see the end of the next cycle of our 
race, will see the great valleys of the West the garden of the world ; 
and we watch with interest the first development, in the’ midst of 
the busy fermentation of its active masses, of that beautiful and quiet 
spirit, of the joint culture of the earth and the heart, that is destined 
to give a tone to the future character of its untold millions. 

The increased love of home and the garden, in the older States, 
is a matter of every-day remark; and it is not a little curious, that 
just in proportion to the intelligence and settled character of its popu- 


INFLUENCE OF HORTICULTURE. 17 


lation, is the amount of interest. manifested in horticulture. Thus, 
the three most settled of the original States, we suppose to be Massa- 
chusetts, New-York and Pennsylvania; and in these States horti- 
culture is more eagerly pursued than in any others. The first 
named State has now seven horticultural societies; the second, 
seven ; the third, three. Following out the comparison in the 
cities, we should say that Boston had the most settled population, 
Philadelphia the next, and New-York the least so of any city: in the 
Union; and it is well known that the horticultural society of Boston 
is at this moment the most energetic one in the country, and that it 
is stimulated by the interest excited by societies in all its neighbor- 
ing towns. The Philadelphia society is exceedingly prosperous ; 
while in New-York, we regret to say, that. the numerous efforts that 
have been made to establish firmly a society of this kind have not, 
up to this time, resulted in any success whatever. Its mighty tide 


of people is as yet too much possessed with the spirit of business and 
of unrest,” * 


* “The New-York Horticultural Society” was organized in the spring 
of 1852, and is already in # flourishing condition.—Ep. 


IV. 


A TALK WITH FLORA AND POMONA, 


September, 1847. 
E beg leave to inform such of our readers as may be inter- 
ested, that we have -lately had the honor of a personal inter- 
riew. with the distinguished deities that preside over the garden and 
he orchard, Flora and Pomona. 

The time was a soft balmy August night ; the scene was a feafy 
aook in.our own grounds, where, after the toils of the day, we were 
snjoying the dolee far niente of a hammock, and wondering at the 
necessity of any thing fairer or diviner than rural nature, and such 
noonlight as then filled the vaulted heaven, bathed the tufted fore- 
zround of trees, the distant purple hills, and” 


“Tipt with silver all the fruit tree tops.” 


It was a scene for an artist; yet, as we do not write for the 
Court Journal, we must be pardoned for any little omission in the 
costumes or equipages of the divinities themselves. Indeed, we were 
so thoroughly captivated with the immortal candor and freshness of 
the goddesses, that we find many of the accessories have escaped our 
memory. Pomona’s breath, however, when she spoke, filled the 
air with the odor of ripe apricots, and she held in her left hand a 
fruit, which we immediately recognized ’as one of the golden apples 
of the Hesperides, (of which she knew any gardener upon earth 
would give his right hand for a slip,) and which in the course of our 
interview, she acknowledged was the only sort in the mythological 
gardens which excels the Newtown Pippin. Her lips had the dewy: 


A TALK WITH FLORA AND POMONA. 19 


freshness of the ruddiest strawberries raised by Mr. Longworth’s 
favorite old Cincinnati market woman; and there was a bright 
sparkle in her eye, that assured us there is no trouble with the cur- 
culio in the celestial orchards. 

But if we were charmed with the ruddy beauty of Pomona, we 
were still more fascinated by the ideal freshness and grace of Flora. 
She wore on her head a kind of fanciful crown of roses, which were 
not only dewy moss roses, of the loveliest shades imaginable, but the 
colors themselves changed every moment, as she tumed her head, 
in a manner that struck us quite speechless with admiration. The 
goddess observing this, very graciously remarked that these roses were 
the true perpetuals, since they not only really bloomed always, but 
when plucked, they retained their brilliancy and freshness for ever. 
Her girdle was woven in a kind of green and silver pattern of jas- 
mine leaves ‘and starry blossoms, but of a species far more lovely 
than any in Mr. Paxton’s Magazine. She held a bouquet in her 
hand, composed. of sweet scented camellias, and violets as dark as 
sapphire, which she said her gardener had brought from the new 
planet Neptune ; and unique and fragrant blossoms continually 
dropped: from her robe, as she walked about, or raised her arms in 
‘vestures graceful as the swinging of a garland wooed by the west 
wind. 

After some stammering on our own part, about the honor con- 
ferred on an, humble mortal like ourselves—rare visits of the god- 
desses to earth, etc., they, understanding, probably, what Mr. Beecher 
calls our “amiable fondness for the Hudson,” obligingly put us at 
our ease, by paying us some compliments on the scenery of the 
Highlands, as seen at that moment from our garden seat, comparing 
the broad river, Yadiant with the chaste light of the moon, to some 
favorite lake owned by the immortals, of whose name, we are sorry 
to say, we are at this moment entirely oblivious. 

Our readers will not, of course, expect us to repeat all that eased 
during this enchanting interview. But, as we are obliged to own 
that the visit was not altogether on our own behalf, or rather that 
the turn of the discourse held by our immortal guests showed that 
it was chiefly intended to be laid before the readers of the Horticul- 
‘purist, we lose no time in putting the latter en rapport. 


20 HORTICULTURE. 


Pomona opened the discourse by a few graceful remarks, touch- 
ing the gratification it gave them that the moderns, down to the 
present generation, had piously recognized her guardian rights and 
those of her sister Flora, even while those of many of the other 
Olympians, such as Jupiter, Pan, Vulcan, and the like, were nearly 
forgotten. The wonderful fondness for fruits and flowers, growing 
up.in the western world, had, she declared, not escaped her eye, and 
it received her warmest approbation. She said something that we 
do not quite remember, in the style of that good old phrase, of 
tt making the wilderness blossom like the rose,” and declared that 
Flora intended to festoon every cottage in America with double 
Michigan roses, Wistarias, and sweet-scented vines. For her. own 
part, she said, her people were busy enough in their invisible super- 
intendence of the orchard planting now going on at such a gigantic 
rate in America, especially in the Western States. Such was the 
fever in some of those districts, to get large plantations of fruit, that 
she could not, for the life of her, induce men to pause long enough 
to select their ground or the proper sorts of fruit to be planted. * As 
a last resort, to keep them a little in check, she was obliged, against 
her better feelings, to allow the blight to cut off part of an orchard 
now and then. Otherwise the whole country would be filled ug 
with poor miserable odds and ends from Europe—“Beurrés and 
Bergaimots, with more sound in their French names, than flavor 
under their skins.” : 

These last words, we confess, startled us so much, that we opened 
our eyes rather widely, and called upon the name of Dr. Van Mofis, 
the great Belgian—spoke of the gratitude of the pomological world, 
etc. To our surprise, Pomona declared tha. she Jad her doubts 
about the Belgian professor—she said he was a very crotchety man, 
and although he had devoted his life to her service, yet he had such 
strange whims and caprices about improving fruits. by a regular sys- 
tem of degeneration or running them out, that she could make 
nothing of him. “Depend upon it,” she said, “many of his sorts 
are worthless,—most of them have sickly constitutions, and,” she 
added, with some emphasis, snapping her fingers as she spoke, “I 
would not give one sound healthy seedling. pear, springing up under 
natural culture in your American soil, for all that Dr. Van Mons 


A TALK WITH FLORA AND POMONA. 21 


ever raised!” [We beg our readers to understand that these were 
Pomona’s words and not ours.] She gave us, after this, very special 
charge to impress it upon her devotees in the United States, not to 
be too much smitten with the love of new names, and great. collec- 
tions. It gave her more satisfaction to see the orchards and fruit 
room of one of her liege subjects teeming with the abundance of the 
few sorts of real golden merit, than to see whole acres of new varie- 
ties that have no other value than that of novelty. She said too, 
that it was truly amazing how this passion for collecting fruits—a 
genuine monomania—grew upon a poor mortal, when he was once 
attacked by it; so that indeed, if he could not add every season at 
least fifty new sorts from the continent, with some such outlandish 
names, (which she said she would never recognize,) as Beurré bleu 
dété nouveau de Scrowsywowsy, etc., he would positively hang him- 
self in a fit of the blues ! 

Pomona further drew our attention in some sly remarks that 
were half earnest and half satire, to the figure that many of these 
“Belgian pericarps” cut at those handsome levees, which her vota- 
ries among us hold in the shape of the great September exhibitions, 
She said it was really droll to see, at such shows as those of our two 
arge cities, where there was a profusion of ripe and luscious ¢ruit, 
that she would have been proud of in her own celestial orchards— 
to see there intermingled some hundred or so mean looking, hard 
green pears, that never had ripened, or never did, would, or could 
ripen, so as to be palatable to any but a New Zealander. “Do so- 
licit my friends there, for the sake of my feelings,” said she, “to give 
the gentlemen who take such pleasure in exhibiting this degenerate 
foreign squads, separate ‘green room’ for themselves.” To this 
remark we smiled and bowed low, though we would not venture to 
carry out her suggestion for the world. 

We had a delightful little chat with Flora, about some new 
plants which she told us grew in certain unknown passes in the 
Rocky Mountains, and mountainous parts of Mexico, that will prove 
quite hardy with us, and which neither Mr. Fortune nor the London 
Horticultural Society know any thing about. But she finally in- 
formed us, that her real object in making herself visible on the 
earth at present, with Madam Pomona, was to beg us to enter her 


22 HORTICULTURE, 


formal and decided protest against the style of decorations called 
after her name, and which had, for several years past, made the 
otherwise brilliant AurumyaL HorricutruraL Suows in our quar- 
ter of the globe so disagreeable an offering to her. “To call the 
monstrous formations, which, under the name of temples, stars, tri- 
pods, and obelisks—great bizarre masses of flowers plastered on 
wooden frames—to call these after her name, ‘ Floral designs,’ was,” 
she said, “even more than the patience of a goddess could bear.” 
If those who make them are sincerely her devoted admirers, as they 
profess to be, she begged us to say to them, that, unless they had 
designs upon her flow of youth and spirits, that had: hitherto been 
eternal, she trusted they would hereafter desist. 

We hereupon ventured to offer some apology for the offending 
parties, by saying they were mostly. the work of the “bone and 
sinew” of the gardening profession, men with blunt fingers but 
earnest souls, who worked for days upon what they fancied was a 
worthy offering to be laid upon her altars. She smiled, and said 
the intention was accepted, but not its results, and hinted somethifig. 
about the same labor being performed under the direction of: the 
more tasteful eye’ of ladies, who should invent and arrange, while 
the fingers of honest.toil wrought the ruder outline only. : 

Flora then hinted to us, how much more beautiful flowers were 
when arranged, in; the simplest forms, and said, when combined 
or moulded into shapes or devices, nothing more elaborate or arti- 
ficial than a vase-form is really pleasing. Baskets, moss-covered 
_and flower-woven, she said, were thought elegant enough for Para- 
dise itself. “ There are not only baskets,” continued she,“ that are beau- 
tiful lying down, and showing inside a rich mosaic ofsflowers—each 
basket, large or small, devoted perhaps, to some one choice flower. 
in its many varieties; but baskets on the tops of mossy pedestals, 
bearing tasteful emblems interwoven on their sides; and baskets 
hanging from ceilings, or high festooned arches—in which case 
they display in the most graceful and becoming manner, all 
manner of drooping and twining plants, the latter: stealing out 
of the nest or body of the basket, and waving to and fro in the air 
they perfume.” “Then there is the garland,” continued our fair 
guest; “it is quite amazing, that since the days of those clever and, 


A TALK WITH FLORA AND POMONA. 23 


harmonious people, the Greeks, no one seems to know any thing of 
the beauty of the garland. Now in fact nothing is more beautiful 
or becoming than flowers woven into tasteful garlands or chaplets. 
The form a circle—that emblem of eternity, so full of dread and 
mystery to you mortals—and the size is one that may be carried in 
the hand or hung up, and it always looks lovely. Believe me, 
nothing is prettier in my eyes, which, young as they look, have had 
many thousands of your years of experience, than a fresh, green 
garland woven with bright roses.” 

As she said this, she seized.a somewhat common basket that lay 
near us, and passing her delicate fingers over. it, as she plucked a 
few flowers from the surrounding plants, she held it, a picture of 
magical verdure and blossoms, aloft in the air over our heads, while 
on her arm she hung a garland as exquisitely formed and’ propor- 
tioned as if cut in marble, with, at the same time, all the airiness 
which only flowers can have. The effect was ravishing ! simplicity, 
delicacy, gracefulness, and perfume. The goddess moved around us 
with an air and in an attitude compared with which the glories of 
Titian and Raphael seem tame and cold, and as the basket was again 
passing over our head, we were just reaching out our hand to detain 
the lovely vision, when, unluckily, the parti-colored dog that guards 
our demesne, broke into a loud bark; Pomona hastily seized her 
golden apple; Flora dropped our basket (which fell to the ground in 
its wonted garb of plain willow), and both vanished into thé dusky 
gloom of the night shadows; at that moment, suddenly rismg up 
in our hammock, we found we had been—dreaming. — 


V. 


.- 


A CHAPTER ON ROSES. 


August, 1848. 

FRESH bouquet of midsummer roses stands upon the table be- 

fore us. The morning dew-drops hang, heavy as emeralds, upon 
branch and buds; soft and rich colors delight the eye with their 
lovely hues, and that rose-odor, which, every one feels, has not lost 
any thing of its divine sweetness since the first day the flower bloomed 
in that heaven-garden of Eve, fills the air. Yes, the flowers have 
it; and if we are not fairly forced to say something this month in 
behalf of roses, then was Dr. Darwin mistaken in his theory of 
vegetable magnetism. 

We believe it was that monster, the Duke of Guise, who al- 
ways made his escape at the sight of a rose. If there are any “ out- 
side barbarians” of this stamp among the readers of our “ flowery 
land,” let them glidé out while the door is open. They deserve to 
be drowned in a butt of attar of rose—the insensibles! We can 
well afford to let them go, indeed ; for we feel that we have only to 
mention the name of a rose, to draw more closely around us the 
thousands of the fairer and better part of our readers, with whom it 
is the type of every thing fair and lovely on earth. 


“Dear flower of heaven and love! thou glorious thing 
That lookest out the garden nocks among ; 
Rose, that art ever fair and ever young ; 
Was it some angel on invisible wing 
Hover'd around thy fragrant sleep, to fling 
His glowing mantle of warm sunset hues 


A CHAPTER ON ROSES. 25 


O’er thy unfolding petals, wet with dews, 

Such as the flower-faysto Titania bring ? 

O flower of thousand memories and dreams, 

That take the heart with faintness, while we gaze 

On the rich depths of thy inwoven maze ; 

From the green banks of Eden’s blessed streams 

I dream’d thee brought, of brighter days to tell 

Long pass’d, but promised yet with us to dwell.” 
’ 


If there is any proof necessary that the rose has a diviner origin 
than all other flowers, it is easily found in the unvarying constancy of 
mankind to it for so many long centuries. Fashions there have been 
innumerable, in ornaments of all sorts, from simple seashells, worn 
by Nubian maidens, to costly diamonds, that heightened the charms 
of the proudest court beauty—silver, gold, precious stones—all have 
their season of favor, and then again sink into comparative neglect ; 
but a simple rose has ever been and will ever be the favorite emblem 
and adornment of beauty. 


“Whatsoe’er of beauty 
Yearns, and yet reposes, 
Blush, and bosom, and sweet breath, 
Took @ shapé in roses.” Laien Hunt. 


Now the secret of this perpetual and undying charm about the 
rose, is not to be found in its color—there are bright lilies, and gay 
tiger-flowers, and dazzling air-plants, far more rich and vivid: it is 
not alone in fragrance,—for there aye violets and jasmines with 
“ more passionate sighs of sweetness ;” it is not in foliage, for there 
are laurels and magnolias, with leaves of richer and more glossy 
green. Where, then, does this secret of the world’s six thousand 
years’ homage lie ? 

In its being a type of infinity. Of infinity! says our most 
innocent maiden reader, who loves roses without caring why, and 
who does’ not love infinity, because she does not understand it. 
Roses, a type of infinity, says our theological reader, who. has been 
in the habit of considering all flowers of the field, aye, and the gar- 
den, too, as emblems of the short-lived race of man—* born to 
trouble as the sparks fly upward.” Yes, we have said it, and for 
the honor of the rose we will prove it, that the secret of the world’s 


e 


26 HORTICULTURE. 


devotion to the rose—of het being the queen of flowers by accla- 
mation always and for ever, is that the rose is a type of infinity. 
In the first place, then, the rose is a type of infinity, because 
there is no limit to the variety and beauty of the forms and colors 
which it assumes. From the wild rose, whose sweet, faint odor is 
wasted in the dwpths of the silent wood, or the eglantine, whose 


wreaths of fresh: sweet blossoms embroider even the dusty road 


sides, a 
ob 


“Starring each bush in lanes and glades,” 


to that most verfect, full, rounded, and odorous flower, that swells 
the heart of the florist as he beholds its richness and symmetry, 
what an innumerable range of shades, and forms, and colors! And, 
indeed, with the hundreds and thousands of roses of modern times, 
we still know little ofall the varied shapes which the plant has taken 
in by-gone days, and which have perished with the thousand other 
refinements and luxuries of the nations who cultivated and enjoygd 
them.* 

All this variety of form, so far from. destroying the admiration 
of mankind for the rose, actually increases it. This very character 
of infinity, in its beauty, makes. it the symbol and interpreter of the 


* Many of our readers may not be aware to what perfection the culture 
of flowers was once carried in Rome. During Casar’s reign, so abundant 
had forced flowers become in that city, that when the Egyptians, intending to 


_ compliment him on, his birthday, sent him roses in midwinter, they found 


their present almost valueless from the profusion of roses in Rome. The 
following translation of Martial’s Latin Ode to Cesar upon this present, 
will give some idea of the state of floriculture then: There can scarcely be 
a doubt that there were hundreds of sorts of roses known to, and cultivated 
by the Romans, now entirely lost. 

“The ambitious inhabitants of .the land, watered by the Nile, have sent 
thee, O Cesar, the roses of winter, as a present, valuable for its novelty. 
But the boatman of Memphis will laugh at the gardens of Pharaoh as soon 
as he has taken one etep in thy capital city ; for the spring in all its charms, 
and the flowers in their fragrance and beauty, equal the glory of the fields 
of Pestum. Wherever he wanders, or casts his eyes, every street is brilliant 
with garlands of roses, And thou, O Nile! must yield to the fogs of Rome. 
Send us thy harvests, and we will send thee roses,” 


A CHAPTER ON ROSES. 27 


affections of all ranks, classes, and conditions of men. The poet, 
amid all the perfections of the parterre, still prefers the scent: of the 
woods and the air of freedom about the original blossom, and says— 


“Far dearer to me is the wild flower that grows 
Unseen by the brook where in shadow it flows.” 


The cadbage-rose, that perfect emblem of healthful rural life, is 
the pride of the cottager; the daily China rose, which cheats the 
window of the crowded city of its gloom, is the joy of the daughter 
of the humblest day laborer; the delicate and odorous tea-rose, 
fated to be admired and to languish in the drawing-room or.the 
boudoir, wins its place in the affections of those of most cultivated 
and fastidious tastes; while the moss-rose unites the admiration ‘of 
all classes, coming in as it does with its last added charm, to com- 
plete the circle of perfection. : 

Again, there is the infinity of associations which float like rich 
incense about the rose, and that, after all, bind it most strongly to 
us; for they represent the accumulated wealth of joys and sorrows, 
which has become’ so inseparably connected with it in the human 
heart. 


“ What were life without a rose!” 


seems to many, doubtless, to be a most extravagant apostrophe; 
yet, if this single flower were to be struck out of existence, what a 
chasm in the language of the heart would be found without it! 
What would the poets do? They would find their finest emblem of 
female loveliness stolen away. Listen, for instance, to old Beaumont 
and Fletcher : 


“Of all flowers, 

‘Methinks a Rose is best ; 

It is the very emblem of a maid; 

For when the west wind courts her gently, 

How modestly she blows and paints the sun 

With her chaste blushes! When the north wind comes near her 
Rude and impatient, then, like chastity, 

She locks her beauties in her bud again, 

And leaves him to base briars.” 


28 HORTICULTURE. 


What would the lovers do? What tender confessions, hither 
uttered by fair half-open buds and bouquets, more eloquent of pa 
sion than the Mouwwelle Heloise, would have to be stammered for! 
in miserable clumsy words! How many doubiful suits would | 
lost—how many bashful hearts would never venture—how mar 
rash and reckless adventurers would be shipwrecked,’if the tend 
and expressive language of the rose were all suddenly lost ar 
blotted out! What could we place in the hands of childhood - 
mirror back its innocent expression so truly? What blosson 
could bloom on the breast of the youthful beauty so typical of tl 
infinity of hope and sweet thoughts, that lie folded up in her own heai 
as fair young’ rose-buds? What wreath could so lovingly encire 
the head of the fair young bride as that of white roses, full of puri 
and grace? And, last of all, what blossom, so expressive of hums 
affections, could. we find at the bier to take the place of ‘the rox 
the rose, sacred to this purpose for so many ages, and with so mar 


nations, 
* 


“because its breath 

Is rich beyond the rest ; and when it dies 

Tt doth bequeath a charm to sweeten death.” 
Barry Cornwaut. 


The rose is not only infinite in its forms, hues, types, and ass 
ciations, but it deserves an infinite number of adinirers, This is th 
explanation of our desire to be eloquent in its behalf. There ar 
unfortunately, some persons who, however lovely, beautiful, or pe 
fect:a thing may be ‘in itself, will never raise their ‘eyes to loc 
at it, or open their hearts to admire it, unless it is incessantly talke 
about, 

We have always observed, however, that the great. difficul 
with those who like to talk about fruits and flowers is, when on 
talking, to stop. There is no doubt whatever, that we might go o 
therefore, and fill this whole number with ‘roses, rosariums, rosarie 
and rose-water, but that some of our western readers, who'are loo. 
ing for us to give them a cure for the pear-blight, might cry out- 
“a blight on your roses!” We must, therefore, grow more systemat 
and considerate in our remarks, 


A CHAPTER ON ROSES. 29 


We thought some years ago that we had seen that ultima thule 
—*a perfect rose.” But we were mistaken! Old associates, 
familiar names, and long cherished sorts have their proper hold on 
our affections ; but—we are bound to confess it—modern florists 
have coaxed. sail teased nature till she has given them roses more 
perfect in form, more airy, rich and brilliant in color, and more 
delicate and exquisite in perfume, than any that our grandfathers 
knew or dreamed of. And, more than all, they have produced 
roses—in abundance, as large and fragant as June roses—that 
blossom all the year round. If this unceasingly renewed perpetuity 
of charms does not complete the claims of the rose to infinity, as 
far as any plant can express that quality, then are we no metaphysician. 

There is certainly something instinctive and true in that fa- 
vorite fancy of the poets—that roses are the type or symbol of 
female loveliness— 


“ Know you not our only 
‘Rival flower—the human ? 
Loveliest weight, on lightest foot— 
Joy-abundant woman,” 


sings Leigh Hunt for the roses. And, we will add, it is striking 
and curious that refined and careful culture has the same effect on 
the outward conformation of the rose that it has on feminine beauty. 

The Tea and the Bourbon roses may be taken as an illustration of: 
this. They are the last.and finest product of the most perfect cul- 
ture of the garden; and do they not, in their graceful airy forms, 
their subdued and bewitching odors, and their refined and delicate 
colors, body forth the most perfect symbol of the most refined and 
cultivated Imogen or Ophelia that it is possible to conceive? We 
claim the entire merit of pointing this out, and leave it for some poet 
to make himself immortal by! 

There are odd, crotchety persons among horticulturists, who 
correspond to old bachelors in society, that are never satisfied to love 
any thing in particular, because they have really no affections of 
their own to fix upon any object, and who are always, for instance, 
excusing their want of devotion to the rose, under the pretence that 
among so many beautiful varieties it is impossible to choose. 


30 HORTICULTURE, 


Undoubtedly there is an embarras de richesses in the multitude 
of beautiful varieties that compose the groups and subdivisions of 
the rose family. So many lovely forms and colors are there, daz- 
dling the eye, and attracting the senses, that it requires a man or 
woman of nerve as well as taste, to decide and select. Some of. the 
great rose-growers continually try to confuse the poor amateur by 
their long catalogues, and by their advertisements about “acres of 
roses.” (Mr. Paul, an English nurseryman, published, in June last, 
that he had 70,000 plants in bloom at once!) This is. puzzling 
enough, even to one that has his eyes wide open, and the sorts in 
full blaze of beauty before them. What,then, must be the quan- 
dary in which the novice, not yet introduced into the aristocracy of 
roses, whose knowledge only goes up to a “cabbage-rose,” or a 
“ maiden’s blush,” and who has in his hand a long: list of some great 
collector—what, we say, must be his perplexity, when he suddenly 
finds amidst all the renowned names of old and new world’s history, 
all the aristocrats and republicans, heroes and-heroines of past and 
present times—Napoleon, Prince Esterhazy, Tippoo Saib, Semita- 
mis, Duchess of Sutherland, Princesse Clementine, with occasionally 
such touches of sentiment from the French rose-growers, as Souve- 
nir dun Ami, or Nid d'Amour (nest of love!) &e. &. In this 
whirlpool of rank, fashion, and sentiment, the poor novitiate rose- 
hunter is likely enough to be quite wrecked; and instead of look- 
ing out for a perfect rose, it is a thousand:to one that he finds him- 
self confused amid the names of princes, princesses, and lovely 
duchesses, a vivid picture of whose charms rises to his imagination 
as he reads the brief words “ pale flesh, wax-like, superb,” or “ large, 
perfect form, beautiful,” or “ pale blush, very pretty ;” so that it is 
ten to one that Duchesses, not Roses, are all the while at the bottom 
of his imagination ! 

Now, the only way to help the rose novices out of this difficulty, 
is for all the initiated to confess their favorites. No doubt it will bea 
hard task for those who have had butterfly fancies—coquetting first 
with one family and then with another. But we trust these horti- 
cultural flirts are rare among the more experienced of our garden- 
ing readers,—persons of sense, who have laid aside such follies, as 
only becoming to youthful and inexperienced amateurs. 


A CHAPTER ON ROSES. 31 


We have long ago invited. our correspondents to send us their 
“ confessions,” which, if not as mysterious and fascinating as those 
of Rousseau, would be found far more innocent and wholesome tu 
our readers. Mr. Buist.{whose new nursery grounds, near Phila- 
delphia, have, we learn, been a paradise of roses this season), has 
already sent us his list of favorites, which we have before made pub- 
lic, to the gréat satisfaction of many about. to form little rose-gar- 
dens. Dr. Valk, also, has indicated his preferences. And to en- 
courage other devotees—more experienced than ourselves—we give 
our own list of favorites, as follows: 

First of all roses, then, in our estimation, stands the Boursons 
(the only branch of the family, not repudiated by republicans). 
The most perpetual of all perpetuals, the most lovely in form, of all 
colors, and many of them of the richest fragrance; and, for us 
northerners, most of all, hardy and easily cultivated, we cannot but 
give them the first rank. Let us, then, say— 


HALF A DOZEN BOURBON ROSES. 


Souvenir de Malmaison, pale flesh color. 
Paul Joseph, purplish crimson. 
Hermosa, deep rose. 

Queen, delicate fawn color. 

Dupetit Thouars, changeable carmine. 
Acidalie, white. 


Souvenir de Malmaison is, take it altogether,—its constant 
blooming habit, its large size, hardiness, beautiful form, exquisite 
color, and charming fragrance,—our favorite rose; the rose which, 
if we should be condemned to that hard penance of cultivating but 
one variety, our choice would immediately settle upon. . Its beauty 
suggests a blending of the finest sculpture and the loveliest femi- 
nine complexion. 

Second to the Boursons, we rank the Remontantes, as the 
French term them: a better name than the English one—perpe- 
tuals ; for they are by no means perpetual in their blooming habit, 
when compared. with the Bourbons, China, or Tea roses. They are, 
in fact, June roses, that bloom two or three times in the season, 


32 - HORTICULTURE. 


whenever strong new shoots spring up; hence, no name so app 
priate as Remontante,—sending-up new flower shoots. We thi 
this class of roses has been a little overrated by rose-growers. | 
great merit is the true, old-fashioned rose character of the blosson 
—large and fragrant as a damask or Provence rose. But in tl 
climate, Remontantes cannot be depended on for a constant supp 
of flowers, like Bourbon roses. Here are our favorite: 


HALF A DOZEN REMONTANTES, 


La Reine, deep rose, very large. 
Duchess of Sutherland, pale rose. 
Crimson Perpetual, light crimson. 
Aubernon, brilliant crimson. 
Lady Alice Peel, fine deep pink. 
Madame Dameme, dark crimson. 


Next to these come the Cara Roszs, less fragrant, but ag 
ingly in bloom, and with very bright and rich colors. 


HALF A DOZEN CHINA ROSES. 


Mrs. Bosanquet, exquisite pale flesh color. 
Madame Breon, rose. 

Eugene Beauharnais, bright crimson. 
Clara Sylvain, pure white. 

Cramoisie Superieure, brilliant crimson. 
Virginale, blush. 


The Tza Roszs, most refined of all roses, unluckily, requi: 
considerable shelter and care in winter, in, this climate; but they : 
richly repay all, that no roselover can grudge them this troubl 
Tea roses are, indeed, to the common garden varieties what th 
finest porcelain is to vulgar crockery ware. 


HALF A DOZEN TEA ROSES, 


Safrano, the buds rich deep fawn. 
Souvenir d’un Ami, sélmon; shaded with rose. 
Goubault, bright rose, large and fragrant. 


A CHAPTER ON ROSES, 33 


Devoniensis, creamy white. 
Bougere, glossy bronze. 
Josephine Malton, beautiful shaded white. 


We thought to give Norserrns the go-by; but the saucy, ram- 
pant little beauties climb up and thrust their clusters of bright blos- 
soms into our face, and will be heard. So here they are: 


’ HALF A DOZEN NOISETTES. 


Solfaterre, bright sulphur, large. 

Jaune Desprez, large bright fawn. 

Cloth of Gold, pure yellow, fine. 

Aimee Vibert, pure white, very free bloomer. 
Fellenberg, brilliant crimson. 
‘Joan of Arc, pure white. 


“Girdle of Venus! does he call this a select list?” exclaims 
some leveller, who expected us to compress all rose perfections into 
half a dozen sorts; when here we find, on looking back, that we 
have thirty, and even then, there is not a single moss rose, climbing 
rose, Provence rose, darhask rose, to say nothing of “musk roses,” 
“ microphylla roses,” and half a dozen other divisions that we boldly 
shut our eyes upon! ‘Well, if the truth must come out, we confess 
it boldly, that we are: worshippers of the EVERBLOOMING roses. 
Contipared with them, beautiful as all other roses may be and are 
(we can’t deny it), they have little chance of favor with those that 
we have named, which are a perpetual garland of sweetness. It is 
the difference bétween a smile once a year, and a golden temper, al- 
ways sweetness and sunshine, Why, the everblooming roses make 
a garden of themselves! Not a day without rich colors, delicious 
perfume, luxuriant foliage. No, take the lists as they are—too 
small by half; for we cannot cut a name out of them. 

And yet, there are a few other roses that ought to be in the 

‘smallest collection. That finest of all rose-gemns, the Old Red Moss, 
still at the head of all moss roses, and its curious cousin, the Cheated : 
‘Moss, must have their place. Those fine hardy climbers, that in 
northern gardens will grow in any exposure, and cover the highest 

3 


834 HORTICULTURE. 


walls or trellises with garlands of beauty,—the Queen of the Prai- 
vies and Baltimore Belle (or, for southern gardens, say—Lawre Da- 
voust, and Greville, and Ruga Ayrshire) ; that finest and richest 
of all yellow roses, the double Persian Yellow, and half a dozen of 
the gems among the hybrid roses, such as Chénédole, George the 
Fourth, Village Maid, Great Western, Fulgeus, Blanchefleur ; we 
should try, at least, to make room for these also. 

If we were to have but three roses, for our own personal gratifi- 
cation, they would be— 


Souvenir de Malmaison, 
Old Red Moss, 
Gen. Dubourg. 


The latter is a Bourbon rose, which, because it is an old variety, 
and not very double, has gone out of fashion. We, however, shall 
cultivate it as long as we enjoy the blessing of olfactory nerves; for 
it gives us, all the season, an abundance of flowers, with the most 
perfect rose scent that we have ever yet found; in fact, the tive 
attar of Rose. 

There are few secrets in the cultivation of the rose in this 
climate. First of all, make the soil deep ; and, if the subsoil is not 
quite dry, let it be well drained. Then remember, that what the 
rose delights to grow in is loam and rotten manure. Enrich your 
soil, therefore, with well-decomposed stable manure; and if it is 
too sandy, mix fresh loam from an old pasture field; if it is too 
clayey, mix river or pit sand with it. The most perfect specific 

. stimulus that we have ever tried in the culture of the rose, is 
what Mr. Rivers calls roasted turf, which is easily made by paring 
sods from the lane sides, and half charring them. It acts like 
magic upon the little spongioles of the rose ; making new buds and 
fine fresh foliage start out very speedily, and then a succession of 
superb and richly colored flowers. We commend it, especially, to 
all those who cultivate roses in old gardens, where the soil is more 
or less worn out. on 

And now, like the Persians, with the hope that our fair read- 
ers “may sleep upon roses, and the dew that falls may turn into 
rose-water,” we must end this rather prolix chapter upon roses, 


VI. 


A CHAPTER ON GREEN-HOUSES. 


i) December, 1848. 

|) enor, here in the north, is certainly a cold month. Yes, 

one does not look for primroses under the hedges, nor gather 
violets in the valleys, often, at this season. One must be content to 
enjoy a bright sky over head, and a frosty walk under foot; one 
must find pleasure in the anatomy of trees, and the grand outline of 
hills and mountains half covered with snow. And then, to be sure, 
there are the evergreens. What a pleasant thing it is to see how 
bravely they stand their ground, and bid defiance even to zero; 
especially those two fine old veterans, the Hemlock and the W hite 
Pine. They, indeed, smile defiance at all the attacks of the Ice 
King. It is not easy to make a winter landscape dull or gloomy 
where they stand, ready as they are at all times with such a sturdy 
look of wholesome content in every bough. 

That must be an insipid climate, depend upon it, where there is 
“summer all the year round.” In an ideal point of view,—that is, 
for angels and “beatitudes”—it is, nay, it must. be, quite perfect. 
Their sensations never wear out. But to us, poor mortals, com- 
pounded as we are of such a moiety of clay, and alas, too many of 
us full of inconstancy,—always demanding variety—always looking 
for a change—wearying, as the angels do not, of things which ought 
to satisfy any reasonable creature for ever; no, even perpetual sum- 
mer will not do for us. Winter, keen and frosty winter, comes to 
brace up our languid nerves. It acts like a long night’s sleep, after 


36 HORTICULTURE. 


a day full of exciting events. Spring comes back again to us like a 
positively new miracle! To watch all these black and leafless trees 
suddenly become draped with green again, to see the ice-bound and 
snow-clad earth, now so dead and cold, absolutely bud and grow 
warm with new life,—that, certainly, is a joy which never animates 
the soul of our fellow-beings of the equator. 

“But the winter, the long winter—without verdure—without 
foliage—without flowers—all so bleak and barren.” Softly, warm 
weather friend, open this little glazed door, out of the parlor, even 
now, while the icicles hang from the eaves, and what do you see? 
Truly a cheering and enlivening prospect, we think; a little minia- 
ture tropical scene, separated from the outer frcetiworld only by a 
few panes of glass, and yet as gay and blooming as the valley of - 
Cashmere in June. What can be purer than these pure, spotless 
double white-—what richer than these rich, parti-colored Camel- 
lias? What more delicate than these Heaths, with their little fairy- 
like bells? What more fresh and airy than these Azaleas? What 
more delicious than these Daphnes, and Neapolitan Violets ? Why, 
one can spend an hour here, every day, in studying these curious 
and beautiful strangers—belles of other climes, that turn winter into 
summer, to repay us for a little warmth and shelter. Is there not 
something exciting and gratifying in this little spectacle of our tri- 
umph ‘of art over nature? this holding out a little garden of the 
most delicate plants in the very face of winter, stern as he is, and 
bidding him defiance to his teeth? Truly yes; and therefore, to one 
who has enough of vegetable sympathy in his nature to love flowers 
with all his or her heart—to love them enough to watch over them, 
to care for all their wants, and to feel an absolute thrill of joy as 
the first delicate bit of color mounts into the cheek of every blushing 
bud as it is about to burst open,—to such of our readers, we say, a 
GREEN-HOUSE is a great comfort and consolation ! 

There are many of our readers who enjoy the luxury of green- 
houses, hot-houses, and conservatories,—large, beautifully construct- 
ed, heated with hot water pipes, paved with marble, and filled with 
every rare and beautiful exotic worth having, from the birdlike air 
plants of Guiana to the jewel-like Fuchsias of Mexico. They have 
taste, and much “money in their purses.” They want no advice 


“gSNOH-NIFZAO 
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A CHAPTER ON GREEN-HOUSES, 87 


from us; they have only to say “let us have green-houses,” and they 
have them. . 

But we have also other readers, many thousands of them, who 
have quite as much natural taste, and not an hundredth part as mach 
of the “needful” with which to gratify it. Yes, many, who look 
upon a green-house as a sort of crystal palace, which it requires a 
great deal of skill to construct, and untold wealth to pay for and 
keep in order. The little conversation that we hold to-day must be 
considered as addressed to this latter class ; and we don’t propose to 
show even them, how to build a green-house for nothing,—but how 
it may be built cheaply, and so simply that it is not necessary to 
send for the architect of Trinity Church to give them a plan for its 
construction. 

The idea that comes straightway into one’s head, when a green- 
house is mentioned, is something with a half roof stuck against a 
wall, and glazed all over,—what gardeners call a lean-to or shed- 
roofed green-house. . This is a very good form where economy alone 
is to be thought of; but not in the least will it please the eye of 
taste. We dislike it, because there is something incomplete about 
it; it is, in fact, only half a green-house. 

‘We must have, then, the idea, in a complete form, by having 
the whole roof—what in garden architecture is called a “ span-roof”— 
which, indeed, is nothing more than the common form of the roof 
of a house, sloping both ways from the ridge pole to the eaves. 

A green-house may be of any size, from ten to as many hundred 
feet; but let us now, for fhe sake of having something definite be- 
fore us, choose to plan one 15 by 20 feet. We will suppose it at- 
tached to a cottage in the country, extending out 20 feet, either on 
the. south, or the east, or the west side; for, though the south is 
the best aspect, it will do in this bright and sunny climate very ‘well 
in either of the others, provided it is fully exposed to the sun, and 
not concealed by trees at the sunny time of day. oe 

Taking fig.2 as the ground-plan, you will see that by cutting 
down the window in the parlor, so as to make a glazed door of it, 
_. you have the opening precisely where you want it for convenience, 
"~and exactly where there will be a fine vista down the walk as you 
sit in the parlor. Now, by having this house a little wider than 


38 HORTICULTURE, 


usual, with an open roof, our plants have the light on all sides; con- 
sequently they are never drawn. Besides this, instead of a single 
walk down the front of the house, at the end of which you are forced 
to wheel about, like a grenadier, and return; you have the agreea- 
ble variety of making the entire circuit of the house, reaching the 
same spot again, with something new before you-at every step. 
This walk is 24 feet wide. The stage for the tall plants is a paral- 
lelogram, in the middle of the house, ¢, 7 feet wide; the shelf, which 
borders the margin of the house, d,'is about 18 inches wide. This 
will hold all the small pots, the more delicate growing plants, the 
winter-flowering bulbs, and all those little favorites which of them- 
selves like best to be near the light, and which one likes to have 
near the eye. It is quite incredible what a number of dozen of. 
small plants this single shelf, running nearly all round, will hold. 


WSJ 
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Fic. 2.— Plan of a small Green-House. 


Now let us take a glance at the plan of the section of the green- 
house, fig. 3, which may be supposed’ to be a slice down through 
the end of it. The sides of the house are 8 feet high. They con- 
sist of a row of sashes (f), 34 feet high, placed just below the plate 
that supports the roof, and a wall, h, on which these sashes stand. 
This may be a wall of brick or stone (if of the former. 8 inches 


A CHAPTER ON QREEN-HOUSES. 39 


thick is sufficient) ; or 
it may, when it is to 
be attached to a wood- 
en dwelling,-be built 
‘of wood—good cedar 
posts being set as sup- 
ports 33 feet deep, and 
lined with weather- 
“boarding on each —— 
side, leaving a space 

of 12 inches wide, to 

be filled very com- 
pactly with charcoal dust, or dry tan. 

At the farther end of the house is a door, i. 

The roof may rise in the middle so as to be from 12'to 15 feet 
high (in our plan, it is shown 12 feet). It is wholly glazed,—the 
sashes on either side sliding down in the rafters, so as to admit air 
when necessary. The rafters themselves to be placed about 4 feet 
apart. Is it nota neat little green-house—this structure that we 
have conjured up before you? It is particularly light and airy ; and 
do you not observe that the great charm about itis, that every plant 
is within reach—always inviting attention, always ready to be en- 
joyed? Truly, it is not like those tall houses, with stages running 
up like stairs, entirely out of the reach of one’s nose, arms or fingers. 
Do you not see, also, that you can very well water and take care of 
every plant yourself, if you dre really fond of such things? Very 
well; now let us look a little into the way in which we are to keep 
this little place of pleasure always warm and genial for the plants 
themselves. — 

In the first place, we must inform our reader that we are not to 
have either a furnace with brick flues, or a boiler with hot water 
pipes. They are both excellent things; but we must have, at pre- 
sent, something simpler and more economical. 

Every body, in the northern States, very well knows what an air- 
tight stove is; a most complete and capital little machine, whether 

‘ for wood or coal; most easily managed, and giving us almost the 
whole possible amount of caloric to be got out of hickory or anthracite. 


e 


AUTH 


Fia. 3, Section of the Same. 


40 HORTICULTURE. 


Now we mean to heat our little green-house with an air-tight stoye, 
of good size; and we mean to heat it, too, in the latest and most 
approved system—nothing less than what the English call Polmaise 
—by which we are able to warm every part of the house alike; by 
which we shall be able to create a continual circulation of the warm 
air from one end of it, quite over the plants, to the other; and 
which, no doubt, they will mistake for a West India current of air 
every evening. 

In order to bring this about, we must have an air-chamber. This 
also must be below the level of the green-house floor. It is not im- 
portant under what part it is placed ; it may be built wherever it is 
most convenient. In our plan (fig. 2), as there is a cellar under 
the parlor, we will put it next the cellar wall, so that there may be 
a door to enter it from this cellar. This air-chamber must be built 
of brick, say about 7 or 8 feet square (as represented by the dotted 
lines around 6). The wall of this air-chamber should be two bricks 
thick at the sides and one brick at the ends, and all smoothly plas- 
tered on the inside. The top should be covered with large flaggiig 
stones ; and upon the top of these, a course of bricks should be laid, 
which. ill form part of the floor of the walk in the green-house 
above, _ Or, if flagging is not to be had, then cover the whole with 
a low,arch of brick work. 

In this air-chamber we will place our air-tight stove, the smoke 
pipe of which must be brought back into the cellar again, so as to be 
carried into one of the chimney flues of the house. There must be 
a large sheet-iron or cast-iron door to the air-chamber, to enable us 
to feed the fire in the stove ; and, in the top or covering of the air- 
chamber, directly in the middle of the walk (at 1), must be an 
opening 18 inches in diameter, covered with a grating, or register. 
Through this the hot air will rise into the house. 

Now, beth that we may heat the house easily and quickly,.and 
also that we may. have that continual circulation of air which is so 
wholesome der the plants, we must also have what is called a “ cold- 
air drain ;” it must lead from that end of the house farthest from 
the heeae chamber, and therefore the coldest end, directly to the bot- 
tom of the air-chamber itself. We will put the mouth of this drain in 
the middle of the walk near the door, at 2, with a grating over it 


A CHAPTER ON GREEN-HOUSES. 41 


also. This drain shall be simply a long box, made of boards; and 
we will have it 1 foot by 2 feet, inside. From the mouth, 2, it shall 
lead along, in a straight line, just below the level of the floor, to B, 
where it descends so as to enter on a level with the floor of the hot- 
air chamber. We will also have a smaller box, or drain, for fresh 
air, leading from the bottom of the air-chamber to the open air 
through the foundation wall, at 4,to supply the house with fresh 
air. This air-pipe should be six inches in diameter, and there 
should be a slide in it to enable us to shut it up, whenever the 
weather is too cold to admit of its being open, without lowering the 
temperature of the house too much. 

Now let us suppose all is ready, and that a fire is lighted in our 
air-tight stove. The air in the air-chamber becoming heated, it 
rises rapidly and passes into the green-house through the grated 
opening at 1. Very quickly, then, in order to supply the deficiency 
caused in the air-chamber, the air rushes through the cold-air drain. 
This makes a current from the coolest part of the house, at 2, towards 
the air-chamber;. and, to make. good again the lost air carried off 
from that end of the house, the warm stream which rises through 
the opening at 1, immediately flows over the tops of the plants to- 
wards the opposite end of the house, and, as it becomes cold again, 
descends and enters the mouth of the cold-air drain, at 2. By taking 
advantage of this simple and beautiful principle, that is to say the 
rising of warm air, we are able in this way to heat every part 
of the house alike, and have a constant bland zephyr passing over 
the plants.* 

It is not easy to find any thing simpler or more easily managed 
than this way of heating a small green-house. In this latitude, a 
couple of cords of wood or a couple of tons of anthracite, will be 
sufficient for the whole winter; for, it must be remembered, that no 
matter how cold the day, the moment the sun shines there is not 
the slightest need of a fire; the temperature will then immediately 
‘begin to rise. Usually after bright days, which are abundant in 
our coldest winter-months, we shall not need to light a fire till one, 


* When a coal air-tight stove is used, there should be a water pan sus- 
pended over it. For a wood air-tight it is not necessary. 


42 HORTICULTURE. 


two, or sometimes three hours after sunset; and ‘if our air-tight 
one of good size, and constructed as it should be, so as to maintai 
a good fire for a long time, our last replenishing in the evening nee 
not usually be later than ten o’clock ; but we must, in this case, gis 
a full supply of fuel for the night’s consumption. — 

Every sensible person will, of course, use light outside shutter 
for the roof and side glass of such a house as this. We slide ther 
on at sunset, and take them off at sunrise; and by this means.w 
not only save one-third of our fuel, but keep up a pleasant gree 
house temperature, without cold draughts at night. It is wort 
while to remember, too, that in glazing the roof, the most usefi 
possible size for the glass is 4 by 6 inches, or, at the largest, 6 by 
inches. The former answers the purpose perfectly, and is not onl 
much less costly than large glass, but is also far less expensive t 
keep in repair; neither hail nor frost breaking the small pane 
as they do the large ones. 

As to the minor details, we will have a small cistern under, th 
floor, into which the water from the roof can be conveyed for wate 
'' ing the plants. Beneath the centre stage (which may be partl 
concealed with lattice work), we may keep our dahlia roots, and 
dozen other sorts of half hardy plants for the summer border, no 
dormant, and snugly packed quite out of sight. 

We did intend, when we sat down, to give our novices a great de: 
of exceedingly valuable advice about the sorts of plants that they ougl 
to cultivate in this glazed flower-garden. But we see that we a 
getting beyond the limits of a leader, and must not, therefore, wear 
those of our subscribers, who take no more interest in geraniun 
than we do in Irish landlords, with too long a parley on exotics. 

We must have space enough, however, for a word or two moi 
to beginners. Let them take our word for it—if they prefer a 
abundance of beautiful flowers to a pot-pourri, of every imaginab. 
species that can be grown under glass, they had better confine then 
selves to a few really worthy and respectable genera.. If they onl 
want winter-blooming plants, then let them take Camellias and Ch 
nese Azaleas, as the groundwork of their collection, filling in tk 
interstices with davhnes, heaths, sweet-scented violets, and choi 


A CHAPTER ON GREEN-HOUSES. - 43 


bulbs. For the spring, rely on everblooming roses,* ana geraniums. 
If they also wish to have the green-house gay in summer, they must 
shade it (or wash the under side of the roof-glass with whiting), and 
grow Fuchsias and Achimenes. In this way, they will never be 
without flowers in abundance, while their neighbors, who collect 
every new thing to be heard of under the sun, will have more tall 
stalks and meagre foliage, than bright blossoms and odorous bouquets 
for their trouble. 


* Nothing is more satisfactory than those fine Noisette roses, the La- 
marque and Cloth of Gold, planted in-an inside border, and trained up 
under the rafters of the green-house. In this way they grow to great size, 
and give a profusion of roses. 


Vil. 


ON FEMININE TASTE IN RURAL AFFAIRS. 


April, 1849, 

YT HAT a very little fact sometimes betrays the national charac- 

ter; and what an odd thing this national character is! Look 
ata Frenchman. He eats, talks, lives in public. He is only happy 
when he has spectators. ‘ In town, on the boulevards, in the cafe, at 
places of public amusement, he is all enjoyment. But in the 
country—ah, there he never goes willingly; or else, he only goes 
to sentimentalize, or to entertain his town friends. Even the natural 
born country people seem to find nature and solitude ennuyant, 
and so collect in little villages to keep each other in spirits! The 
Frenchman eats and sleeps almost any where; but he is never “at 
home but when he is abroad.” 

Look, on the other hand, at John Bull. He only lives what he 
feels to be a rational life, when he lives in the country. His country 
place is to him a little Juan Fernandez island ; it contains his own 
family, his own castle, every thing that belongs to him. He hates 
the smoke of town; he takes root in the soil. His Horses, his dogs, 
his trees, are not separate existences; they are parts of himeelf. 
He is social with a reservation. Nature is nearer akin to him than 
strange men. His dogs are truly attached to him; he doubts if his 
fellows are. People often play the hypocrite; but the trees in 
his park never deceive him. Home is to him the next best place 
‘to heaven. 

And only a little narrow strait of water divides these two 
nations | 


ON FEMININE TASTE IN RURAL AFFAIRS, 45 


Shall we ever have a distinct national character? Will a 
country, which is settled by every people of the old world,—a dozen 
nations, all as distinct as the French and the English,—ever crys- 
tallize into a symmetrical form—something distinct and homoge- 
neous? And what will that national character be? 

Certainly no one, who looks at our comparative isolation—at 
the broad ocean that separates us from such external influences— 
at the mighty internal forces of new government and new circum- 
stances, which continually act upon us,—and, above all, at the 
mighty vital force of the Yankee ‘Constitution, which every year 
swallows hundreds of thousands of foreigners, and digests them all; 
no one can look reflectingly on all this, and not see that there is 
a national type, which will prevail over all the complexity, which 
various origin, foreign manners, and different religions bring to our 
shores. 

The English are, perhaps, the most distinct of civilized nations, 
in their nationality. But they had almost ag mixed an origin as 
ourselves,— Anglo-Saxon, Celts, Roman, Danish, Norman; all these 
apparently discordant elements, were fused so successfully into a 
great and united people. 

That a hundred years hence will find us quite as distinct and 
quite as developed, in our national character, we cannot doubt, 
What that character will be, in all its phases, no one at present can 
precisely say; but that the French and English elements will largely 
influence it in its growth, and yet, thatgjn morals, in feeling, and in 
heart, we shall be entirely distinct either of those nations, is as 
clear to us as a summer noon. 

We are not going into a profound ‘philosophical dissertation on 
the political or the social side of national character. We want to 
touch very slightly on a curious little point that interests us; one 
that ‘political philosophers would think quite beneath them; one 
that moralists would not trouble themselves about; and one that 
we are very much afraid nobody else will think worth notice at all ; 
and therefore we shall set about it directly. 

What is the reason American ladies don’t love to work in their 
gardens ? . 

It is ‘of no use whatever, that some fifty or a hundred of our fair 


46 * ite HORTICULTURE. 
readers say, “ we do.” We have ‘carefully studied the matter, until 
it has become a fact past all contradiction. They may love to 
“potter” a little. Three or four times in the spring they take a 
fancy to examine the color of the soil a few inches below the sur- 
face; they sow some China Asters, and plant a few Dahlias, and it 
is all over. Love flowers, with all their hearts, they certainly do, 
Few things are more enchanting to them than a fine garden; and 
bouquets on their centre tables are positive necessities, with every 
lady, from Maine to the Rio Grande, 

Now,-we certainly have all ‘the love of nature of our English 
forefathers. % We love ‘the eountry 5 and a large. part of the mil- 
lions, earned every. year by our enterprise, is spent in creating and 
‘embellishing country homes. But,.on the contrary, our wives and 
daughters only love gardens as the French love them—for the 
results. They love to walkthrough them; they enjoy the beauty 
and perfume of their products, but only as amateurs. ; They’ know 
no more, of’ that intemse enjoyment of yher who plans, creates, and 
daily watches the gtowth of those gardens or: flowersy—no nioré of 
that absolute, living enjoyment, which the English have in out-of 
door pursuits, than a mere amateur, who goes through a fine gal. 
lery of pictures, knows of the intensified emotions which the painters 
of those pictures experienced in their souls, when. they gazed on the 
gradual growth and perfected splendor of their finest master-pieces. 

As it is plain, from our love of the country, that we are not French 
at.heart, this manifestation a we complain of, must come from 
our natural tendency to .cépypthe social manners of the most. 
polished nation in the world%# And it is indeed quite wonderful, 
how, being scarcely in the least affected by the morale, we still bor-. 
row almost instinctively, and entirely without being aware of it, so 
much from éa Belle France. That our dress, mode of: life, and in- 
tercourse, is largely tinged withrFrench taste, every traveller notices. 
But it goes farther. Even the plans of our houses become more and 
more decidedly French. ‘We have had occasion, lately, to make 
considerable explorations i in the domestic architecture of France and 
England, and we have noticed some striking national peculiarities. 
One of these relates to the connection of the pringipal apartments, 
Tn a French house, the beau ideal is to have every thing ensuite ; 


ON FEMININE TASTE IN RURAL AFFAIRS, 47 


all the rooms open into each other; or, atleast, as many of the 
; largest as will produce a fine effect. In an Eniglish house, every 
room is complete in itself. It may be very large, ands ‘very grand, 
but it is all the worse for being connected with any other room; for 
that destroys the privacy which an Englishman so much. loves. : 
Does any one, familiar with the progress of building in the 
-- United States for the last ten years, desire to be told which mode 
we have followed?-.And yet, there are very few who are aware 
that our Jove of folding-doors, and suites of apartments, is essen- 
tially French. ; F; 
Now our national taste in gardening and-out-door employments, 
is just in the process of formation. “Honestly and -ardently be- 
lieving that the loveliest and best women in the world are those of 
our own country, we cannot think of their losing so much of their 
own and -nature’s bloom,.as only to enjoy their gardens by the 
results, like the French, rather than through’ the development, like 
the English. We would gladly show them how- much they lose. 
We would convince them, that only to pluckgthe full-blown.flower, 
is like a first introduction to it, compared: with: life-long friend- 
ship of its mistress, who has nursed it from its QiSt two leaves; and 
that the real zest of our enjoyment of naturfeven in a garden, lies 
in our looking at her, notydilf& a spectator who admires, but like a 
dear and intimate friend§ to whom, after long intimacy, she reveals 
sweets wholly hidden paki? who-only come to her ih full dress, 
and in the attitude of formal viéitors. 

If any one wisheg§jo know ioe completely and intensely Eng- 
lish women enter, into gha spirit of gardening, he has only to watch 
the wife of the most h¥nfi@artisan who settles in any of our cities. 
She not only has a po ft flowers—her back-yard is a perfect curi- * 
-osity-shop of botanical ‘afties. She is never done with training, 
and, watering, and caring’ for them. And truly, they reward her 
wall for who ever saw such large geraniums, such fresh daisies, 
such ruddy roses! Comparing them with the neglected and weak 
specimens in the garden of her neighbor, one might be tempted to 
believe that they had: been magnetized.by the charm of personal. + 
fondness of their mistress, into a life and beauty not common to 


other piace: € 


a 


48 HORTICULTURE. 


Mr. Colman, in his European Tour, seems to. have been struck 
by this trait, and gave so capital a portrait of rural accomplish- 
ments in a lady of rank he had the good fortune to meet, that we 
cannot resist the tenipietien of turning the picture to the light once 
more : 


“T had no sooner, then, entered the house, where my visit had been’ 


expected, than I was met with an unaffected cordiality, which at once 
made meat home. In the midst of gilded halls, and hosts of liveried 
servants, of dazzling lamps and glittering mirrors, redoubling the high- 
est triumphs of art and of taste; in the midst of books, and statues, 
and pictures, and all the elegancies and refinements of luxury; in the 
midst of titles, and dignitaries, and ranks allied to regal. grandeur,— 

there was one object which transcended and eclipsed them all; and 
showed how much the nobility of character surpassed the nobility of 
rank, the beauty of refined and simple manners all the adornments of 
art, the scintillations of the soul, beaming from the eyes, the ‘purest 
gems that ever glittered in a princely diadem. In person, in education 
and improvement, in quigkness of perception, in facility and elegance of 
expression, in accomplishments and taste, in a frankness and gentleness 
of manner, temperedby a modesty which courted confidence and in- 
spired respect, and in. #§pigh moral tone and sentiment, which, like a 


bright halo, seemed to-encircle the wholg sperson,—I confess the fictions. 


of poetry became substantial, and the déau ide 
nation was realized. . 
“In the morning I first met ae prayd 


l of my youthful imagi- 


S 5 ae to the honor of 


child, the teacher and the taught, the fridiag 
gether to recognize and strengthen the senspidigtheir common equality, 
in the presence of their common Father, an&i# acknowledge their equal 
dependence upon his care and mercy. She was then kind enough to 
tell me, after her morning’s arrangements, she claimed me for the day. 
She first showed me her children, whom, like the Roman mother, she 
deemed her brightest jewels, and arranged their studies and occupations 
for the day. She then took me two or three miles on foot, to visit a 
sick neighbor; and, while performing this act of kindness, left me to 
visit some of ‘the cottages upon the estate, whose inmates I found loud 
in the praises of her kindness and benefactions.’ Our next excursion 


the stranger, come to- 


ON FEMININE TASTE IN RURAL AFFAIRS. 49 


was to see some of the finest, and largest, and most aged trees in the 
park, the size of which was truly magnificent ; and I sympathized in 
the veneration which she expressed for them, which was like that ‘with 
which one recalls the illustrious memory of a remote progenitor. Our 
next visit was to the green-houses and gardens; and she explained to 
me the mode adopted there, of managing the most delicate plants, and 
of cultivating, in the most economical and successful manner, the fruits 
of a warmer region. From the garden we proceeded to the cultivated 
fields; and she informed me of the system of husbandry pursued on 
the estate, the rotation of crops, the management and application of 
manures, the amount of seed sown, the ordinary yield, and the appro- 
priation of the produce, with a perspicuous detail of, the expenses and 
results. She then undertook to show me the yards and offices, the 
byres, the feeding stalls, the plans for saving, increasing, and managing 
the manure ; the cattle for feeding, for breeding, the milking stock, the 
piggery, the poultry-yard, the stables, the harness-rooms, the implement- 
rooms, the dairy. She explained to me the process of making the dif- 
ferent kinds of cheese, and the general management of the milk, and 
the mode of feeding the stock ; and then, conducting me into the bailiff’s 
house, she exhibited to me the Farm Journal, and the whole systematic 
mode of keeping the accounts and making the returns, with which she 
seemed as familiar as if they were the accounts of her own wardrobe. 
This did not finish our grand tour ; for, on my return, she admitted me 
into her boudoir, and showed me the secrets of her own admirable 


nected with the dairy, the marke} the table, and the drawing-room, and 
the servants’ hall. All§this wag§done with a simplicity and a frank- 
ness, which showed an ‘absenggpof all consciousness of any extraordi- 
nary merit in her own¢departfient, and which evidently sprang solely 
from a kind desire to s curiosity on my part, which, I hope, un- 


der such circumstances{was pot unreasonable. 

“A short hour after tiis brought us into another relation ; for the 
dinner bell summoned d this same lady was found presiding over 
a brilliant circle of the highest rank and fashion, with an tase, elegance, 
wit, intelligence, and good humor, with a kind attention to every one’s 
wants, and an unaffected concern for every one’s comfort, which would lead 
one to suppose that this was her only and her peculiar sphere. Now I 
will not say how many mud-puddles we had waded through, and how 
many manure heaps we had crossed, and what places we had explored, 
and how every farming topic was discussed ; but I will say that she 
pursued her object without any of that fastidiousness and affected deli- 


4 


50 HORTICULTURE. 


eacy, which pass with some persons for refinement; but which, in many 
cases, indicate a weak, if not a corrupt mind. * * * * 

“ Now I do not say that the lady to whom I have referred was her- 
self the manager of the farm; that rested entirely with her husband ; 
but I have intended simply to show how gratifying to him must have 
been the lively interest and sympathy which she took in concerns which 
necessarily so much engaged his time and attention ; and how the coun- 
try would be divested of that dulness and ennui,.so often complained 
of as inseparable from it, when a cordial and practical interest is taken 
in the concerns which belong to rural life. I meant also to show—and 
this and many other examples, which have come under my observation, 
emphatically do show—that an interest in, and familiarity with, even 
the most humble occupations of agricultural life, are not inconsistent 
with the highest refinements of taste, the most improved cultivation of 
the mind, and elegance, and dignity of manners, unsurpassed in the 
highest circles of society.” 


This picture is ‘thoroughly English ; and who do our readers 
suppose this lady was? Mr.' Colman puts his finger on his lips, apd 
declares that however much he may be questioned by his fair readers 
at home, he: will make no disclosures. But other people recognize 
the portrait ; and we understand it is that of the Duchess of Port- 
land. 

Now, as a contrast to this, here i 
—but enough to show the French : 
from one of Madame de Sevigne’ 
society as she was, she certainly had%as Zuch, of fore of the coun- 
try as belongs to her class and sex on her. sidé of the channel. Itis 
part of a letter written from her counfty:h@fpe. She is writing to 
her daughter; and speaking of an expé@té@’ visit from one of her 
friends : 


“Tt follows that, after I have been to see her, she will come to. see 
me, when, of course, I shall wish her to find my garden in good order ; 
my walks in good order-—those fine walks, of which you are so fond. 
Attend also, if you please, to a little suggestion en passant. You are 
aware that haymaking is going forward. “Well, I have no haymakers. 
I send into the neighboring fields to press them into ‘my service; there 
are none to be found; and so all my own people are summoned to make 


ON FEMININE TASTE IN RURAL AFFAIRS. 51 


hay instead. But do you know what haymaking is? I will tell you. 
Haymaking is the prettiest thing in the world. You play at turning 
the grass over in a meadow ; and as soon as you know that, you 
_ know how to make hay.” 


Is it not capital? We italicize her description of haymaking, 
it is so Frangaise, and so totally unlike the account that the Duchess 
would have given Mr. Colman. Her garden, too; she wanted to 
have it put in order before her friend arrived. She would have 
shown it, not as an English woman would have done, to excite an 
interest in its rare and beautiful plants, and the perfection to which 
they had grown under her care, but that it might give her friend a 
pleasant promenade. 

Now we have not the least desire; that American wives and 

‘daughters should have any thing to do with the rough toil of the 
farm or the garden, beyond their own household province. We de- 
light in the chivalry which pervades this whole country,.in regard 
to the female character, and which even foreigners have remarked 
as one of the strongest national characteristics.* But we would 

_giladly have them seize on that happy medium, between the English 
passion for every thing out of doors, and the French taste for nothing 
beyond the drawing-room. Every thing which relates to the gar- 
den, the lawn, the pleasure-grounds, should claim their immediate 
interest. And this, nof ne walk out occasionally and enjoy 


it; but to know it by heart; lo do it, or see it all done; to know 
ft 
* M.-Chevalier, one of the most intelligent of recent French travellers, 
. says, in his work on this country—“ Not only does the American mechanic | 
and farmer relieve, as much ts possible, his wife from all severe labor, all 
disagreeable employmettebitt there is also, in relation to them, and to 
women in general, a dis a eae to oblige, that is unknown among us, even 
in men who plane ere es upon cultivation of = and literary educa- 
tion.” * * * 
“We buy our wives aaah our fortunes, or we sell ieee to them for 
their dowries. The American chooses her, or rather he offers himself to her 
for her beauty, her intelligence, and the qualities of her heart ; it is the 
only dowry which he seeks, Thus, while we make of that which is most 
sacred a matter of business, these traders affect. a delicacy, and an elevation 
of sentiment, which would have done honor to the most perfect models of 
.chivalry.”. 


52 HORTICULTURE. 


the history of any plant, shrub, or tree, from the time it was so 
small as to be invisible to all but their eyes, to the time when every 
passer-by stops to admire and enjoy it; to live, in short, not only 
the in-door but the out-of-door life of a true woman in the country. 
Every lady may not be “born to love pigs and chickens” (though 
that is a good thing to be born to); but, depend upon it, she has 
been cut off by her mother nature with less than a shilling’s patri- 
mony, if she does not love trees, flowers, gardens, and nature, as if 
they were all part of herself. 

We half suspect, if the truth must be told, that there is a little 
affectation or coquetry among some of our fair readers, in this want 
of hearty interest in rural occupation. We have noticed that it is 
precisely those who have the smallest gardens, and, therefore, who 
ought most naturally to wish to take the greatest interest in their 
culture themselves,—it is precisely those who depend entirely upon 
their gardener. They rest with such entire faith on the chivalry of 
our sex, that they gladly permit every thing to be done for them, 
and thus lose the greatest charm which their garden could give 
that of a delightful personal intimacy. 

Almost all the really enthusiastic and energetic lady gardeners 
that we have the pleasure of knowing, belong to the wealthiest class 
in this country. We have a neighbor on the Hudson, for in- 
stance, whose pleasure-grounds cove many acres, whose flower- 
garden is a miracle of beauty, and who kee six gardeners at work 
all the season. But there is never a tree tratsplanted that she does 
not see its roots carefully handled ; not ‘a Walk laid out that slie does 
not mark its curves ; not a pavionts arranged that she does not direct 
its colors and grouping, and even assist ! pting it. No. matter 
what guests enjoy her hospitality, several hours every day are thus 
spent in out-of-door employment; and from tHe zeal and enthusiasm 
with which she always talks of every thing relating to her country 
life, we do not doubt that she is far more rationally happy now, 
than when she received the homage of a circle of admirers at one 
of the most brilliant of foreign courts. 

On the table before us, lies a letter from a lady of fortune in 
Philadelphia, whose sincere and hearty enthusiasm in country life 
always delights us. She is one of those beings who animate every 


ON FEMININE TASTE IN RURAL AFFAIRS. 58 


thing she touches, and would make a heart beat in a granite rock, 
if it had not the stubbornness of all “ facts before the flood.” She 
is in a dilemma now about the precise uses of lime (which has stag- 
gered many an old cultivator, by the way), and tells the story of her 
doubts with an earnest directness and eloquence that one seeks for in 
vain in the essays of our male chemico-horticultural correspondents. 
We are quite sure that there will be a meaning in every fruit and 
flower which this lady plucks from the garden, of which our fair 
friends, who are the disciples of the Sevigne school, have not the 
feeblest conception. 

There are, also, we fear, those who fancy that there is something 
rustic, unfeminine and unrefined, about an interest in country out-of- 
door matters. Would we could present to them a picture which 
rises in our memory, at this moment, as the finest of all possible de- 
nials to such a theory. In the midst of the richest agricultural region 
of the northern States, lives a lady—a young, unmarried lady; 
mistress of herself; of some thousands of acres of the finest lands; 
and a mansion which is almost the ideal of taste and refinement. 
Very well. Does this lady sit in her drawing-room all day, to re- 
ceive her visitors? By no means. You will find her, in the morn- 
ing, either on horseback or driving a light carriage with a pair of 
spirited horses. She explores every corner of the estate ; she visits 
her tenants, examines the ‘@f@ps, projects improvements, directs re- 
pairs, and is thoroughly{mistr of her whole demesne. Her man- 
sion opens into the most exquisite garden of flowers and fruits, every 
one of which she knows by heart. And yet this lady, so energetic 
and spirited in her enjoy: e and management in out-of-door mat- 
ters, is, in the drawing-r the most gentle, the most retiring, the 
most refined of her sex 

A word or two more, and upon what ought to be the most im- 
portant argument of all. Exercisz, FRESH AIR, HEALTH,—are they 
not almost synonymous? The exquisite bloom on the cheeks of 
American girls, fades, in the matron, much sooner here than in Eng- 
land,—not alone because of the softness of the English climate, as 
many suppose. It is because exercise, so necessary to the mainte- 
nance of health, is so little a matter of habit and education here, and 
so largely insisted upon in England ; and it is because exercise, when 


54 HORTICULTURE, 


taken here at. all, is taken too often as a matter of duty; that it is 
then only a lifeless duty, and has no soul in it; while the English 
woman, who takes a living’ interest in her rural employments, in- 
hales new life in every day’s occupation, and plants perpetual roses 
in her cheeks, by the mere act of planting them in her garden. 

“But, Mr. Downing, think of the hot sun in this country, and 
our complexions ! ” 

Yes, yes, we know it. But get up an hour earlier, fair reader ; 
put on your broadest sun-bonnet, and your stoutest pair of gloves, 
and try the problem of health, enjoyment and beauty, before the 
sun gets too ardent. A great deal may bé done in this way; and 
after a while, if your heart is in the right place for ruralities, you 
will find the occupation so fascinating that you will gradually find 
yourself able to enjoy keenly what was at first only’ a very irksome 
sort of duty. of 


VIIL 


ECONOMY IN GARDENING. 


May, 1849. 
R. COLMAN, in his Agricultural Tour, remarks, that his ob- 
servations abroad convinced him that the Americans are the 
most extravagant people in the world ; and the truth of the remark 
is corroborated by the experience of every sensible traveller that re- 
turns from Europe. The much greater facility of getting money 
here, makes us more regardless of system in its expenditure; and 
the income of many an estate abroad, amounting to twenty thou- 
sand dollars, is expended with an exactness, and nicety of calcula- 
tion, that would astonish persons in this country, who have only an 
income of twenty hundred’ ydollars. Abroad, it is the study of 
those who have, how to ~) or, in the case of spending, how to 
getothe most for their money# At home, it seems to be the desire 
of every body to get—and, having obtained wealth, to expend it in 
the most lavish and careless manner. 

There are, again, manty who wish to be economical in their dis- 
bursements, but find, in a country where labor is one of the. dearest 
of commodities, that every thing which is attained by the expendi- 
ture of labor, costs so much more than they had supposed, that 


moderate “improvements”—as we call all kinds of building and 
gardening in this country—in a short time consume a handsome 
competence. 


The fact, that in no country is labor better paid for than in ours, 
is one that has much to do with the success and progress of the 
country itself, Where the day-laborer is so poorly paid, that he 


56 HORTICULTURE. 


must, of necessity, always be a day-laborer, it follows, inevitably, 
that the condition of the largest number of human beings in the 
State must remain nearly stationary. On the other hand, in a com- 
munity where the industrious, prudent, and intelligent day-laborer 
can certainly rise to a more independent position, it is equally evi- 
dent that the improvement of national character, and the increase of 
wealth, must go on rapidly together. 

But, just in proportion to the ease with which men accumulate 
wealth, will they desire to spend it; and, in spénding it, to obtain 
the utmost satisfaction which it can produce. Among the most 
rational modes of. doing this, in the country, are building and gay-' 
dening ; and hence, every year, we find a greater number of our 
citizens endeavoring to realize the pleasures of country life. 

Now building is sufficiently cheap with us. A man may build 
a cottage ornée for a few hundred dollars, which abroad would cost 
a few thousands. But the moment. he touches a spade to the 
ground, to plant a tree, or to level a hillock, that’ moment his farm 
is taxed three or four times as heavily as in Europe; and as he 
builds in a year, but “ gardens” all his life, it is evident that.his out- 
of-door expenses must be systematized, or economized, or he will find 
his income greatly the loser by it. Many a citizen, who has settled 
in the country with the greatest enthusiasm, has gone back to town 
in disgust at the unsuspected cost of country pleasures. 

And yet, there are ways in hice 
sults may be combined in country life. “fhere are — two ways 
of arriving at a result; and, in some cases, that mode least usually 
pursued is the better and more satisfactory one. 

The price of the cheapest labor in the country generally, aver- 
ages 80 cents to $1 per day. Now we have no wish whatever to 
lower the price of labor; we would rather feel that, by and by, we 
could afford to pay even more. But we wish either to avoid un- 
necessary expenditure for labor-in producing a certain result, or to 
aurive at some mode of insuring that the dollar a day, paid for labor, 
shall be fairly and well earned. 

Four-fifths of all the gardening labor performed in the eastern 
and middle States is performed by Irish emigrants. Always accus- 
tomed to something of oppression on the part of landlords and em- 


are) 


ECONOMY IN GARDENING, 57 


ployers, in their own country, it is not surprising that their old 
habits stick close to them here; and as a class, they require far 
more watching to get a fair aye labor from them than many of 
our own people, On the other hand, there is no workman who is 
more stimulated by the consciousness of working on his own ac- 
count than an Irishman. He will work stoutly and faithfully, from 
early to late, to accomplish a “job” of his own seeking, or which 
he has fairly contracted for, and accomplish it in a third less time 
than if working by the day. 

The deduction which experienced employers in the country draw 
from this, is, never to employ “rough hands,” or persons whose 
ability and steadiness have not been well proved, by the day or 
month, but always by contract, piece or job. The saving to the em- 
ployer is large; and the laborer, while he gets fairly paid, is in- 
duced, by a feeling of greater independence, or to sustain his own 
credit, to labor faithfully and without wasting the time of his em- 
ployer. 

We saw a striking illustration of this lately, in the case of two 
neighbors,— both planting extensive orchards, and requiring, there- 
fore, a good deal of extra labor. One of them had all the holes for 
his trees dug by contract, of good size, and two spades deep, for six 
cents per hole. The other had it executed by the day, and by the 
same class of labor,— forei; igners, newly arrived. We had the curi- 
osity. to ask a few questions, “tofiscertain the difference of cost in the 
two cases; and found, as we expected, that the cost in the day’s 
work gyatorh was about ten cents per hole, or more than a third be- 
yond what it cost by the job. 

Now, whether a country place is large or small, there is always, 
in the course of the season, more or less extra work to be performed. 
The regular gardener, or workman, must generally be hired by the 
day or month ; though we know instances of every thing being done 
by contract. But all this extra work can, in almost all cases, be 
done by contract, at a price greatly below what it would otherwise 
cost. Trenching, subsoiling, preparing the ground for orchards or 
kitchen gardens, or even ploughing, and gathering crops, may be 
done very much cheaper by contract than by day’s labor. 

In Germany, the whole family, including women and children, 


58 HORTICULTURE, 


work in the gardens and vineyards; and they always do the same 
here when they have land in their own possession. Now in every 
garden, vineyard, or orchard, there is a great deal of light. work, 
that may be as well performed by the younger members of such -a 
family as by any others. Hence, we learn that the Germans, in the 
large vineyards now growing on the Ohio, are able to cultivate the 
grape more profitably than other persons; and hence, German fami- 
lies, accustomed to. this kind of labor, may be employed by contract 
in doing certain kinds of horticultural labors, at a great saving to 
the employer. 

Another mode of economizing, in this kind of expenditure, is by 
the use of all possible dabor-saving machines. One of our corres- 
pondents—a practical gardener—recommended, in our last num- 
ber, that the kitchen garden, in .this country, in places of any im- 
portance, should always be placed near the stables, to save trouble 
and time in carting manure; and should be so arranged as to allow 
the plough and cultivator to be used, instead of the spade and hoe. 
This is excellent and judicious advice, and exactly adapted. to this 
country. In parts of Europe where garden labor can be had for 20 
cents a day, the kitchen garden may properly be treated with, such 
nicety that not only good. vegetables, but something ornamental 
shall be attained by it. But here, where the pay is as much for one 
man’s labor as that of five men’s labor is worth in Germany, it is far 
better to cheapen the cost of vegdiables, and pay for ornamental 
work where it is more needed. 

So, too, with regard. to every iisbantees where the more cheap and 
rapid working of an improved machine, or implement, may be sub- 
stituted for manual labor. In several of the largest country seats 
on the Hudson, where there is so great an extent of walks-and car- 
riage road, that several men would be employed almost constantly 
in keeping them in order, they are all cleaned of weeds in a day by 
the aid of the horse hoe for gravel walks, described in the appendix 
to our Landscape Gardening. In all such cases as these, the pro- 
prietor not only gets rid of the trouble and care of employing a 
large number of workmen, but of the annoyance of paying more 
than their labor is fairly worth for the purpose in question. 

There are many modes of economizing in the expenditures of a 


ECONOMY IN GARDENING. 59 


country place, which time, and the ingenuity of our countrymen 
will suggest, with more experience. But there is one which has 
frequently occurred to us, and which is so obvious that we are sur- 
prised that no one has adopted it. We mean the substitution, in 
country places of tolerable size, of fine a for the scythe, in i 
ing the lawn in order. 

No one now thinks of considering his place in any way orna- 
mental, who does not keep his lawn well mown,—not once or twice 
a year, for grass, but once or twice a month, for “velvet.” This, to 
be sure, costs something ; but, for general effect, the beauty of a 
good lawn and trees is so much greater than that of mere flowers, 
that no one, who values them rightly, would even think of paying 
dearly for the latter, and neglecting the former. 

Now, half a dozen or more sheep, of some breed serviceable and 
ornamental, might be kept on a place properly arranged, so as to do 
the work of two mowers, always keeping the lawn close and short, 
and not only without expense, but possibly with some profit. No 
grass surface, except a short lawn, is neater than one cropped by 
sheep; and, for a certain kind of country residence, where the pic- 
turesque or pastoral, rather than the studiously elegant, is desired, 
sheep would heighten the interest and beauty of the scene. 

In order to use sheep in this way, the place should be so ar- 
ranged that the flower-garden, 2 shrubbery shall be distinct’ from 
the lawn. In many cases iEngland, a small portion, directly 
round the house, is inclosed with a wire fence, woven in a pretty 
pattern (worth three or four shillings a yard). This contains the 
flowers and shrubs, on the parlor side of the house, with a small 
portion of lawn dressed by the scythe. All the rest is fed by the 
sheep, which are folded regularly every night, to prevent accident 
from dogs. In this way, a beautiful lawn-like surface is maintained 
without the least annual outlay. "We commend the practice for im- 
itation in this country. 


IX. 


A LOOK ABOUT US. 


April, 1850. 
N the o:d-fashioned way of travelling, “up hill and down dale,” 
by post-coaches, it was a great gratification (altogether lost in 
swift and smooth railroads), to stop and rest for a moment on a hill- 
top and survey the country behind and’ about us. 

Something of this retrospect is as refreshing and salutary in any 
other field of progress. Certainly, nothing will carry us on with 
such speed as to look neither to the right or left, to concentrate all 
our powers to this undeviating straight-forward line. But, on the 
other hand, as he who travels in a rail-car knows little or nothing 
of the country, except the points of departure and arrival, so, if we 
do not occasionally take a slight glarice at things about us, we shall 
be comparatively ignorant of many initéresting features, not in the 
straight line of “onward march.” 

One of the best signs of the times for country people, is the in- 
crease of agricultural papers in number, and the still greater increase 
of subscribers. "When the Albany Cultivator stood nearly'alone in 
the field, some fifteen years ago, and boasted of twenty thousand 
subscribers, it was thought a marvellous thing—this interest in the 
intellectual part of farming; and there were those who thought it 
“could not last long.” Now that there are dozens of agricultural 
journals, with hundreds of thousands of readers, the interest in’ 
“book farming” is at last beginning to be looked upon as something 
significant ; and the agricultural press begins to feel that it is of some 
account in the commonwealth. When it does something more— 


A LOOK ABOUT US. 61 


when it rouses the farming class to a sense of its rights in the state, 
its rights to good education, to agricultural schools, to a place in the 
legislative halls; when farmers shall not only be talked about in 
complimentary phrase as “honest yeomen,” or the “bone and sinew 
of the country,” but see and feel by the comparison of power and 
influence with the commercial and professional classes that they are 
such, then we shall not hear s6 much about the dangers of the 
republic, but more of the intelligence and good sense of the 
people. 

Among the good signs of the times, we notice the establishment 
of an Agricultural Bureau at Washington. At its head has been 
placed, for the present, at least, Dr. Lee, the editor of the Genesee 
Farmer—a man thoroughly alive to the interests of the cultivators 
of the soil, and awake to the unjust estimation practically placed 
upon farmers, both by themselves and the country at large. If he 
does his duty, as we think he will, in collecting and presenting sta- 
tistics and other information showing the importance and value of 
the agriculture of the United States, we believe ‘this Agricultural 
Bureau will be of vast service, if only in showing the farmers their 
own strength for all good purposes, if they will only first educate 
and. then use their powers. 

In our more immediate department—horticulture—there are the 
most cheering signs of improvement in every direction. In all parts 
of the country, but especiallyjat the West, horticultural societies are 
being formed. We think Ohio alone numbers five at this moment ; 
and as the bare formation of such societies shows the existence of 
a little more than private zeal on the part of the inhabitants, in gar- 
dening matters, we may take it for granted that the culture of gar- 
dens is making progress at the West, with a rapidity commensurate 
to the wonderful growth there in other respects. 

It is now no longer a question, indeed, that, horticulture, both for 
profit and pleasure, i is destined to become of far more consequence 
here than in any part of Europe. Take, for example, the matter of 
fruit culture. In no part of Europe has the planting of orchards 
been carried to the same extent as it has already been in the United 
States. There is no single peach orchard in France, Italy, or Spain, 
that has produced the owner over $10,000 in a single year, like 


62 : ‘HORTICULTURE. 


one in Delaware. There is no apple orchard in Germany or north- 
ern Europe, a single crop of which has yielded $12,000, like that 
of Pelham farm on the Hudson. .And these, though unusual ex- 
amples of orchard cultivation by single proprietors, are mere frac- 
tions of the aggregate value of the products of the orchards, in all 
the northern States. The dried fruits—apples and peaches alone, of 
western New-York, amount in value to very large sums annually. 
And, if we judge of-what we hear, orchard culture, especially. of 
the finer market fruits, has only just commenced. 

We doubt if, at any horticultural assemblage that ever con- 
vened in Europe, there has been the same amount of. practical 
knowledge of pomology brought together as at the congress of fruit- 
growers, last October, in New-York. An intelligent nurseryman, who 
has just. returned from a horticultural tour through Great-Britain, 
assures us, that.at the present moment that country is astonishingly 
behind us, both in. interest-in, and knowledge of fruits. This he 
partly explains by the fact, that only half a dozen sorts of each fruit 
are usually grown in England, where we grow twenty or thitty; 
but mainly by, the inferiority of their climate, which makes the cul- 
ture of pears, peaches, &c., without walls, an impossibility, except in 
rare cases. Again, the fact that in this country, there are so many 
landholders. of intelligence among all classes of society—all busy i in 
improving their places—whether they.consist of a rood ora mile 
square—causes the interest in ey to become so.multiplied, 
that it assumes an importance here that is not dreamed of -for it, on 
the other side of the water. 

With this wide-spread interest, and the numberless experiments 
that large. practice will beget, we trust we shall very soon see good 
results in the production of best native varieties of the finer fruits. 
Almost every experienced American horticulturist has become 
convinced. that we shall never fairly “touch bottom,” or rest :on a 
solid foundation, till we get a good assortment of first-rate pears, 
grapes, &c., raised from seeds in this country; sorts with sound con- 
stitutions, adapted to our climate and soil, With great respect for 
the unwearied labors of Van Mons,.and others who have followed 
his plan of obtaining varieties, we have not the least faith in the 
vital powers of varieties so originated. They will, in the. end, be 


A LOOK ABOUT US. 63 


entirely abandoned in this country for sound healthy seedlings, 
raised directly from vigorous parents. 

Far as we are in advance of Europe, at this moment, in the 
matter of pomology, we are a long way behind in all that relates to 
ornamental gardening. Not that there is not a wonderfully growing 
taste for ornamental gardening, especially in the northern and east- 
em States. Not, indeed, that we have not.a number -of’ country 
places that would be respectable in point of taste and good cultiva- 
tion every where. But the popular feeling has not fairly set in this 
direction, and most persons are content with a few common trees, 
shrubs, and plants, when they might adorn their lawns and gardens 
with species of far greater beauty. 

One of the greatest drawbacks to the satisfaction of pleasure- 
grounds, in this country, is the want of knowledge as to how they 
should be arranged to give rapid growth and fine verdure. The 
whole secret, as we have again and again stated, is the deep soil ; 
if not naturally such, then made so by deep culture. Even the best 
English gardeners (always afraid, in their damp climate, of canker, 
if the roots go downwards) are discouraged, and fail in our plea- 
sure-grounds, from the very fineness and dryness of our climate, be- 
cause they will not trench—trench—trench ! as we all must do, to 
.. have satisfactory lawns or pleasure-grounds. 

And this reminds us ‘that a great want in the country, at the 
present time, is a sort of practical school for gardeners; not so 
much to teach them from the outset—for ninéty-nine hundredths 
of all owr gardeners are Europeans—as to naturalize their know- 
ledge in this country. If one of the leading horticultural societies, 

with ready means (that of Boston, for example), would start an 
-éxperimental garden, and making, by an agency abroad, some ar- 
rangement with deserving gardeners wishing to emigrate, take these 
freshmen on their arrival, and carry them through a season’s prac- 
tice in the experimental garden, and let them out at the end of a 
year really good gardeners for our climate, they would do an incal- 
culable service to the cause of horticulture, and to thousands of 
employers, besides getting their own gardens (like that of the Lon- 
don Horticultural Society) cultivated at a little cost. 

‘It may be said that gardeners would not enter such a prepara- 


64 HORTICULTURE. 


tory garden, since they could find places at once. We reply to this, 
that if they found, after they had had their year’s practice in this 
garden, and could show its certificate of character and abilities, they 
could readily get $50 or $100 a year more—as we are confident 
they could—there would be no difficulty on this head, 

The Belgian government has just established such a school, and 
placed it under the direction of M. Van Houtte, the well-known 
horticulturist of Ghent. Something of the sort has been contem- 
plated here, in connection with the agricultural college proposed by 
this State. Considering the scarcity,-nay, absolute dearth of good 
gardeners among us at the present moment,—the supply not half 
equal to the demand,—it seems to us that some plan might be 
adopted by which we should not be at the mercy of those who only 
call themselves gardeners, but who also know little beyond the mys- 
teries of cultivating that excellent plant, the Solanum tuberosum, 
commonly known as the potato. 


X. 
A SPRING GOSSIP. 


May, 1850. 

F any man feels no joy in the spring, then has he no warm 
blood in his veins!” So said one of the old dramatists, two 
hundred years ago; and so we repeat his very words in this month 
of May, eighteen hundred and fifty. Not to feel the sweet influences 
of this young and creative season, is indeed like being blind to the 
dewy brightness of the rainbow, or deaf to the rich music of the 
mocking-bird. Why, every thing feels it; the gushing, noisy brook ; 
the full-throated robin; the swallows circling and sailing through 
the air. Even the old rocks smile, and look less hard and stony; 
or at least try to by the help of the moss, lately grown green in the 

rain and sunshine of April. And, as Lowell has so finely said, 


“Every elod feels a stir of might, 
An instinct within it that reaches and towers; 
And grasping blindly above it for light, 
Climbs to soul in grass and flowers.” 


From the time when the maple hangs out its little tufts of ruddy 
threads on the wood side, or the first crocus astonishes us with its au- 
dacity in embroidering the ground with gold almost before the snow 
has left it, until June flings us her first garlands of roses to tell us 
that summer is at hand, all is excitement in the country—real po- 
etic excitement—some spark of which even the dullest souls that 
follow the oxen must feel. 


‘No matter how barren the past may have been, 
*Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green.” 


5 


* 


66 HORTICULTURE, 


And you, most sober and practical of men, as you stand in your 
orchard and see the fruit trees all dressed in spring robes of white, 
and pink, and blush; and immediately set about divining what a 
noble crop you will have, “if nothing happens” —meaning, thereby, 
if every thing happens as nature for the most part makes it happen 
—you, too, are a little of a poet in spite of yourself. You imagine— 
you hope—you believe—and, from that delicate gossamer fabric of 
peach- blossoms, you conjure out of the future, bushels of downy, . 
ripe, ruddy, and palpable, though melting rareripes, every one of 
which is such as was never seen but at prize exhibitions, when gold 
medals bring out horticultural prodigies. If this is not being a poet 
—a practical one, if you please, but still a poet—then are there no 
gay colors in peacocks’ tails. 

And as for our lady readers in the country, who hang over the 
sweet firstlings of the flowers that the spring gives us, with as fresh 
and as pure a delight every year as if the world (and violets) were 
just new born, and had not been convulsed, battered, and torn by 
earthquakes, wars, and revolutions, for more than six thousand years ; 
why, we need not waste time in proving them to be poets, and their 
lives—or at least all that part of them passed in delicious rambles 
in the woods, or sweet toils in the garden—pure poetry. However 
stupid the rest ‘of creation may be, they, at least, see and understand 
that those early gifts of the year, yes, and the very spring itself, are 
types of fairer and better things. They, at least, feel that this won- 
derful resurrection of life and beauty out of the death-sleep of win- 
ter, has a meaning in it that should bring glad tears into our eyes, 
being, as it is, a foreshadowing of that transformation and awaken- 
ing of us all in the spiritual spring of another and a higher life. 

The flowers of spring are not so gay and gorgeous as those of 
summer and autumn. Except those flaunting gentlemen-ushers the 
Dutch tulips (which, indeed, have been coaxed into gay liveries 
since Mynheer fell sick of flori-mania), the spring blossoms are 
delicate, modest, and subdued in color, and with something more of 
freshness and vivacity about them than is common in the lilies, 
roses, and dahlias of a later and hotter time of the year. The fact 
that the violet blooms in the spring, is of itself enough to make the 
season dear to us. We do not now mean the pansy, or three-col- 


# 


A SPRING GOSSIP, 67 


ored violet—the “Johnny-jump-up” of the cottager—that. litile, 
roguish coquette of a blossom, all animation and boldness—but the 
true violet of the poets; the delicate, modest, retiring violet, dim, 


_ “But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes, 
Or Cytherea’s breath,” 


The flower that has been loved, and praised, and petted, and culti- 
vated, at least three thousand years, and is not in the. least spoiled 
by it; nay, has all the unmistakable freshness still, of a nature 
ever young and eternal. 

There is a great deal, too, in the associations that cluster about 
spring flowers. Take that early yellow flower, popularly known as 
“Butter and Eggs,” and the most common bulb in all our gardens, 
though introduced from abroad. It is not handsome, certainly, al- 
though one always welcomes its hardy face with pleasure ; but when 
we know that it suggested that fine passage to Shakspeare— 


“Daffodils 
That come before the swallow dares, and take 
The winds of March with beauty ”— 


we feel that the flower is for ever immortalized ; and though not 
half so handsome as our native blood-root, with its snowy petals, or 
our wood anemone, tinged like the first blush of morning, yet still 
the daffodil, embalmed by poesy, like a fly in amber, has a value 
given it by human genius that causes it to stir the imagination more 
than the most faultless and sculpture-like camellia that ever bloomed 
in marble conservatory. 

A pleasant task it would be to linger over the spring flowers, 
taking them up one by one, and inhaling all their fragrance and 
poetry, leisurely—whether the cowslips, hyacinths, daisies, and haw- 
thorns of the garden, or the honeysuckles, trilliums, wild moccasins, 
and liverworts of the woods. But we should grow garrulous on 
the subject and the season, if we were to wander thus into details. 

Among all the flowers of spring, there are, however, few that 
surpass in delicacy, freshness, and beauty, that common and popular 
thing, an apple blossom. Certainly, no one would plant an apple- 
tree in his park or pleasure ground; for, like a hard day-laborer, 


68 HORTICULTURE. 


it has a bent and bowed-down look in its head and branches, that. | 


ill accord with the graceful bending of the elm, or the well-rounded ° 
curve of the maple. But as the day-laborer has a soul, which at, 
one time or another must blossom in all its beauty, so too has the 

apple-tree a flower that challenges the world to surpass it, whether 

for the delicacy with which the white and red are blended—as upon 

the cheek of fairest maiden of sixteen—or the wild grace and sym- 

metry of its cinquefoil petals, or the harmony of its coloring height- 

ened by the tender verdure of the bursting leaves that surround it. 

We only mention this to show what a wealth of beauty there is in 

common and familiar objects in the country; and if any of our 

town readers are so unfortunate as never to have seen an apple or- 

chard in full bloom, then have they lost one of the fairest sights that 

the month of April has in her kaleidoscope. 

Spring, in this country, is not the tedious jade that she is in 
England—keeping one waiting from February till June, while she 
makes her toilet, and fairly puts her foot on the daisy-spangled turf. 
For the most part, she comes to us with a quick bound; and, to 
make amends for being late, she showers down such a wealth of 
blossoms, that our gardens and orchards, at the end of April, look as 
if they were turned into fairy parterres, so loaded are they—espe- 
cially the fruit trees—with beauty and promise. An American 
spring may be said to commence fairly with the blossom of the apri- 
cot or the elm tree, and end with the ripening of the first strawber- 
ries. 

To end with strawberries / What a finale to one’s life. More 
sanguinary, perhaps (as there is a stain left on one’s fingers some- 
times), but not less delicious than to 


“Die of a rose in aromatic pain.” 


But it is a fitting close to such a beautiful season to end with such 
a fruit as this. We believe, indeed, that strawberries, if the truth 
could be known, are the most popular of fruits. People always af- 
fect to prefer the peach, or the orange, or perhaps the pear ; but this 
is only because these stand well in the world—are much talked of 
—and can give “the most respectable references.” But take our 


A SPRING GOSSIP. “69 


word for it, if the secret preference, the concealed passion, of every 
lover of fruit could be got at, without the formality of a public trial, 
the strawberry would be found out to be the little betrayer of hearts. 
Was not Linnzus cured of the gout by them? And did not even 
that hard-hearted. monster, Richard the IIL, beseech “My Lord 
of Ely” to serid for some of “the good strawberries” from his gar- 
den at Holborn? Nay, an Italian poet has written a whole poem, 
of nine hundred lines or more, entirely upon strawberries. “Straw- 
berries and sugar” are to him what “sack and sugar” was to Fal- 
staff—“the indispensable companion—the sovereign remedy for 
all evil—the climax of good.” In short, he can do no more in wish- 
ing a couple of new married friends of his the completest earthly 
happiness, than to say— 


“E a dire che ogni cosa lieta vada, 
Su le Fragole il zucchero le cada.” 


In short, to sum up all that earth can prize, 
May they have sugar to their strawberries! 


There are few writers who have treated of the spring and its in- 
fluences more fittingly than some of the English essayists; for the 
English have the key to the poetry of rural life. Indeed, we cannot 
perhaps give our readers greater pleasure than by ending this article 
with the following extract from one of the papers of that genial and 
kindly writer, Leigh Hunt: 

“The lightest thoughts have their roots in gravity ; and the most 
fugitive colors of the world are set off by the mighty background 
of eternity. One of the greatest pleasures of so light and airy a 
thing as the vernal season, arises from the consciousness that. the 
world is young again; that the spring has come round ; that we 
shall not all cease, and be no world. Nature has begun again, and 
not begun for nothing. One fancies somehow that she could not 
have the heart to put a stop to us in April or May. She may pluck 
away a poor little life here and there ; nay, many blossoms of youth, 
—but not all,—not the whole garden of life. She prunes, but does 
not’ destroy. If she did,—if she were in the mind to have done 
with us,—to look upon us as a sort of experiment not worth going 


70 HORTICULTURE. 


on with, as a set of ungenial and obstinate compounds, which re- 
fused to co-operate in her sweet designs, and could not be made to 
answer in the working,—depend upon it, she would take pity on our 
incapability and bad humors, and conveniently quash us in some 
dismal, sullen winter’s day, just at the natural dying of the year, 
most likely in November; for Christmas is a sort of spring itself— 

__a winter flowering. We care nothing for arguments about storms, 
earthquakes, or other apparently unseasonable interruptions of our 
pleasures. We imitate, in that respect, the magnanimous indiffer- 
ence, or what appears to be such, of the great mother herself, know- 
ing that she means us the best in the gross ; and also that we may 
all get our remedies for these evils in time, if we will only co-operate. 
People in South America, for instance, may learn from experience, 
and build so as to make a comparative nothing of those rockings of 
the ground. It is of the gross itself that we speak; and sure we 
are, that with an eye to ¢hat, Nature does not feel as Pope ventures 


to say she does, or sees ‘ with equal eye’— 
e 


Atoms or systems into ruin hurl’d, 
And now a bubble burst, and now a world.’ 


“He may have flattered himself that he should think it a fine 
thing for his little poetship to sit upon a star, and look grand in his 
own eyes, from an eye so very dispassionate ; but Nature, who is the 
author of passion, and joy, and sorrow, does not look upon animate 

‘and inanimate, depend upon it, with the same want of sympathy. 
‘A world’ full of hopes, and loves, and endeavors, and of her own 
life and loveliness, is a far greater thing-in her eyes, rest assured, than 
a ‘bubble ;’ and, @ fortiori, many worlds, or a ‘system,’ far greater 
than the ‘atom,’ talked of with somuch complacency by this di- 
vine little whipper-snapper. go, the moment the kind mother 
gives promise of a renewed year, with these green and budding sig- 
nals, be certain she is not going to falsify them ; and that being sure 
of April, we are sure as far as November. As for an existence any 
further, that, we conceive, depends somewhat upon how we behave 
ourselves ; and therefore we would exhort everybody to do their best 
for the earth, and all that is upon it, in order that it and they may 
be thought worth continuance. 


A SPRING GOSSIP. TW 


“What! Shall we be put into a beautiful garden, and turn up 
our noses at it, and call it a‘vale of tears, and all sorts of bad 
names (helping thereby to make it so), and yet confidently reckon 
that nature will never shut it up, and have done with it, or set about 
forming a better stock of inhabitants? Recollect, we beseech you, 
dear ‘Lord Worldly Wiseman, and you, ‘Sir Having, and my 
‘Lady Greedy,’ that there is reason for supposing that man was 
not always an inhabitant of this very fashionable world, and some- 
what larger globe ; and that perhaps the chief occupant before him 
was only an inferior species to ourselves (odd as you may think it), 
who could not be brought to know what a beautiful place he lived 
in, and so had a different chance given him in a different shape. 
Good heavens! If there were none but mere ladies and gentlemen, 
and city-men, and soldiers, upon earth, and no poets, readers, and 
milkmaids, to remind us that there is such a thing as Nature, we 
really should begin to tremble for Almacks and Change Alley (the 
‘upper ten’ and Wall-street), about the 20th of next October.” 


XI. 


THE GREAT DISCOVERY IN VEGETATION. 


Pe April, 1851.. 

| T is one of the misfortunes of an editor to be expected to answer 

all questions, as if he were an oracle. It is all pleasant enough, 
when his correspondent is lost in the woods, and he can speedily set 
him right, or when he is groping in some dark passage that only 
needs the glimmer of his farthing candle of experience, to make 
the way tolerably clear to him. But correspondents are often un- 
reasonable, and ask for what is little short of a miracle. It is clear 
that an editor is not only expected to know every thing, but that he 
is not to be allowed the comfort of belonging to any secret societies, 
or any of those little fraternities where such a charming air of mys- 
tery is thrown over the commonest subjects. 

We are brought to these reflections by a letter that has just 
come before us, and which runs as follows : 


Dear Sin :—I have been expecting in the last two numbers, to 
hear from you on the subject of the great discovery in vegetation, 
which was laid before the committee of the State Agricultural Soci- 
ety at its annual meeting in January last. You were, if I mistake 
not, a member of that committee, and of course, the fullest disclo- 
sures of the secret of the gentleman who claims to have found out 
a new “principle in vegetation,” were laid before you. No formal 
report has, I think, been published by the Society. The public are, 
therefore, in the dark still. Is this right, when the discoverer is now 
urging the Legislature of this State to pass a bill giving him a 


THE GREAT DISCOVERY IN VEGETATION. 73 


bonus of $150,000 to make his secret public, for the benefit of all 
cultivators of the soil? Either the ‘thing i is pure humbug, or there 
is something in it worthy of attention. Pray enlighten us on this 
subject. Yours, &e. 


Yes, we were upon that committee, and nothing would give us. 
greater pleasure than to unburden our heart to the public on this 
subject, and rid our bosom of this “ perilous stuff” that has weighed 
upon us ever since. But alas! this gentleman who has been urging 
his great discovery upon the attention of Congress and the Legisla- 
ture for ten or twelve years past, put all the committee under a 
solemn vow of secrecy, though we protested at the time against his 
expecting that a horticultural editor should preserve silence touching 
any thing that is told him sub rosa. 

And yet we would not treat our correspondent rudely; for his 
letter only expresses what a good many others have expressed to us 
verbally. We shall, therefore, endeavor to console him for the want 
of the learned dissertation on vegetable physiology which he no 
doubt expected, by telling him a story. 

Once on a time there was a little spaniel, who lived only for the 
good of his race. He had a mild countenance, and looked at the 
first, enough like other dogs. But for all that, he was an oddity. 
Year in and year out, this little spaniel wandered about with a wise 
look, like the men that gaze at the stars through the great tele- 
scopes. The fact was, he had taken-it into his head that he was a 
philosopher, and had discovered a great secret. This was no less 
than the secret of instinct by which dogs do so many wonderful 
things, that some men with all their big looks, their learning, yes, 
and even their wonderful knack of talking, cannot do. 

It was curious to see how the little spaniel who had turned philo- 
sopher, gave himself up to this fancy that had got into his head. He 
had a comfortable kennel, where he might have kept house, barked, 
looked after trespassers, where he might have been well fed, and 
had a jolly time of it like other dogs. 

But no, he was far too wise for that. He had, as he said, found 
out something that would alter the whole “platform” on which 
dogs stood, something that would help them to carry their heads 


74 HORTICULTURE. 


higher than many men he could name, instead of being obliged to 
play second fiddle to the horse. If the community of dogs in gen- 
eral would but listen to him, he would teach them not only how to 
be always wise and rich, how to be strong and hearty, but above’ all, 
how to preserve their scent—for the scent is a pleasure that dogs 
prize as much as some old ladies who take snuff. In short, the 
knowledge of this wonderful discovery would bring about'a canine 
millennium—for he assured them that not only was every one of them 
entitled to his “day,” but that “a good time was coming,” even for 
dogs. , 

And why, you will say, did not our philosopher divulge for the 
benefit of the whole family of dogs? “It is so pleasant to do some- 
thing for the elevation of our race,” as the travelled monkey thought 
when he was teaching his brothers to walk on their hind legs, ‘All 
the dogs in the country could not but owe him a debt of gratitude, 
since they would soon become so wise that they might even teach 
their masters something of instinct. And then they would be so 
happy—since there would not be a downcast tail in all‘ the land— 
for the whole country would be in one perpetual wag of delight. 

Ah! dear reader, we see that you, who put such questions, know 
nothing either of philosophy, or the world. As if the people who 
discover why the world turns round, and the stars shine, throw their 
knowledge into the street for every dog to trample on. No, indeed! 
They will have a patent for it, or a great sum of money from the 
government, or something of that sort. It would be a sorry fellow 
who should think that every new thing found out is to be given 
away to every body for nothing at all, in that manner. To be sure, 
it would, perhaps, benefit mankind all the more; but that is only 
half the question. “If you think the moon is made of green 
cheese,” said our curly philosopher to his friends, “ you are greatly 
mistaken. I am well satisfied, for my part, that that is only a vul- 
gay error. If it had been, John Bull would have eaten it up for 
lunch a long time ago.” 

So our philosopher went about among his fellow-dogs, far and 
near, and spent most of his little patrimony in waiting on distin- 
‘guished mastiffs, Newfoundlands, and curs of high degree. He 
went, also, to all conventions or public assemblies, where wise ter- 


THE GREAT DISCOVERY IN VEGETATION. 45 


riers were in the habit of putting their heads together for the public 
good. Wherever he went, you would see him holding some poor 
victim by the button, expounding his great secret, and showing how 
the progress, yes, the very existence of dogs, depended upon the 
knowledge of his secret—since it would really explain in a moment 
every thing that had been dark since the days when their great- 
grandfathers were kept from drowning in the ark. Only let the 
congress of greyhounds agree to pay him a million of money, and 
he would make known principles that would make the distemper 
cease, and all the other ills that dog-flesh is heir to, fade clean out 
of memory. 

Some of the big dogs to whom he told his secret (always, re- 
member, in the strictest, confidence), shook their heads, and looked 
wise 5 others, to get rid of his endless lectures, gave him a certificate, 
saying that Solomon was wrong when he said there was nothing 
new under the sun; and all agreed that there was no denying that 
there is something in it, though they could not exactly say it was a 
new discovery. ‘ 

Finally, after a long time spent in lobbying, and after wise talks 
with all the members that would listen to him, yes, and after exhib- 
iting to every dog that had an hour to give him, his collection of 
dogs’ bones that had died solely because of the lamentable ignorance 
of his secret in dogdom, he found a committee that took hold of 
his doctrine in good earnest—quite determined to do justice to him, 
and vote him a million if he deserved it, but, nevertheless; quite de- 
termined not to be humbugged by any false doggerel, however 
potent it might have been to terriers less experienced in this current 
commodity of many modern philosophers. 

It was along story that the committee were obliged to hear, 
and there were plenty of hard words thrown in to puzzle terriers 
who might not have had a scientific education in their youth. But 
the dogs on the committee were not to be puzzled; they seized hold 
of the fundamental principle of the philosophic spaniel, tossed it, 
and worried it, and shook it, till it stood out, at last, quite a simple 
truth (how beautiful is deep philosophy), and it was this— 

Tur GREAT sEcREt of perfect instinet in dogs, is TO KEEP THEIR 
NOSES COOL. 


76 HORTICULTURE, 


Of course, the majority of the committee were startled and de- 
lighted with the novelty and grandeur of the discovery. There 
were, to be sure, a few who had.the foolhardiness to remark, that 
the thing was not new, and had been acted upon, time out of mind, 
in all good kennels. But the philosopher soon put down such non- 
sense, by observing that the fact might, perchance, have been known 
to a few, but who, before him, had ever shown the principe of the 
thing ? 

And now, we should like to see that cur who shall dare to say 
the canine philosopher who has spent his life in studying nature and 
the books, to such good results, shall not have a million for his 
discovery. . 


XII. 


STATE AND PROSPECTS OF HORTICULTURE. 


December, 1851. 

RETROSPECTIVE glance over the journey we have travelled, 

is often both instructive and encouraging. We not only learn 
what we have really accomplished, but we are better able to over- 
come the obstacles that lie in our onward way, by reviewing the 
difficulties already overcome. 

The progress of the last five years in Horticulture, has been a 
remarkable one in the United States. The rapid increase of popu- 
lation, and the accumulation of capital, has very naturally led to the 
multiplication of private gardens and country-seats, and the planting 
of orchards and market gardens, to an enormous extent. The 
facility with which every man may acquire land in this country, 
natufally leads to the formation of separate and independent homes, 
and the number of those who are in some degree interested in the 
culture of the soil is thus every day being added to. The very fact, 
however, that a large proportion of these little homes are new 
places, and that the expense of building and establishing them 
is considerable, prevents their owners from doing much more 
for the first few years, than to secure the more useful and necessary 
features of the establishment. Hence, the ornamental still appears 
neglected in our country homes and gardens, generally, as compared 
with those of the more civilized countries abroad. The shrubs, and 
flowers, and vines, that embellish almost every where the rural homes 
of England, are as yet only rarely seen in this country—though in all 
the older sections of the Union the-taste for ornamental gardening 


78 HORTICULTURE. 


is developing itself anew every day. On the other hand, the great: 
facility with which excellent fruits and vegetables are grown in this 
climate, as compared with the North of Europe, makes our gardens 
compare most favorably with theirs in respect to these two points. 
The tables of the United States are more abundantly supplied with 
peaches and melons, than those of the wealthiest classes abroad— 
and the display of culinary vegetables of the North of Europe, which 
is almost confined to the potatoes, peas, French beans, and cauli- 
flowers, makes but a sorry comparison with the abundant bill of 
fare within the daily reach of all Americans. The traveller abroad. 
from this side of the Atlantic, learns to value the tomatoes, Indian 
corn, Lima beans, egg-plants, okra, sweet potatoes, and many other 
half-tropical products, which the bright sun of his own land offers 
him in such abundance, with a new relish; and putting these and. 
the delicious fruits, which are so cheaply and abundantly produced, 
into the scale against the smooth lawns and the deep verdure of 
Great Britain, he is.more than consoled for the superiority of the 
latter country in these finer elements of mere embellishment. * 

In the useful branches of gardening, the last ten years have 
largely increased the culture of all the fine culinary vegetables, and 
our markets are now almost every where abundantly supplied with 
them. The tomato, the egg-plant, salsify, and okya, from being 
rarities have become almost universally cultivated. The tomato 
affords a singular illustration of the fact that an article of food not 
generally relished at first, if its use is founded in its adaptation to 
the nature of the climate, may speedily come to be. considered ‘in- 
dispensable to a whole nation. Fifteen years ago it would have been 
difficult to find this vegetable for sale in five market towns in 
America. At the present moment, it is grown almost every where, 
and there are hundreds of acres devoted. to its culture for the supply 
of the New-York market alone. We are certain that no people at 
the present moment, use so large a variety of fine vegetables as the 
people of the United States, Their culture is so remarkably easy, 
and the product so abundant. 

We have no means of knowing the precise annual value of the 
products of the orchards of the United States. The Commissioner 
of Patents, from the statistics in, his possession, estimates it at ten 


STATE AND PROSPECTS OF HORTICULTURE. 719 


millions of dollars. The planting of orchards and fruit-gardens 
within the last five years has been more than three times as great as 
in any previous five years, and as soon as these trees come into 
bearing, the annual value of their products cannot fall short of 
twenty-five or thirty millions of dollars. American apples are uni- 
versally admitted to be the finest in the world, and our pippins and 
Baldwins have taken their place among the regular exports of the 
country. In five years more we confidently expect to see our fine 
late pears taking the same rank, and from the great success which 
has begun to attend their extensive culture in Western New-York, 
there can be little doubt that that region will come to be considered 
the centre of the pear culture of this country. 

The improvements of the last few years in fruit-tree culture have 
been very great, and are very easily extended. From having been 
pursued in the most careless and slovenly manner possible, it is now 
perhaps the best understood of any branch of horticulture. in 
America. The importance of deep trenching, mulching, a correct 
system of pruning, and the proper manures, have come to be pretty 
generally acknowledged, so that our horticultural shows, especially, 
and the larger markets, to a certain extent, begin to show decided 
evidences of progress in the art of raising good fruits. Our nursery- 
men and amateurs, after having made trial of hundreds of highly 
rated foreign sorts, and found but few of them really valuable, are 
turning their attention to the propagation and dissemination of 
those, really good, and to the increase of the number mainly by 
selections from the numerous good native varieties now springing 
into existence. 

‘The greatest acquisition to the amateur’s fruit garden, within the 
last few years, has been the cold vinery,—a cheap glass structure by 
the aid of which, without any fire heat, the finest foreign grapes can 
be fully ripened, almost to the extreme northern parts of the Union. 
These vineries have astonishingly multiplied within the last four 
years, so that instead of being confined to the gardens of the very 
wealthy, they are now to be found in the environs of all our larger 
towns—and a necessary accompaniment to every considerable 
country place. As a matter of luxury, in fruit gardening, they per- 
haps afford more satisfaction and enjoyment than any other single 


80 HORTICULTURE. 


feature whatever, and the annual value of the grapes, even to the 
market-gardener, is a very satisfactory interest on the outlay made 
in the necessary building. 

Now that the point is well settled that the foreign grapes cannot, 
be successfully grown without the aid of glass, our most enterprising 
experimentalists are busy with the production of new hybrid varie- 
ties—the product of a cross between the former and our native vari- | 
eties—which shall give us fine flavor and adaptation to open air 
culture, and some results lately made public, would lead us to the , 
belief that the desideratum may soon be attained. In the mean 
time the native grapes, or at least. one variety—the Catawba—has 
taken its rank—no longer disputed—as a fine wine grape; and the 
hundreds of acres of vineyards which now line the banks of the 
Ohio, and the rapid sale of their vintages, show conclusively that we 
can at least make the finest light wines on this side of the Atlantic. 

’ In omamental gardening, many and beautiful are the changes 
of the last few years. Cottages and villas begin to embroider fhe 
country in all directions, and the neighborhood of our three or four 
largest cities begins to vie with the environs of any of the old world 
capitals in their lovely surroundings of beautiful gardens and grounds. 
The old and formal style of design, common until within a few years, ; 
is almost displaced by a more natural and graceful style of curved 
lines, and graceful plantations. The taste for ornamental planting 
has extended so largely, that much as the nurseries have increased, 
they are not able to meet the demand for rare trees and shrubs— 
especially evergreens—so that hundreds of thousands of fine species 
are annually imported from abroad: Though by no means so favor- 
able a climate for lawns as that of England, ours is a far better one 
for deciduous trees, and our park and pleasure-ground scenery (if 
we except evergreens) is marked even now by a greater variety. of . 
foliage than one easily finds in any other temperate climate. 

A peculiar feature of what may be called the scenery of orna- 
mental grounds in this country, at the present moment, is, as we 
have before remarked, to be found in our rural cemeteries. They 
vary in size, from a few to three or four hundred acres, and in char- 
acter, from pretty shrubberies and pleasure-grounds to wild sylvan 
groves, or superb parks and pleasure-grounds—laid out and kept in 


STATE AND PROSPECTS OF HORTICULTURE. 81 


the highest style of the art of landscape gardening. There is noth- 
ing in any part of the world which equals in all respects, at the 
present moment, Greenwood Cemetery, near New-York—ihough it 
has many rivals.. We may give some idea of the extent and high 
keeping of this lovely resting-place of the dead, by saying that about 
three hundred persons were constantly employed in the care, im- 
provement, and preservation of its grounds, this season. The Ceme- 
tery of the Evergreens, also near New-York, Mount Auburn at Bos- 
ton, Laurel Hill at Philadelphia, and the cemeteries of Cincinnati, 
‘Albany, Salem, and several others of the larger towns, are scarcely 
less interesting in many respects—while all have features of interest 
and beauty: peculiar to themselves. 

From cemeteries we naturally rise to public parks and gardens. 
As yet our countrymen have almost entirely overlooked the sanitary 
value and importance of these breathing places for large cities, or 
the powerful part which they may be made to play in refining, ele- 
vating, and affording enjoyment to the people at large. A more 
rapid and easy communication with Europe is, however, beginning 
to awaken us to a sense of our vast inferiority in this respect, and 
the inhabitants of our largest cities are beginning to take a lively 
interest in the appropriation of sufficient space—while space may be 
obtained—for this beautiful and useful purpose. The government 
has wisely taken the lead in this movement, by undertaking the im- 
provement (on a comprehensive plan given by us) of a large piece 
of public ground—150 acres or more—lying almost in the heart of 
Washington. A commencement has been made this season, and 
we hope the whole may be completed in the course of three or four 
years. The plan embraces four or five miles of carriage-drive— 
walks for pedestrians—ponds of water, fountains and statues—pic- 
turesque groupings of trees and shrubs, and a complete collection of 
all the trees that belong to North America. It will, if carried out 
as it has been undertaken, undoubtedly give a great impetus to the 
popular taste in landscape-gardening and the culture of ornamental 
trees; and as the climate of Washington is one peculiarly adapted 
to this purpose—this national park may be made a sylvan museum 
such ‘as it would be difficult to equal in beauty and variety in any 
part of the world. 

6 


82 HORTICULTURE. 


As a part of the same movement, we must not forget to mention 
that the city of New-York has been empowered by the State legis- 
lature to buy 160 acres of land, admirably situated in the upper 
part of the city, and improve and embellish it for a public park. A 
similar feeling is on foot in Philadelphia, where the Gratz estate and 
the Lemon Hill estate are, we understand, likely to be purchased by 
the city for this purpose. It is easy to see from these signs of the 
times, that gardening—both as a practical art and an art of taste— 
is advancing side by side with the steady and rapid growth of the 
country—and we congratulate our readers that they live in an age 
and nation where the whole tendency is so healthful and beautiful, 
and where man’s destiny seems'to grow brighter and better every 
day. 


XT. 


AMERICAN vs. BRITISH HORTICULTURE. 


June, 1852. 

Wwe a man goes into a country without understanding its 

language—merely as a traveller—he is likely to comprehend 
little of the real character of that country; when he settles in it, 
and persists in not understanding its language, manners, or customs, 
and ‘stubbornly adheres to his own, there is little probability of 
his ever being a contented or successful citizen. In such a country 
as this, its very spirit of liberty and progress, its freedom from old 
prejudices, and the boundless life and energy that make the pulses 
of its true citizens—either native or adopted—beat with health and 
exultation, only serve to vex and chafe that alien in a strange land, 
who vainly tries to live in the new world, with all his old-world 
prejudices and customs. 

We are led into this train of reflection by being constantly re- 
minded, as we are in our various journeyings through the country, 
of the heavy impediment existing—the lion lying in the path of our 
progress in horticulture, all over the country, in the circumstance 
that our practical gardening is almost entirely in the hands of for- 
eign gardeners. The statistics of the gardening class, if carefully 
collected, would, we imagine, show that not three per cent. of all 
the working gardeners in the United States, are either native or 
naturalized citizens. They are, for the most part, natives of Ireland, 
with a few Scotchmen, and a still smaller proportion of English and 
Germans. 

We suppose we have had as much to do, for the last sixteen or 


84 HORTICULTURE. 


eighteen years, with the employment of gardeners, as almost any 


person in America, and we never remember an instance of an Ame- 
rican offering himself as a professional gardener.. Our own rural 
workmen confine themselves wholly to the farm, knowing nothing, 
or next to nothing, of the more refined and careful operations of the 
garden. We may, therefore, thank foreigners for nearly all the 
gardening skill that we have in the country, and we are by no 
means inclined to underrate the value of their labors. Among them 
there are, as we well know, many most excellent men, who deserve 
the highest commendation for skill, taste, and adaptation—though, 
on the other hand, there are a great’ many who have’ been gar- 
deners (if we may trust their word for it), to the Duke of —~, 
and the Marquis of , but who would make us pity his grace or 
his lordship, if we could believe he ever depended on Paddy for 
any other exotics than potatoes and cabbages. 

But taking it for granted that our gardeners are wholly foreign- 
ers, and mostly British, they all have the disadvantage of coming 
to us, even the best educated of them, with their practice wholly 
founded -upon a climate the very opposite of ours. Finding how 
little the “natives” know of their favorite art, and being, therefore, 
by no means disposed to take advice of them, or unlearn any of 
their old-world. knowledge here, are they not, as a class, placed very 
mouch in the condition of the aliens in a foreign country, we have 
just alluded to,:who refuse, for the most part, either to learn its lan- 
guage, or adapt themselves to the institutions of that country? We 
think so; for-in fact, no two languages can be more different than 
the gardening tongues of England and America. The ugly words 
of English gardening, are damp, wet, want of sunshine, canker. Our 
bugbears are drought, hot sunshine, great stimulus to growth, and 
blights. and diseases -resulting-from sudden checks. An English 
gardener, therefore, is very naturally taught, as soon: as he can lisp, 
to avoid cool and damp aspects, to nestle like a lizard, on the sunny 
side of south walls, to be perpetually guarding the: roots of plants 
against wet, and continually opening the heads of his trees and 
shrubs, by thinning out the branches, to let the light in. He.raises 
even his flower-beds, to shed off the too abundant rain; trains his 
-fruit-trees upon trellises, to expose every leaf to the sunshine, and is 


AMERICAN VS. BRITISH HORTICULTURE. 85 


continually endeavoring to extract “sunshine from cucumbers,” in 
a climate where nothing grows golden and ripe without coaxing na- 
ture’s smiles under glass-houses ! 

For theorists, who know little of human nature, it is easy to 
answer——“ well, when British gardeners come to a climate totally 
different from their own—where sunshine is so’ plenty that they can 
raise melons and peaches as easily as they once did cauliflowers 
and gooseberries—why, they will open their eyes to such glaring 
facts, and alter their practice accordingly.” Very good reasoning, 
indeed. But anybody who knows the effect of habit and education 
on character, knows that it is as difficult for an Irishman to make 
due allowance for American sunshine and heat, as for 2 German to 
forget sour-krout, or a Yankee to feel an instinctive reverence for 
royalty. There is a whole lifetime of education, national habit, 
daily practice, to overcome, and reason seldom has complete sway 
over the minds of men rather in the habit of practising a system, 
than referring to principles, in their every-day labors. 

- Rapid as the progress of horticulture is at the present time in 
the United States, there can be no doubt that it is immensely. re- 
tarded by this disadvantage, that all our gardeners have been edu- 
cated in the school of British horticulture. It is their misfortune, 
since they have the constant obstacle to contend with, of not under- 
standing the necessities of our climate, and therefore endeavoring to 
carry out a practice admirably well suited where they learned it— 
but mst ill suited to the country. where they are to practise it. It 
is our misfortune, because we suffer doubly by their mistakes—first, 
in the needless money they spend in their failures—and second, in 
the discouragement they throw upon the growing taste for garden- 
ing among us. A gentleman who is himself ignorant of gardening, 
establishes himself at a country-seat. He engages the best gar- 
dener he can find. The latter fails in one half that he attempts, 
and the proprietor, knowing nothing of the reason of the failures, 
attributes to the difficulties of the thing itself, what+should be attri- 
buted to the want of knowledge, or experience of the soil and cli- 
mate, in the gardener. 

A case of this kind, which has recently come under our notice, 
is too striking an illustration not to be worth mentioning here. In 


86 HORTICULTURE. 


one of our large cities south of New-York, where the soil and cli- 
mate are particularly fine for fruit-growing—where the most deli- 
cious peaches, pears, and apricots grow almost as easily as the apple 
at the north; it was confidently stated to us by several amateurs, that 
the foreign grape could not be cultivated in vineries there—* several 
had tried it and failed.” We were, of course, as incredulous as if 
we had been told that the peach would not ripen in Persia, or the 
fig in Spain. But our incredulity was answered by a promise to 
show us the next day, that the thing had been well tried. 

We were accordingly shown: ands the exhibition, as we sus- 
pected, amounted to this. The vineries were in all cases placed and 
treated, in that bright, powerful sunshine, just as they would have 
been placed and treated in Britain—that is, facing due south, and 
generally under the shelter of a warm bank. Besides this, not half 
provision enough was made, either for ventilation or water. The 
result was perfectly natural. The vines were burned up by excess 
of light and heat, and starved for want of air and water. We pointed 
out how the same money (no small amount, for one of the tanges 
was 200 feet long), applied in building a span-roofed house, on a 
perfectly open exposure, and running on a north and-south, instead 
of an east and west line, and treated by a person who would open 
his eyes to the fact, that he was no longer gardening in the old, but 
the new world—would have given tons of grapes, where only pounds 
had been obtained. 

The same thing is seen on a smaller scale, in almost every fruit 
garden that is laid out. Tender fruit trees are planted on the south 
side of fences or walls, for sun, when they ought always to be put on 
the north, for shade; and foliage is constantly thinned out, to let 
the sun in to the fruit, when it ought to be encouraged to grow 
thicker, to protect it from the solar rays.* 

But, in fact, the whole routine of practice in American and 
British horticulture, is, and must be essentially different. We give 
to Boston, Salem, and-the eastern cities, the credit of bearing off the 


* If we were asked to say what practice, founded on principle, had been 
most beneficially introduced into our horticulture—we should answer 
mulching—tmulehing suggested by the need of moisture in our dry climate, 

the difficulty of preserving it about the roots of planta, 


oe 


AMERICAN VS. BRITISH HORTICULTURE. 87 


. 


palm of horticultural skill; and we must not conceal the fact, that 
the superiority of the fruits and flowers there, in a climate more un- 
. favorable than that of the middle States, has been owing, not to the 
superiority of the foreign gardeners which they employ—but to the 
greater knowledge and interest in horticulture taken there by the 
proprietors of gardens themselves. There is really a native school 
of horticulture about Boston, and even foreign gardeners there are 
obliged to yield to its influence. : 
We have spoken out our thoughts on this subject plainly, in the 
hope of benefiting both gardeners and employers among us. Every 
right-minded and intelligent foreign gardener, will agree with us in 
. deploring the ignorance of many of his brethren, and we hope will, 
by his influence and example, help to banish it. The evil we com- 
. plain of has grown to be a very serious one, and it can only be 
cured by continually urging upon gardeners that British horticulture 
will not suit America, without great modification, and by continually 
insisting upon employers learning for themselves, the principles of 
-gardening as it must be practised, to obtain any good results. This 
sowing good seed, and gathering tares, is an insult to Providence, in 
a country that, in its soil and climate, invites a whole population to 
a feast of Flora and Pomona. 


XIV. 


ON THE DRAPERY OF COTTAGES AND GARDENS. . 


February, 1849. 


UR readers very well know that, in the country, whenever any 
thing especially tasteful is to be done, when a church is to be 
“dressed for Christmas,” a public hall festooned for a fair, or 4 sa 
loon decorated for a horticultural show, we have to entreat the assist- 
ance of the fairer half of humanity. All that is most graceful and 
charming in this way, owes its existence to female hands. Over the 
heavy exterior of man’s handiwork, they weave a fairy-like web of ens 
chantment, which, like our Indian summer haze upon autumn hills, 
spiritualizes and makes poetical, whatever of rude form or rough 
outlines may lie beneath. 
Knowing all this, as we well do, we write this leader especially 
for the eyes of the ladies. They are naturally mistresses of the art 
of embellishment. Men are so stupid, in the main, about these mat- 
ters, that, if the majority of them had their own way, there would 
neither be a ringlet, nor a ruffle, a wreath, nor a nosegay left in the 
world. All would be as stiff and as meaningless as their own 
meagre black coats, without an atom of the graceful or romantic 
about them; nothing to awaken a spark of interest or stir a chord 
of feeling; nothing, in short, but downright, commonplace matter- 
of-fact. And they undertake to defend it—the logicians—on the 
ground of utility and the spirit of the age! As if trees did not 
bear lovely blossoms as well as good fruit; as if the sun did not 
give us rainbows as well as light and manuth, as if there were not 
still mocking-birds and nightingales as well as ducks and turkeys. 


ON THE DRAPERY OF COTTAGES AND GARDENS. 89 


But enough of that. You do not need any arguments to prove 
that grace is a quality as positive as electro-magnetism. Would 
that you could span the world with it as quickly as Mr. Morse with 
his telegraph. To come to the point, we want to. talk a little with 
you about what we call the drapery of cottages and gardens; about 
those beautiful vines, and climbers, and creepers, which nature made 
on purpose to cover up every thing ugly, and to heighten the charm 
of every thing pretty and picturesque. In short, we want your aid 
and assistance in dressing, embellishing, and decorating, not for a 
single holiday, fair, or festival, but for years and for ever, the out- 
sides of our simple cottages, and country homes; wreathing them 
about with such perennial festoons of verdure, and starring them 
over with such bouquets of delicious odor, that your husbands and 
brothers would no more think of giving up such houses, than they 
would of abandoning you (as that beggarly Greek, Theseus, did the 

lovely Ariadne) to the misery of solitude on a desolate island. 

And what a difference a little of this kind of rural drapery, 
‘tastefully arranged, makes in the aspect of a cottage or farm house 
in the country! At the end of the village, for instance, is that old- 
fashioned stone House, which was the homestead of Tim Steady. 
First and last, that family lived there two generations; and every 
thing about them had a look of some comfort. But with the ex- 
ception of a coat of paint, which the house got once inten years, 
nothing was ever done to give the place the least appearance of 
taste. An old, half decayed ash-tree stood near the south door, and 
a few decrepit and worn-out apple-trees behind the house. But 
there was not a lilac bush, nor a syringo, not a rose-bush nor a honey- 
suckle about the whole premises. You would never suppose that 
a spark of affection for nature, or a gleam of feeling for grace or 
beauty, in any shape, ever dawned within or around the house. 

Well, five years ago the place was put up for sale. There were 
some things to recommend it. There was a “good well of water ;” 
the house was in excellent repair; and the location was not a bad 
one. But, though many went to see it, and “liked the place toler- 
ably well,” yet there seemed to be a want of heart about it, that 
made it wnattractive, and prevented people from buying it. 

It was a good while in the market; but at last it fell into the 


90 HORTICULTURE. 


hands of the Widow Winning and her two daughters. They bought 
it at a bargain, and must have foreseen its capabilities. 

What that house and place is now, it would do your heart good 
to see. A porch of rustic trellis-work was built over the front door- 
way, simple and pretty hoods upon brackets over the windows, the 
door-yard was all laid out afresh, the worn-out apple-trees were dug 
up, a nice bit‘of lawn made around the house, and pleasant groups 
of shrubbery (mixed with two or three graceful elms) planted about 
it. But, most of all, what fixes the attention, is the lovely profusion 
of flowering vines that enrich the old house, and transform what 
was a, soulless habitation, into a home that captivates all eyes. Even 
the old and almost leafless ash-tree is almost overrun with a creeper, 
which ‘is stuck full of gay trumpets all summer, that seem to blow 
many a strain of gladness to the passers by. How many soris of 
honeysuckle, clematises, roses, etc., there are on wall or trellis about 
that cottage, is more than we can tell.’ Certain it is, however, that 
half the village walks past that house of a summer night, and in- 
wardly thanks the fair inmates for the fragrance that steals through 
the air in its neighborhood : and no less certain is it that this house 
is now the “admired of all admirers,” and that the Widow Winning 
has twice refused double the sum it went begging at when it was 
only the plain and meagre home of Tim Steady. 

Many of you in the country, as we well know, are compelled by 
circumstances to live in houses which some one else built, or which 
have, by ill-luck, an ugly expression in every board or block of stone, 
from the sill of the door to the peak of the roof. Paint won’t hide 
it, nor cleanliness disguise it, however goodly and agreeable things 
they are. But vines will do both; or, what is better, they will, with 
their lovely, graceful shapes, and rich foliage and flowers, give a new 
character to the whole exterior. However ugly the wall, however bald 
the architecture, only give it this fair drapery of leaf and blossom, 
and nature will touch it at once with something of grace and beauty. 

“What are our favorite vines?” This is what you would ask 
of us, and this is what we are most- anxious to tell you; as we see, 
already, that no sooner will the spring open, than you will imme- 
diately set about the good work. 

Our two favorite vines, then, for the adornment of cottages, in 


ON THE DRAPERY OF COTTAGES AND GARDENS. 91 


the Northern States, are the double Prairie Rose, and the Chinese 
Wistaria. Why we like these best is, because they have the greatest 
number of good qualities to recommend them. In the first place, 
they are hardy, thriving in all soils and exposures; in the second 
place, they are luxuriant in their growth, and produce an effect in 
a very short time—after which, they may be kept to the limits of a 
single pillar on the piazza, or trained over the whole side of a cot- 
tage; in the last place, they are rich in the foliage, and beautiful in 
the blossom. 

Now there are many vines more beautiful than these in some 
respects, but not for this purpose, and taken altogether. For cottage 
drapery, a popular vine must be one that will grow anywhere, with 
little care, and must need no shelter, and the least possible attention, 
‘beyond seeing that it has something to run on, and a looking over, 
pruning, and tying up once a year—say in early spring. This is 
precisely the character of these two vines; and hence we think they 
deserve to be planted from one end of ihe Union to the other. They 
will give the greatest amount of beauty, with the least care, and in 
the greatest number of places. 

_ The Prairie roses are, no doubt, known to most of you. They 
shave been raised from seeds of the wild rose of Michigan, which 
clambers over high trees in the forests, and are remarkable for the 
profusion of their very double flowers (so double, that they always 
look like large pouting buds, rather than full-blown roses), and 
their extreme hardiness and luxuriance of growth,—shoots of twenty 
feet, in a single year, being a not uncommon sight. Among all the 
sorts yet known, the Queen of the Prairies (deep pink), and Superba 
(nearly white), are the best. 

We wish we could give our fair readers a glance at a Chinese 
Wistaria in our grounds, as it looked last April. It covered the 
side of a small cottage completely. If they will imagine a space of 
10 by 20 feet, completely draped with Wistaria shoots, on which 
hung, thick as in a flower pattern, at least 500 clusters of the most 
delicate blossoms, of a tint between pearl and lilac, each bunch of 
bloom shaped like that of a locust tree, but eight inches to a foot 
long, and most gracefully pendant from branches just starting into 
tender green foliage ; if, we say, they could see all this, as we saw it, 


92 HORTICULTURE. 


and not utter exclamations of delight, then they deserve to be classed 
with those women of the nineteenth ee who are thoroughly 
“fit for sea-captains.” 

For a cottage climber, that will filie care of itself better. than 
almost any other, and embower door and windows with rich foliage 
and flowers, take the common Boursauwlt Rose. Long purplish 
shoots, foliage always fresh and abundant, and bright purplish 
blossoms in June, as thick as stars in a midnight sky,—all belong 
to this plant. Perhaps the richest and prettiest Boursault, is the 
one called by the nurserymen Amadis, or Hlegans ; the flower a 
bright cherry-color, becoming crimson purple as it fades, wa a 
delicate stripe of white through an occasional petal. 

There are two very favorite climbers that belong properly to 
the middle States, as they are a little tender, and need protection 
to the North or East. One of them is the Japan Honeysuckle 
(Lonicera japonica, or flexuosa*); the species with very dark, half 
evergreen leaves, and a profusion of lovely delicate white and fawn- 
colored blossoms. It is the queen of all honeysuckles for cottage 
walls, or veranda pillars; its foliage is always so rich; it is entirely 
free from the white aphis (which is the pest of the old sorts), and it 
blooms (as soon as the plant gets strong) nearly the whole summer, 
affording a perpetual feast of beauty and fragance. *The other, is 
the Sweet-scented Clematis (C. flammula), the very type of deli- 
cacy and grace, whose flowers are broidered like pale stars over the 
whole vine in midsummer, and whose perfume is the most spiritual, 
impalpable, and yet far-spreading of all vegetable odors. 

All the honeysuckles. are beautiful in the garden, though none 
of them, except the foregoing, and what are familiarly called the 
“ trumpet honeysuckles,” are fit for the walls of a cottage, because 
they harbor insects. Nothing, however, can well be prettier than 
the Red and Yellow Tr umpet Honeysuckles, when planted together 
and allowed to interweave their branches, contrasting the delicate 
straw-color of the flower tubes of one, with the deep coral-red hue of 
those of the other; and they bloom with a welcome prodigality from 
April to December. 


* The “ Chinese twining,” of some gardens. 


ON THE DRAPERY OF COTTAGES AND GARDENS. 93 


Where you want to produce a bold and picturesque effect with 
a vine, nothing will do it more rapidly and completely than our 
native prapes. They are precisely adapted to the porch of the farm- 
house, or to cover any building, or part of a building, where expres- 
sion of strength rather than of delicacy is sought-after. Then you 
will find it edsy to smooth away all objections from the practical 
soul of the farmer, by offering him a prospect, of ten bushels of fine 
Isabella or Catawba grapes a year, which you,.in your innermost 
heart, do not value half so much as five or ten months of beautiful 
drapery ! 

Next to the grape-vine, the boldest and most striking of hardy 
vines is the Dutchman’s pipe (Aristolochia sipho). It is a grand 
twining climber, and will canopy over a large arbor in a short time, 
and make a shade under it so dense that not a ray of pure sunshine 
will ever find its way through. Its gigantic circular leaves, of a 
rich green, form masses such as delight a painter's eye,—so broad 
and effective are they; and as for its flowers, which are about an 
inch and a half long,—why,. they are so like a veritable meer- 
schaum—the pipe of a true Dutchman from “Faderland”—that you 
cannot but laugh outright at the first sight of them. Whether 
Daphne was truly metamorphosed into the sweet flower that bears 
her naine, as, Ovid says, we know not; but no one can look at the 
blossom of the Dutchman’s pipe vine, without being convinced that 
nature has punished some inveterately lazy Dutch smoker by turning 
him into a vine, which loves nothing so well as to bask in the warm 
sunshine, with its hundred pipes, dangling on all sides. 

_And now, having -glanced at the best of the climbers and 
twiners, properly so called (all of which need a little training and 
supporting), let us take a peep at those climbing shrubs that seize 
hold of a wall, building, or fence, of themselves, by throwing out 
their little rootlets into the stone or brick wall as they grow up, so 
that it is as hard to break up any attachments of theirs, when they get 
fairly established, as it was to part Hector and Andromache. The 
principal of these are the true Ivy of Europe, the Virginia Creeper, 
or American Ivy, and the “Trumpet Creepers” (Bignonias.or Teco- 
mas). 

These are all fine, picturesque vines, not to be surpassed for cer- 


94 HORTICULTURE, 


tain effects by any thing else that will grow out of doors in our cli- 
mate, You must remember, however, that, as they are wedded for 
life to whatever they’ cling to, they must not be planted by the sides 
of wooden cottagés, which are to be kept in order by a fresh coat 
of paint now and then. Other’ climbers may be taken down, and 
afterwards tied back to their places ; but constant, indissoluble inti- 
macies like these must be let alone. You will therefore always take 
care to plant them where they canfix themselves permanently on a 
wall of some kind, or else upon some rough wooden building, where 
they will not be likely to be disturbed. 

Certainly ‘the finest of all this class of climbers is the European 
Ivy. Such rich masses of glossy, deep green foliage, such fine con- 
trasts of light and shade, and such a wealth of associations, is pos- 
sessed by no other plant; the Ivy, to which the ghost of all the 
storied past alone tells its tale of departed greatness; the confidant 
of old ruined castles and abbeys; the bosom companion of Boliiude 
itself,— 


7 


“Deep in your most sequestered bower 
Let me at last recline, 
Where solitude, mild, modest flower, 
Leans on her évy'd shrine.” 


True to these instincts, the Ivy does not seem to be ‘naturalized 
so easily in America as most other foreign vines. We are yet too 
young—this country of a great future, and a little past. 

The richest and most perfect specimen of it that we have seen, 

‘in the northern States, is upon the cottage of Washington Irving, 
on the Hudson, near Tarrytown. He, who as you all know, lingers 
over the past with a reverence as fond and poetical as that of a pious 
Crusader for the walls of Jerusalem—yes, he has completely won the 
sympathies of the Ivy, even on our own soil, and it has garlanded 
and decked his antique and quaint cottage, “Sunnyside,” till its 
windows peep out from amid the wealth of its foliage, like the dark 
eyes of a Spanish Senora from a shadowy canopy of dark lace and 
darker tresses. 

The Ivy is the finest of climbers, too, because it is so perfectly 
evergreen. North of New-York it is a little tender, and needs to be 


ON THE DRAPERY OF COTTAGES AND GARDENS. 95 


sheltered for a few years, unless it be planted on a north wall, quite 
out of the reach of the winter sun); and north of Albany, we think 
it will not grow at all. But all over the middle States it should be 
planted and cherished, wherever there is a wall for it to cling to, as 
the finest of all cottage drapery. 

After this plant, comes always our Virginia Creeper, or American 
Ivy, as it is often called (Ampelopsis). It grows more rapidly than 
the Ivy, clings in the same way to-wood or stone, and makes rich 
and beautiful festoons of verdure in summer, dying off in autumn, 
before the leaves fall, in the finest crimson. Its greatest beauty, on 
this account, is perhaps seen when it runs tip in the centre of a dark 
cedar, or other evergreen,—exhibiting in October the richest contrast 
of the two colors. It will grow any where, in the coldest situations, 
and only asks to be planted, to work out its own problem of beauty 
without further attention. This and the European Ivy are the two 
climbers, above all others, for the exteriors of our rural stone 
churches; to which they will give a local interest greater than that 
of any carving in stone, at a millionth part of the cost. 

The common Trumpet Creeper all of you know by heart. It is 
rather a wild and rambling fellow in its habits; but nothing is bet- 
ter to cover old outside chimneys, stone out- sbullaiuge, and rude walls 
and fences. The sort with large cup-shaped flowers (Tecoma grandi- 
flora), is amost showy and magnificent climber in the middle 
States, where the winters are moderate, absolutely glowing in July 
with its thousands of rich orange-red blossoms, like clusters of. 
bright goblets. 

We might go on, and enumerate dozens more of fine twining 
shrubs and climbing roses; but that would only defeat our present 
object, which is not to give you a garden catalogue, but to tell you 
of half a dozen hardy shrubby vines, which we implore you to make 
popular; so that wherever we travel, from Maine to St. Louis, we 
shall see no rural cottages shivering in their chill nudity of bare walls 
or barer boards, but draped tastefully with something fresh, and 
green, and graceful: let it be a hop-vine if nothing better,—but 
roses, and wistaria, and honeysuckles, if they can be had. How 
much this apparently trifling feature, if it could be generally carried 
out, would alter the face of the whole country, you will not at once 


96 HORTICULTURE. 


be able to believe. What summer foliage is to a naked forest, what 
rich tufts of ferns are to a rock in a woodland dell, what “ hya- 
cinthine locks” are to the goddess of beauty, or wings to,an angel, 
the drapery of climbing plants is to cottages in the country. 

One word or two about vines in the gardens and pleasure- 
grounds before we conclude. How to make arbors and trellises is 
no mystery, though you will, no doubt, agree with us, that the less 
formal and the more rustic the better. But how to manage single 
specimens of. fine climbers, in the lawn or garden, so as to display 
them to the best. advantage, is- not quite so clear. Small fanciful 
‘frames are pretty, but soon want repairs; and stakes, though ever 
so stout, will rot off at the bottom, and blow down in high winds, to 
your great mortification; and that, too, perhaps, when your plant 
is in its very court dress of bud and blossom. 

Now the best mode of. treating Single vines, when you have not 
a tree to festoon them upon, is one which many of you will be able 
to attain easily. It is nothing more than getting from the woods 
the trunk of a cedar-tree, from ten to fifteen feet high, shorteninB-in 
all the side branches to within two feet of the trunk (and still 
shorter near the top), and setting it again, as you would a post, two 
or three feet deep in the ground.* 

Cedar is the best; partly because it will last for ever, and partly 
because the regular disposition of its branches forms naturally a fine 
trellis for the shoots to fasten upgn. 

Plant your favorite climber, ‘whether rose, wistaria, or honey- 
suckle, at the foot of this tree. It will soon cover it, from top to 
- bottom, with the. finest pyramid of verdure. The young shoots will 
ramble out on its side branches, and when in full bloom, will ais 
most gracefully or picturesquely from the ends. 

The advantage of this mode is that, once obtained, your sup- 
port lasts for fifty years; it is so firm that winds do not blow it 
down ; it presents every side to the kindly influences of sun and air, 


* We owe this hint to Mr. Alfred Smith, of Newport, a most intelligent 
and successful amateurs, in whose garden we first saw fine specimens of this 
mode of treating climbers, 


ON THE DRAPERY OF COTTAGES AND GARDENS. 97 


and permits every blossom that opens, to be seen by the admiring 
spectator. How it looks at first, and afterwards, in a complete state, 
we have endeavored to give you a faint idea in this little sketch. 

“What shall those of 
us do who have neither 
cottages nor gardens !— 
who, in short, are confined 
to a little front and back 
yard of a town life, and 
yet who love vines and 
climbing plants with all 
our hearts ?” 

That is a hard case, 
truly. But, now we think 
of it, that ingenious and 
clever horticulteur, Mon- 
sieur Van Houtte, of Ghent, 
has contrived the very thing 
for you.* Here itis. He 
calls it a “ Trellis Mobile ;” 
and if we mistake not, it 
will be quite as valuable 
for the ornament and de- 
fence of cities, as the Garde 
Mobile of the Parisians. It 
is ‘nothing more than a 
good strong wooden box, 
upon wooden rollers. The box is about: three feet long, and the 
‘double trellis may be eight or ten feet high. % In this box the finer 
sorts of exotic climbers, such as passion flowers, everblooming roses, 
maurandias, ipomea learii, and the like, may be grown with a 
charming effect. Put upon wheels, as this itinerant bower is, it 
may be transported, as Mr. Van Houtte says, “ wherever fancy dic- 
tates, and even into the apartments of the house itself” And here, 
having fairly escorted you back to your apartments, after our long 


Movable Trellis. 


* Flore des Serres. 


98 HORTICULTURE. 


talk about out-door drapery, we leave you to examine the Trellis 
Mobile, and wish you a good morning. 


Climbing Plants on Cedar Trunks, 


LANDSCAPE GARDENING, 


LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


I. 


eI 
+ 


THE PHILOSOPHY OF RURAL TASTE. 


August, 1849. 

LL travellers agree, that while the English people are far from 

being remarkable for their taste in the arts generally, they are 

unrivalled in their taste for landscape gardening. So completely is 

this true, that wherever on the continent one finds a garden, con- 

spicuous for the taste of its design, one is certain to learn that it 

is laid out in the “English style,” and aaa kept by an English 
gardener. 

+ Not, indeed, that the south of ee is wanting in magnificent 
gardens, which are as essentially national in their character as the 
parks and pleasure-grounds of England. The surroundings of the 
superb villas of Florence and Rome, are fine examples of a species 
of scenery as distinct and striking as any to be found in the world; 
but which, however splendid, fall as ‘far below the English gardens 
in interesting’ the imagination, as a level plain does below the 
finest mountain valley in Switzerland. In the English landscape 
garden, one sees and feels every where the spirit of nature, only 
softened and: refined by art. In the French or Italian garden, 
one sees and feels only the effects of art, slightly assisted by nature. 
In one, the free’ and luxuriant growth of every tree and shrub, the 
widening and curving of every walk, suggests perhaps even a higher 

5 


102 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


ideal of nature—a miniature of a primal paradise, as we would 
imagine it to have been by divine right; in the other, the prodi- 
gality of works of art, the variety of statues and vases, terraces and 
balustrades, united with walks marked by the same studied symme- 
try and artistic formality, and only mingled with just foliage enough 
to constitute a garden,—all this suggests rather a statue gallery in 
the open air,—an accompaniment to the fair architecture of the 
mansion, than any pure or natural ideas of landscape beauty. 

The only writer who has ever attempted to account for this 
striking distinction of national taste in gardening, which distin- 
guishes the people of northern and southern Europe, is Humboldt. 
Tn his last great work—Cosmos—he has devoted some pages to the 
consideration of the study of nature, and the description of natural 
scenery,—a pprtion of the work in the highest degree interesting to 
every man of taste, as well as every lover of nature. | 

In this portion he shows, we think, very conclusively, that cer- 
tain races of mankind, however great in other gifts, are deficient in 
their perceptions of natural beauty; that northern nations posséss 
the love of. nature much more strongly than those of the south; 
and that the Greeks and Romans, richly gifted as they were with 
the artistic endowments, were inferior to other nations in a profound 
feeling of the beauty of nature. 

Humboldt also shows that our enjoyment of natural landscape 
gardening, which many suppose-to have originated in the cultivated 
and refined taste of a later age, is, on the contrary, purely a matter 
of national organization; The parks of the Persian monarchs, and 
the pleasure-gardens of the Chinese, were characterized by the same 
spirit of natural beauty which we sec in the English landscape gar- 
dens; and which is widely distinct from. that elegant formality of 
the geometric gardens of the Greeks and Romans of several centu- 
ries later. To prove how sound were the principles of Chinese taste, 
ages ago, he gives us a quotation from an ancient: Chinese writer, 
Lieu-tscheu, which might well be the text of the most tasteful im- 
prover-of the present day, and which.we copy for the study of our 
own readers. 

“ What is it,” says Lieu-tscheu, “ that we seek: in the pleasures 
of a garden? It has always been agreed that these plantations 


THE PHILOSOPHY OF RURAL TASTE. 103 


should make men amends for living at a distance Srém what would 
be their more congenial and agreeable dwelling-place—in the midst 
of nature, free and unconstrained. The art of laying out gardens 
consists, therefore, in combining cheerfulness of prospect, luxuriance 
of growth, shade, retirement and repose; so that the rural aspect 
may produce an illusion. Variety, which is the chief merit in the 
natural landscape, must be sought by the choice of ground, with 
alternation of hill and dale, flowing streams and lakes, covered with 
aquatic plants. Symmetry is wearisome; and a garden where 
every thing betrays constraint and art, becomes tedious and distaste- 
ful” 

‘We shall seek in vain, in the treatises of modern writers, for a 
theory of rural taste more concise and satisfactory than this of the 
Chinese landscape garden. 

Looking at this instinctive love of nature as a national charac- 
teristic, which belongs almost exclusively to distinct races, Hum- 
boldt asserts, that while the “ profoundest feeling of nature speaks 
forth in the earliest poetry of the Hebrews, the Indians, and the, Se- 
mitic and. Indo-Germanic nations, it is comparatively wanting in 
the works of the Greeks and Romans.” 

“Tn Grecian art,” says he, “all is made to concentrate within 
the sphere of human life and feeling. The description of nature, in 
her manifold diversity, as a distinct branch of poetic literature, was 
altogether foreign to the ideas of the Greeks. With them, the 
landscape is always the mere background of a picture, in the fore- 
ground of which human figures are moving. Passion, breaking 
forth in action, invited their attention almost exclusively ; the agita- 
tion of politics, and a life passed chiefly in public, withdrew men’s 
minds from enthusiastic absorption in the tranquil pursuit of 
nature.” 

On the other hand, the poetry of Britain, from a very early 
period, has been especially. remarkable for the deep and instinctive 
love of natural beauty which it exhibits. And. here lies the explana- 
tion of the riddle of the superiority of English taste in rural embel- 
lishment; that people enjoying their gardens the more as they 
embodied the spirit of nature, while the Italians, like the Greeks, 
enjoyed them the more as they embodied the spirit of art. 


104 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


The Romans, tried in the alembic of the great German savan, 
are found still colder in their love of nature’s charms than the 
Greeks. “A nation which manifested a marked predilection for 
agriculture and rural life might have justified other hopes; but 
with all their capacity for practical activity, the Romans, in their 
cold gravity and measuredesobriety of understanding, were, as a 
people, far inferior to the Greeks in the perception of beauty, far 
less sensitive to its influence, and much more devoted to the reali- 
ties of every-day life, than to an idealizing contemplation of 
nature.” ; . 

Judging them by their writings, Humboldt pronounces the great 
Roman writers to be comparatively destitute of real poetic feeling 
for nature. . Livy and Tacitus show, in their histories, little or no in- 
terest in natural scenery. Cicero describes landscape without poetic 
feeling. Pliny; though he rises to true poetic inspiration when de- 
scribing the great moving causes of the natural universe, “has few 
individual’ descriptions of. nature.” Ovid, in his exile, saw Hule to 
-charm him in the scenery around him’; and Virgil, though he ‘often 
devoted himself to subjects which prompt the enthusiasm of'a lover 
of nature, rarely glows with the’fire of a true worshipper of her mys- 
terious charms. And not only were the Romans indifferent to the 
‘beauty of natural landscape which daily surrounded them, but even 
‘to the sublimity and magnificence of those wilder and grander 
scenes, into which their love of conquest often led them. The fol- 
-lowing striking paragraph, from Humboldt’s work, is at once elo- 
‘quent and convincing on this point: 

“No description of the eternal snows of the Alps, when tinged 
in the morning or evening with a rosy hue,—of the beauty of the 
blue glacier ice, or of any part of the grandeur of the scenery in 
Switzerland—have reached us from the ancients, although states- 
men and generals, with men of letters in their train, were constantly 
passing from Helvetia into Gaul. All these travellers think only of 
complaining of the difficulties of the way ;.the romantic character 
of the scenery seems never to have engaged their attention. It is 
even known that Julius Cesar, when returning | to his legions, in 
Gaul, employed his time while passing over the Alps in preparing a 
grammatical ‘treatise, ‘De Analogia,’” 


THE PHILOSOPHY OF RURAL TASTE, 105 


The corollary to be drawn from this learned and, curious investi- 
gation of the history of national sensibility and taste, is a very clear 
and satisfactory one, viz., that as success, in “the art of composing 
a landscape” (as Humboldt significantly calls landscape-gardening), 
depends on appreciation of nature, the taste of an individual as well 
as that of a nation, will be in direct proportion to the profound sen- 
sibility with which he perceives the Beautiful in natural scenery. 

Our own observation not only fully confirms this theory, but it 
also leads us to the recognition of the fact, that among our country- 
men, at the present day, there are two distinct classes of taste in 
rural art; first, the poetic or northern taste, based’ on a deep, in- 
stinctive feeling for nature; and second, the artistic or symmetric 
taste, based on a perception of the Beautiful, as embodied in works 
of art. 

The larger part of our countrymen inherit the northern or Anglo- 
Saxon love of nature, and find most delight in the natural landscape 
garden; but we have also not a few to whom the classic villa, with 
its artistic adornments of vase and statue, urn and terrace, is an ob- 
ject of much more positive pleasure than the most varied and seduc- 
tive gardens, laid out with all the witchery of nature’s own handi- 
work. 

It is not part of our philosophy to urge our readers to war against 
their organizations, to whichever path, in the “ Delectable Mountains,” 
-they may be led by. them ; but, those who have not already studied 
Cosmos will, we trust, at least thank us for giving them the key to 
their natural bias towards one or the other of the two world-wide 
styles of ornamental gardening. 


I. 


THE BEAUTIFUL IN GROUND. 


March, 1852, 
E have sketched, elsewhere, the elements of the beautiful in a 
tree. Let us glance for a few moments at the beautiful in 
ground. 

We may have readers who think themselves not devoid of some 
taste for nature, but who have never thought of looking for beauty 
in the mere surface of the earth—whether in a natural landscape, 
or in ornamental grounds. Their idea of beauty is, for the most 
part, attached to the foliage and verdure, the streams of water, the 
high hills and the deep valleys, that make up the landscape. A 
meadow is to them but a meadow, and a ploughed field is but the 
same thing in a rough state. And yet there is.a great and endur- 
ing interest, to a refined and artistic eye, in the mere surface of the 
ground. There is a sense of pleasure awakened by the pleasing lines 
into which yonder sloping bank of turf steals away from the eye, 
and a sense of ugliness and harshness, by the raw and broken out- 
line of the abandoned quarry on the hill-side, which hardly any one 
can be so obtuse as not to see and feel. Yet the finer gradations 
are nearly overlooked, and the charm of beautiful surface in a lawn 
is seldom-or never considered in selecting a new site or improving 

-an old one. ~ 

We believe artists and men of taste have agreed that all 
forms of acknowledged beauty are composed of curved lines ; and 
we may add to this, that the more gentle and gradual the curves, 
or rather, the farther they are removed from those hard and forcible 


THE BEAUTIFUL IN GROUND. 107 


lie which denote violence, the more beautiful are they. The prin- 
iple applies as well to the surface of the earth as to other objects. 
The most beautiful shape in ground is that where one undulation 
melts gradually and insensibly into another. Every one who has 
observed scenery where the foregrounds were remarkable for beauty, 
must have been struck by this prevalenée of curved lines; and every 
landscape gardener well knows that no grassy surface is so captiva- 
ting to the eye, as one where these gentle swells and undulations 
rise and melt away gradually into one another. Some poet, happy 
in his fancy, has called such bits of grassy slopes and swells, “earth’s 
smiles ;” and when the effect of the beauty and form of outline is 
heightened by the pleasing gradation of light and shade, caused by 
the sun’s light,.variously reflected by such undulations of lawn, the 
simile seems strikingly appropriate. With every change of position 
the outlines vary, and the lights and shades vary with them, so that 
the eye is doubly pleased by the beauty of form and chiaro-oscuro, 
in a lawn with gracefully undulating surface. 

A flat or level surface is considered beautiful by many persons, 
though it has no beauty in itself. It is, in fact, chiefly valued because 
it evinces art. Though there is no positive beauty in a straight or 
level line, it is often interesting as expressive of power, and we feel as 
much awed by the boundless prairie or desert, as by the lofty snow-cap- 
ped hill. On a smaller scale, a level surface is sometimes agreeable 
in the midst of a rude and wild country by way of contrast, as a 
small, level garden in the Alps will sometimes attract one astonish- 
ingly, that would be passed by, unnoticed, in the midst of a flat and 
cultivated country. 

Hence, as there are a thousand men who value power, where 
there is one who can feel beauty, we see all ignorant persons who 


, set about embellishing their pleasure-grounds, or even the site for 
! a home, immediately commence Jevelling the surface. Once brought 


j to this level, improvement can go no further, according to their 


tt 


i 


views, since to subjugate or level, is the whole aim of man’s am- 
bition. Once levelled, you may give to grounds, or even to a whole 
landscape, according to their theory, as much beauty as you like. It 
is only a question of expense. 

This is a fearful fallacy, however ; fearful, oftentimes, to both the 


108 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


eye and the purse. If a dead level were the thing needful to con- 
stitute beauty of surface—then all Holland would be the Arcadia 
of Landscape Painters ; and while Claude, condemned to tame Italy, 
would have painted the interior of inns, and groups of boors drink- 
ing (vide the Dutch School of Art), Teniers, living in the dead level 
of his beautiful nature, would have bequeathed to the world pictures 
of his native land, full of the loveliness of meadows smooth as a 
carpet, or enlivened only by pollard willows and stagnant canals. 
It is not the Jess fearful to see, as we have often seen in this country, 
where new places are continually made, a finely varied outline of 
ground utterly spoiled by being graded for the mansion and its sur- 
rounding lawn, at an expense which would have curved all the 
walks, and filled the grounds with the finest trees and shrubs, if their 
ace had been left nearly or quite as nature formed it. Not much 
etter, or even far worse, is the foolish fancy many persons have of 
racing every piece of sloping ground—as a mere matter of orna- 
ent, where no terrace is needed. It may be pretty safely said, that 
a terrace is always ugly, unless it is on a large scale, and i is treated 
with dignity, so as to become part of the building’ itself, or more 
properly be supposed to’ belong to it than to the grounds—like the 
fine, architectural terraces which surround the old English mansions. 
But little gardens thrown up into terraces, are devoid of all beauty 
whatever—though they may often be rendered more useful or avail- 
able in this way. 

The surface of ground is rarely ugly in a state of nature— 
because all nature leans to the beautiful, and the constant action of 
the elements goes continually to soften and wear away the harshness 
and violence of surface. What cannot be softened, is hidden and 
rounded by means of foliage, trees and shrubs, and creeping vines, 
and so the tendency to the curve is always greater and greater. But 
man often forms ugly surfaces of ground, by breaking up all natural 
curves, without recognizing their expression, by distributing lumps 
of earth here and there, by grading levels in the midst of undulations, 
and raising mounds on perfectly smooth surfaces; in short, by re- 
garding only the little he wishes to do in his folly, and not studying 
the larger part that nature has already done in her wisdom. As a 
common, though accidental illustration of this, we may notice that 


THE BEAUTIFUL IN GROUND. 109 


ural beauty of surface, by ridging up the soil at the outsides of the 
field, and thus breaking up that continuous flow of line which de- 
lights the eye. 

Our object in these remarks, is simply to ask our readers to think 
in the beginning, before they even commence any improvements on 
the surface of ground which they wish to embellish—to think in 
what natural beauty really consists, and whether in grading, they are 
not wasting money, and losing that which they are seeking. It 
will be better still, if they will consider the matter seriously, when 
they are about buying a place, since, as we have before observed, no 
money is expended with so little to show for it, and so little satisfac- 
tion, as that spent in changing the original surface of the ground. 

Practically—the rules we would deduce are the following: To 
select, always, if possible, a surface varied by gentle curves and un- 
dulations, If something of this character already exists, it may 
often be greatly heightened or improved at little cost. Very often, 
too, a nearly level surface may, by a very trifling addition—only 
adding a few inches in certain points, be raised to a character of 
positive beauty—by simply following the hints given by nature. 

When a surface is quite level by nature, wé -must usually con- 
tent ourselves with trusting to planting, and the arrangement of 
walks, buildings, dsc., to produce beauty and variety; and we would 
always, in such cases, rather expend money in introducing beautiful 
vases, statues, or other works of positive artistic merit, than’ to ter- 
race and unmake what character nature has stamped on the ground. 
" Positively ugly and ‘forbidding surfaces of ground, may be ren- 
dered highly interesting and beautiful, only by changing their char- 
acter, entirely, by planting. Such ground, after this has been done, 
becomes only the'skeleton of the fair outside of beauty and verdure 
that covers the forbidding original. . Some of the most picturesque 
ravines and rocky hill-sides,-if stripped entirely of their foliage, 
would appear as ugly as they were before beautiful ; and while this 
may teach the improver that there is’ no situation that may not be 
rendered attractive, if the soil will yield a growth of trees, shrubs, 
and vines, it does not the less render it worth our attention in choos- 
ing or improving a place, to examine carefully beforehand, in what 
really consists the Beautiful in ground, and whether we should lose 
or gain it in our proposed improvements. 


Il. 


HINTS TO RURAL IMPROVERS. 


July, 1848. 

NE of the most striking proofs of the progress of refinement, in 

the United States, is the rapid increase of taste for ornamental 
gardening and rural embellishment in all the older portions of the 
northern and middle States. 

It cannot be denied, that the tasteful improvement of a country | 
residence is both one of the most agreeable and the most natural | 
recreations that can occupy a cultivated mind. With all the interest | 
and, to many, all the excitement of the more seductive amusements 
of society, it has the incalculable advantage of fostering only the 
purest feelings, and (unlike many other occupations of business men) 
refining, instead of hardening the heart. 

The great German poet, Goethe, says— 


“Happy the man who hath escapéd the town, 
Him did an angel bless when he was born.” 


This apostrophe was addressed to the devotee of country life as a 
member of a class, in the old world, where men, for the most part, 
are confined to certain walks of life by the limits of caste, to a de- 
gree totally unknown in this country. 

. With us, country life is a leading object of nearly all men’s de- 
sires. The wealthiest merchant looks-upon his country-seat as the 
best ultimatum of his laborious days in the counting-house. The 
most indefatigable statesman dates, in his retirement, from his “Ash- 
land,” or his “Lindenwold.” Webster has his “ Marshfield,” where 


HINTS TO RURAL IMPROVERS. lil 


_ his scientific agriculture is no less admirable than his profound elo- 
quence in the Senate. Taylor's well-ordered plantation is not less 
significant of the man, than the battle of Buena Vista. Washing- 
ton Irving’s cottage, on the Hudson, is even more poetical than any 
chapter of his Sketch Book ; and Cole, the greatest of our landscape 
painters, had his rural Nome under the very shadow of the Catskills. 

This is well. In the United States, nature and domestic life are 
better than society and the manners of towns. Hence all sensible 
men gladly escape, earlier or later, and partially or wholly, from the 
turmoil of the cities. Hence the dignity and value of country life 
is every day augmenting. And hence the enjoyment of landscape 
or ornamental gardening—which, when in pure taste, may properly 
be called a more refined kind of nature,—is every day becoming 
more and more widely diffused. ‘ 

Those who are not as conversant as ourselves with the statistics 
of horticulture and rural architecture, have no just idea of the rapid 
multiplication of pretty cottages and villas in many parts of North 
America. The vast web of railroads which now interlaces the con- 
tinent, though really built for the purposes of trade, cannot wholly 
escape doing some duty for the Beautiful as well as the Useful. 
Hundreds and thousands, formerly obliged to live in the crowded 
streets of cities, now find themselves able to enjoy a country cottage, 
several miles distant,—the old notions of time and space being half 
annihilated ; and these suburban cottages enable the busy citizen to 
breathe freely, and keep alive his love for nature, till the time shall 
come when he shall have wrung out of the nervous hand of com- 
merce enough means to enable him to realize his ideal of the “re- 
tired life” of an American landed proprietor. 

The number of our country residences which are laid out, and 
kept at a high point of ornamental gardening, is certainly not very 
large, though it is continually increasing. But we have no hesita- 
tion in saying that the aggregate sum annually expended in this 
way for the last five years, in North America, is not exceeded in any 
country in the world save one. 

England ranks before all other countries in the perfection of its 
landscape gardening ; and enormous, almost incredible sums have 
been expended by her wealthier class upon their rural improvements. 


112 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


But the taste of England is, we have good reasons for believing, at 
its maximum; and the expenditure of the aristocracy is, of late, 
chiefly devoted to keeping up the existing style of their parks’ and 
pleasure-grounds. In this country, it is quite surprising how rapid 
is the creation of new country residences, and how large is the ag- 
gregate amount continually expended in the construction of houses 
and grounds, of a character more or less ornamental. 

Granting all this, it cannot be denied that there are also, in the 
United States, large sums of money—many millions of dollars— 
annually, most unwisely and injudiciously expended in these rural 
improvements. While we gladly admit that there has been a sur- 
prising and gratifying advance in taste within the last ten years, we 
are also forced to confess that there are countless specimens of bad 
taste, and hundreds of examples where a more agreeable and satis- 
factory result might have been attained at one-half the cost. 

Is it not, therefore, worth while to inquire a little more definitely 
what are the obstacles that lie in the way of forming satisfactory, 
tasteful, and agreeable country residences ? 

The common reply to this question, when directly put in the face 
of any signal example of failure is—“ Oh, Mr. is a man of no 
taste!” There is, undoubtedly, often but too much truth in’ this 
clean cut at the esthetic capacities of the unlucky improver. But 
it by no means follows that it is always true. A man may have 
taste, and yet if he trusts to his own powers of direction, signally 
fail in tasteful improvements. 

We should say that two grand errors are the fertile causes of 

all the failures in the rural improvements of the United States at the 
present moment. , 
The first error lies in supposing that good taste is a natural gift, 
which springs heaven-born into ‘perfect existence—needing no cilti- 
vation or improvement. Thesecond is in supposing that taste alone 
is sufficient to the production of extensive or complete works in 
architecture or landscape gardening. 

A lively sensibility to the Beadtiful, is a natural faculty, mistaken 
by more than half the world for good taste itself, But good taste, 
in the true meaning of the terms, or, more strictly, correct taste, 
only exists where sensibility to the Beautiful, and good judgment, 


HINTS TO RURAL IMPROVERS. 113 


are combined in the same mind. Thus, a person may have a deli- 
cate organization, which will enable him to receive pleasure from 
every thing that possesses grace or beauty, but with it so little power 
of discrimination as to be unable to select among niany pleasing 
objects, those which, under given circumstances, are the most beauti- 
ful, harmonious, or fitting. Such a person may be said to have na- 
tural sensibility, or fine perceptions, but not good taste; the latter 
belongs properly to one who, among many beautiful objects, rapidly 
compares, discriminates, and gives due rank to each, according to 
its merit. 

Now, although that delicacy of organization, usually called taste, 
is a natural gift, which can no more be acquired than hearing can 
be by a deaf man, yet, in most persons, this sensibility to the Beau- 
tiful may be cultivated and ripened into good taste by the study and 
comparison of beautiful productions in nature and art. 

This is precisely what we wish to insist. upon, to all persons 
about to commence rural embellishments, who have not a cultivated 
or just taste; but only sensibility, or what they would call a natural 
taste. 

Three-fourths of all the building and ornamental gardening of 
America, hitherto, have been amateur performances—often the pro- 
ductions of ‘persons who, with abundant natural sensibility, have 
taken no pains to cultivate it and form a correct, or even a good 
taste, by studying and comparing the best examples already in 
existence in various parts of this or other countries. Now the 
study of the best productions in the fine arts is not more necessary 
to the success of the young painter and sculptor than that of build- 
ings and grounds to the amateur or professional improver, who 
desires to improve a country residence well and tastefully. In both 
cases comparison, discrimination, the use of the reasoning faculty, 
educate the natural delicacy of perception into taste, more or less 
just and perfect, and enable it not only to arrive at Beauty, but to 
select the most beautiful for the end in view. 

There are at the present moment, without going abroad, oppor- 
tunities of cultivating a taste in landscape-gardening, quite sufficient 
to enable any one of natural sensibility to the Beautiful, combined 
with good reasoning powers, to arrive at that point which may be 

8 


114 LANDSCAPE’ GARDENING. 


considered ‘good taste. There are, indeed, few persons who are 
aware-how instructive and: interesting to -an amateur, a visit to all 
the finest country residences of the older. States, would be at the 
present moment. The study of books on taste is by no means to be 
neglected by the novice in rural embellishment; but: the practical 
illustrations of different styles and principles, to be found in the best 
cottage and villa residences, are far more convincing and instruc- 
tive to most minds, than lessons taught in any other mode what- 
ever. 

We shall not, therefore, hesitate to commend a few ofthe most 
interesting places to the study of the tasteful improver. By the 
expenditure of the necessary time and money to examine and com- 
pare thoroughly such places, he will undoubtedly save himself much 
unnecessary outlay; be will be able to seize and develope many 
beauties which would otherwise be overlooked ; and, most of all, he 
will be able to avoid the exhibition of that crude and uncultivated 
taste, which characterizes the attempts of the majority of beginners, 
who rather know how to enjoy:beautiful grounds than how to g6 to 
work to produce them. 

For that species of suburban cottage or villa residence one is 
most frequent within the reach of persons of moderate fortunes, the 
environs of Boston afford the finest examples in the Union. Averag- 
ing from five to twenty acres, they are usually laid out with taste, 
are well planted with a large variety of trees and shrubs, and above 
all, are exquisitely kept. As a cottage ornée, there are few places 
in America more perfect than the grounds of Colonel Perkins, or of 
Thos. Lee, Esq., at Brookline, near Boston. The latter is especially 
remarkable for the beauty of the lawn, and the successful manage- 
ment-of rare trees and shrubs, and ‘is a most excellent study for the 
suburban landscape-gardener. There are many other places in that 
neighborhood abounding with interest; but the great feature of the 
gardens of Boston lies rather in their horticultural than their artis- 
tical merit. In foreing and skilful cultivation, they still rank before 
any other of the country. Mr. Cushing’s residence, near Watertown, 
has long been celebrated in this respect. 

An amateur who wishes to study trees, should visit the fine old 
places in the neighborhood of Philadelphia. A couple of days spent 


HINTS TO RURAL IMPROVERS. 115 


at the Bartram Garden, the Hamilton Place, and many of the old 
estates bordering the Schuylkill, will make him-familiar with rare 
and fine trees, such as Salisburias, Magnolias, Virgilias, etc., of a size 
and beauty of growth that will not only fill him with astonishment, 
but convince him what effects may be produced by planting. As 
a specimen ofa cottage residence of the-first class, exquisitely kept, 
there are also few examples in America more perfect than Mrs. 
Camac’s grounds, four or five miles from Philadelphia. 

For landscape gardening, on a large scale, and in its best sense, 
there are no places in America which compare with those on the 
east bank of the Hudson, between Hyde Park and the town of 
Hudson. The extent of the grounds, and their fine natural advan- 
tages of wood and lawn, combined with their grand and beautiful’ 
views, and the admirable manner in which these natural charms 
are heightened by art, place them far before any other residences in 
the United States in picturesque beauty. In a strictly horticultural 
sense, they are, perhaps, as much inferior to the best places about 
Boston as they are superior to them in the beauty of landscape gar- 
dening and picturesque effect. 

Among these. places, those which enjoy the highest reputation, 
are Montgomery Place, the seat of Mrs. Edward Livingston, Blithe- 
wood, the seat of R. Donaldson, Esq., and Hyde Park, the seat of 
W. Langdon, Esq. The first is remarkable for its extent, for the 
wonderful variety of scenery—wood, water, and gardenesque—which 
it-embraces, and for the excellent general keeping of the grounds. 
The second is a fine illustration of great natural beauty,—a mingling 
of the graceful and grand in scenery,—admifably treated and 
heightened by art. Hyde Park is almost too well known to need 
more than a passing notice. It is a noble site, greatly enhanced in 
interest lately, by the erection of a fine new mansion. 

The student or amateur in landscape gardening, who wishes to 
examine two places as remarkable for breadth and dignity of effect 
as any in America, will not fail to go to the Livingston Manor, seven 
miles east of Hudson, and to Rensselaerwyck, a few miles from 
Albany, on the eastern shore. The former has the best kept and 
most extensive lawn in the Union; and the latter, with five or six 
miles of gravelled walks and drives, within its own boundaries, ex- 


116 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


hibits some of the cleverest illustrations of practical skill in laying 
out grounds that we remember to have seen.* 

If no person, about to improve a country residence, would ex- 
pend a dollar until-he had ‘visited and carefully studied, at: least 
twenty places of the charactér.of these which we have thus pointed 
out, we think the number of specimens of. bad taste, or'-total want 
of taste, would be astonishingly dirainished. We could: point to 
half a dozen examples ‘within our own knowledge, where ten days 
spent by their proprietors in examining what had already been done 
in some of the “best specimens of: building and gardening -in the 
country, could not but have prevented their proprietors from mak- 
ing their places ‘absolutely hideous, and throwing away ten, twenty, 
or thirty thousand dollars.. Ignorance is not bliss, nor is it econo- 
my, in improving a country-seat. 

We think, also, there can scarcely be a question that an exam- 
ination of the best examples of taste in rural improvement at 
home, is far more instructive to an American, than an inspection :of 
the finest country places in Europe; and this, chiefly, because’ a 
really successful example at home is based upon republican modes 
of life, enjoyment, and expenditure——which are almost the reverse 
of those of an aristocratic government. For the same reason, we 
think those places most instructive, and best worthy general study 
in this country, which realize most completely our ideal of refined 
country life in America. To do this, it is by no means necessary to 
have baronial possessions, or a mansion of vast extent.' No more 
should be attempted than can be done well, and in perfect: harmony 
with our habits, mode of life, and domestic institutions. Hence, 
smaller suburban residences, like those in the neighborhood of Bos- 
ton, are, perhaps, better models, or studies for the public generally, 
_ than our grander and more extensive seats; mainly because they 
are more expressive of the means and ‘character of the majority of. 


* We should apologize for thus pointing out private places, did we not 
know that the liberal proprietors of those just named, are persons.who take 
the liveliest interest in the progress of good taste, and will cheerfully. allow 
their places to be examined by those who visit them with such mone ag 
we here urge,—very different from idle curiosity. 


HINTS TO RURAL IMPROVERS. 117 


those of our countrymen whose intelligence and refinement lead 
them to find their happiness in country life. It is better to attempt 
a small place, and attain perfect success, than to fail in one of 
greater extent. 

‘Having pointed out what we consider indispensable to be done, 
.to assist in forming, if possible,a correct taste in those who have 
only a natural delicacy of organization, which they miscall taste, we 
may also add that good taste, or even a perfect taste, is often by 
no means sufficient for the production of really extensive works of 
rural architecture or landscape-gardening. 

“Taste,” says Cousin, in his Philosophy of the Beautiful, “is a 
faculty indolent and passive; it reposes tranquilly in the contem- 
plation of the Beautiful in Nature. Genius is proud and free; ge- 
nius creates and reconstructs.” 

He, therefore (whether as amateur or professor), who hopes to 
be successful in the highest degree, in the arts of refined building or 
landscape-gardening, must possess not only faste to appreciate the 
Beautiful, but genius to produce it. Do we not often see persons 
who have for half their lives enjoyéd a reputation for correct taste, 
suddenly lose it when they attempt to embody it in some practical 
manner? Such persons have only the “indolent and passive,” and 
not the “ free and creative faculty.” Yet there are a thousand little 
offices of supervision and control, where the taste alone may be ex- 
ercised with the happiest results upon a country place. It is by no 
means a small merit to prevent any violations of good taste, if we 
cannot achieve any great work of genius. And we are happy to 
be able to say that we know many amateurs in this country who 
unite with a refined taste a creative genius, or practical ability to 
carry beautiful improvements into execution, which has already 
enriched the country with beautiful examples of rural residences ; 
and we can congratulate ourselves that, along with other traits of 
the Anglo-Saxon mind, we have by no means failed in our inherit- 
ance of that fine appreciation of rural beauty, and the power of de- 
véloping it, which the English have so long possessed. 

We hope the number of those who are able to enjoy this most 
‘tefined kind of happiness will every day grow more and more nu- 


118 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


merous; and tnat it may do so, we are confident we can give no 
better advice than again to commend beginners, before they lay a 
comer stdne,.or: plant.a tree, to visit and study at least a dozen 
or twenty of the acknowledged best specimens of good taste in 
America, 


IV. 


A FEW HINTS ON LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


November, 1851. 

OVEMBER is, above all others, the tree-planting month over 
the wide Union. Accordingly, every one who has a rood of 
land, looks about him at this season, to see what can be done to im- 
prove and embellish it. Some have bought new places, where they 
have to build and create every thing in the way of home scenery, 
and they, of course, will have their heads full of shade trees and 
fruit trees, ornamental shrubs and evergreens, lawns and walks, and 
will tax their imagination to the utmost to see in the future all the 
varied beauty which they mean to work out of the present blank 
fields that they have taken in hand. These, look for the most rapid- 
growing and effective materials, with which to hide their nakedness, 
and spread something of the drapery of beauty over their premises, 
in the shortest possible time. Others, have already a goodly stock 
of foliage and shade, but the trees have been planted without taste, 
and by thinning out somewhat here, making an opening there, and 
planting a little yonder, they hope to break up the stiff boundaries, 
and thus magically to convert awkward angles into graceful curves, 
and harmonious outlines. Whilst others, again, whose gardens and 
pleasure-grounds have long had their earnest devotion, are busy turn- 
ing over the catalogues of the nurseries, in search of rare and curious 
trees and shrubs, to add still more of novelty and interest to their 
favorite lawns and walks. As the pleasure of creation may be sup- 
posed to be the highest pleasure, and as the creation of scenery in 
landscape gardening is the nearest approach to the matter that we 


” 


120 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


can realize in a practical way, it is not difficult to see that Novem- 
ber, dreary as it may seem to the cockneys who have rushed back 
to gas-lights and the paved streets of the city, is full of interest; and 
even excitement, to the real lover of the country. 

It is, however, one of the characteristics of the human mind to 
overlook that which is immediately about us, however admirable, 
and to attach the greatest importance to whatever is rare, and diffi- 
cult to be obtained. A remarkable illustration of the truth of this, 
may be found in the ornamental gardening of this country, which is 
noted for the strongly marked features made in its artificial. scenery 
by certain poorer sorts of foreign trees, as well as the almost total 
neglect of finer native materials, that are indigenous to the soil. 
We will undertake to say, for example, that almost one-half ofall 
the deciduous trees that have been set in ornamental plantations for : 
the last ten years, have been composed, for the most part, of two 
very indifferent foreign trees—the ailantus and the silver poplar. 
When we say indifferent, we do not mean to-say that such trees as 
the ailantus and the silver poplar, are not valuable . trees in their 
way—that is, that they are rapid growing, will thrive in all soils, and 
are transplanted with the greatest facility—suiting at once both the 
money-making grower and the ignorant planter—but we do say, 
that when such trees as the American elms, maples and oaks, can 
be raised with so little trouble—trees as full of grace, dignity, and 
beauty, as any that grow in any part of the world—trees, too, that: 
go on gathering new beauty with age, instead of throwing up suck-. 
ers that utterly spoil lawns, or that become, after the first few years, 
only a more intolerable nuisance every day—it is time to protest. 
against the indiscriminate use of such sylvan materials—no matter 
how much of “ heavenly origin,” or “silvery ” foliage, they may have 
in their well sounding names. 

Itis by no means the fault of the nurserymen, that their nurse- 
ries abound in ailantuses and poplars, while so’ many of our fine 
forest trees are hardly to be found. The nurserymen are bound to 
pursue their business so as to make it profitable, and if people ignore: 
oaks and ashes, and adore poplars and. ailantuses, nurserymen can- 
not be expected to starve because the planting public generally are’ 
destitute of taste, 


A FEW HINTS ON LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 121 


What the planting public need is to have their attention called 
to the study of natwre—to be made to understand that it is in our 
beautiful woodland slopes, with their undulating outlines, our broad 
river meadows studded with single trees and groups allowed to grow 
and expand quite in a state of free and graceful development, our 
steep hills, sprinkled with picturesque pines and firs, and our deep 
valleys, dark with hemlocks and cedars, that the real lessons in the 
beautiful and picturesque are to be taken, which will lead us to the 
appreciation of the finest elements of beauty in the embellishment of 
our country places—instead of this miserable rage for “trees of 
heaven” and other fashionable tastes of the like nature. There are, 
for example, to be found along side of almost every sequestered lawn 
by the road-side in the ‘northern States, three trees that are strikingly 
remarkable for beauty of foliage, growth or flower, viz.: the tulip- 
tree, the sassafras, and the pepperidge. The first is, for stately 
elegance, almost unrivalled among forest trees: the second, when 
planted in cultivated soil and allowed a fair chance, is more beauti- 
ful in its diversified laurel-like foliage than almost. any foreign tree 
in our pleasure-grounds : and the last is not surpassed by the orange 
or the bay in its glossy leaves, deep green as an emerald in summer, 
and rich red as a ruby in autumn—and all of them freer from the 
attacks of insects than either larches, lindens, or elms, or a dozen 
other favorite foreign trees,—besides being unaffected by the summer 
sun, where horse-chestnuts are burned brown, and holding their foli- 
age through all the season like native-born Americans, when foreign- 
ers shrivel and die; and yet we could name a dozen nurseries where 
there is a large collection of ornamental trees of foreign growth, but 
neither a sassafras, nor a pepperidge, nor perhaps a tulip-tree could 
be had for love or money. 

There is a large spirit of inquiry and a lively interest in rural 
taste, awakened on every side of us, at the present time, from Maine 
to the valley of the Mississippi—but the great mistake made by most 
novices is that they study gardens too much, and nature too little. 
Now gardens, in general, are stiff and graceless, except just so far as 
nature, ever free and flowing, re-asserts her rights, in spite of man’s 
want, of taste, or helps him when he has endeavored to work in her 
own spirit. But the fields and woods are full of instruction, and in 


22 ** LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


ich features of our richest and most. smiling and diversified country 
ust.the best hints for the embellishment of rural homes always be 
wived. And yet it is not any portion of the woods and fields that 
e wish our finest pleasure-ground scenery precisely. to resemble. 
7e rather wish to select from the finest sylvan features of nature, 
id to recompose the materials in a choicer manner—by rejecting 
1y thing foreign to the spirit of elegance and refinement which 
iould characterize the landscape of the most tasteful country resi- 
mce—a landscape in which all that is graceful and beautiful in 
iture is preserved—all her most perfect forms and most harmoni- 
1s lines—but with that added refinement which high keeping-and 
mtinual care confer on natural beauty, without impairing its innate 
init of freedom, or the truth and freshness of its intrinsic character. 
planted elm of fifty years, which stands in the midst of the smooth 
wn before yonder mansion—its long graceful branches towering 
ywards like an. antique classical vase, and then sweeping to the 
‘ound with a curve as beautiful as the falling spray of a fountain, 
18 all the. freedom of character of its best prototypes in the wild 
oods, with a refinement: and a perfection of symmetry which it 
ould be next to impossible to find in a wild tree. Let us take it 
en as:the type. of all true art in landscape gardening-—which selects 
ym natural materials that abound in any country, its best sylvan 
atures, and by giving them a better opportunity than they could 
herwise obtain, brings about a higher beauty of development and 
more perfect expression than nature itself offers. Study landscape 
nature more, and the gardens. and their catalogues less,—is our 
lvice to the rising generation of planters, who wish to embellish 
eir places in the best and purest taste. 


b's 


.ON THE MISTAKES OF CITIZENS IN COUNTRY LIFE. 


January, 1849. 

TO one loves the country more sincerely, or welcomes new de- 
votees to the worship of its pure altars more warmly, than 
ourselves. To those-who bring here hearts eapable of understand- 
ing the lessons of truth and beauty, which the Good Creator has 
written so legibly on all his works ; to those in whose nature is im- 
planted a sentiment that interprets the tender and the loving, as well 
as the grand and sublime lessons of the universe, what a life full of 

joy, and beauty, and inspiration, is that of the country; to such, ° 


—— ‘The deep recess of dusky groves, 
Or forest where the deer securely roves, 
The fall of waters and the song of birds, 
: And hills that echo to the distant herds, 
Are luxuries, excelling all the glare 
The world can boast, and her chief fav’rites share.” 


There are those who rejoice in our Anglo-Saxon inheritance of 
the love of conquest, and the desire for boundless territory,—who 
exult in the “ manifest destiny” of the race, to plant the standard 
of the eagle or the lion in every soil, and every zone of the earth’s 
surface, We rejoice much more in the love of country life, the en- 
joyment of nature, and the taste for rural beauty, which we also 
inherit from our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, and to which, more than 
all else, they owe so many of the peculiar virtues of the race, 

With us, as a people, retirement to country life, must come to 


124 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


be the universal pleasure of the nation. The successful statesman, 
professional man, merchant, trader, mechanic,;—all look to it as thé 
only way of enjoying the otium. cum dignitate ; and the great 
beauty and extent of our rural scenery, as well as the absence of any 
great national capital, with its completeness of metropolitan life, 
must render the country the most satisfactory place for peeing a 
part of every man’s days, who has the power of choice. 

It is not to be denied, however, that “retirement to the country,” 
which is the beau ideal of all the busy and successful citizens of our 
towns, is not always found to be the elysium which it has been 
fondly imagined. No doubt there are good reasons why nothing in 
this world should afford perfect and uninterrupted happiness. - 


“The desire of the moth for the star” 


might cease, if parks and pleasure-grounds could fill up the yearn- 
ings of human nature, so as to leave no aspirations for futurity. 

But this is not our present meaning. What we would say is, 
that numbers are disappointed with country life, and perhaps leave 
it in disgust, without reason, either from mistaken views of its na- 
ture, of their own incapacities for enjoying it, or a want of practical 
ability to govern it. 

‘We might throw our views into a more concrete shape, perhaps, 
by saying that the disappointments in country life arise chiefly from 

-two causes. The first is, from expecting too much. The second, from 
undertaking too much. 

There are, we should judge from observation, many citizens who 
retire to the country, after ten or twenty years’ hard service in the 
business and society of towns, and who carry with them the most 
romantic ideas of country life. They expect to pass their time in 
wandering over daisy-spangled meadows, and by the side of mean- 
dering streams. They will listen to the singing of birds, and find 
a perpetual feast of enjoyment in the charm of hills and mountains. 
Above all, they have an extravagant notion of the purity and the 
simplicity of country life. All its intercourse, as well as all its plea- 
sures, are to be so charmingly pure, pastoral, and poetical ! 

What a disappointment to find that there is-prose even-in coun- 


ON THE MISTAKES OF CITIZENS IN COUNTRY LIFE. 125 


try life,—that meadows do not give up their sweet incense, or corn- 
fields wave their rich harvests without care-—that “work-folks” are 
often unfaithful, and oxen stubborn, even an hundred miles from the 
smoke of towns, or the intrigues of great cities. 

Another, and a large class of those citizens, who expect too much 
in the country, are those who find, to their astonishment, that the 
. country is dulZ, They really admire nature, and love rural life ; but, 
though they: are ashamed to confess it, they are “bored to death,” 
and.leave the country in despair. 

This is a mistake which grows out of their-want of knowledge 
of themselves, and, we may add, of human nature generally. Man 
is a social, as well as a reflective and devout being.’ He must have 
friends to share his pleasures, to sympathize in his tastes, to enjoy 
with him the delights of’ his home, or these become wearisome and 
insipid. Cowper has well expressed the want of this large class, and 
their suffering, when left wholly to themselves :— 


“T praise the Frenchman, his remark was shrewd,— 
How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude! 
‘But give me still a friend, in my retreat, 
Whom I may whisper—solitude is sweet. 


The mistake made by this class, is that of thinking only of the 
beauty of the scenery where they propose to reside, and leaving out 
of sight the equal charms of good. society. To them, the latter, 
both by nature:‘and habit, is a necessity, not to be wholly’ waived for 
converse of “babbling brooks,” And since there are numberless 
localities where one may choose a residence in a genial and agrée- 
able country neighborhood, the remedy for this species of discontent 
is as plain as a pike-staff. . One can scarcely expect friends to follow 
one into country seclusion, if one will, for the sake of the picturesque, 
settle on the banks of the Winipissiogee. These latter spots are for 
poets, artists, naturalists; men, between whom and nature there is 
an.intimacy of a wholly different kind, and who find in the struc- 
ture. of a moss or the flight of a water fowl, the text to a whole 
volume of inspiration. — 

‘The third class of the disappointed, consists of those who are 
astonished at the cost of life inthe country. They left town not only 


126 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. aa 


for the healthful breezes of the hill-tops, but also to make a small 
income do the business of a large one. To their great surprise, they 
find the country dear. Every thing they grow on their land costs 
them as much as when bought (because they produce it with hired 
labor); and every thing they do to improve their estate, calls for a 
mint of money, because with us labor is.always costly. But, in fact, 
the great secret of the matter is this; they have brought as many as 
possible of their town habits into the country, and find that a mo- 
derate income, applied in this way, gives less here than in town. To 
live economically in the country, one must adopt the rustic habits 
of country life. Labor must be understood, closely watched, and 
even shared, to give the farm products at a cost likely to increase 
the income ; and patés de foie gras, or perigord pies must be given up 
for boiled mutton and turnips. (And, between them and us, it is not 
so difficult as might be imagined, when the mistress of the house is 
a woman of genius, to give as refined an, expression to country life 
with the latter as the former. The way of doing things is, in these 
matters, as important as the means.) . 

Now a word or two, touching the second source of evil in coun 
try life—undertaking too much. 

There is, apparently, as much fascination in the idea ofa large 
landed estate as in the eye of a serpent. Notwithstanding our in- 
stitutions, our habits, above all the continual distribution of our 
fortunes, every thing, in short, teaching-us so plainly the folly of 
improving large landed estates, human nature and the love of: dis- 
tinction, every now and: then, triumph over all. What a homily 
might there not be. written on the extravagance of Americans! 
We can point at once to half a dozen examples of country resi- 
dences, that have cost between one and two hundred thousand dok 
lars; and every one of which either already has been, or soon will 
be, enjoyed by-others than those who constructed them. This ‘is 
the great and glaring mistake of our wealthy men; ambitious of 
taste,—that of supposing that only by large places and: great expen- 
ditures can the problem of rural beauty and enjoyment be solved. 
The truth is, that with us, a large fortune does not and: cannot (at 
least at the present time) produce the increased: enjoyment which it 
does abroad. Large estates, large houses, large establishments, 


ON THE MISTAKES OF CITIZENS IN COUNTRY LIFE, 127 


only make slaves of their possessors; for the sérvice, to be done 
daily by those who must hold aloft this dazzling canopy of wealth, 
is so indifferently performed, servants are so time-serving and un- 
worthy in this country, where intelligent labor finds independent 
channels for: itself, that the lord of the manor finds his life overbur- 
dened with the drudgery of watching his drudges. 

Hence, the true philosophy of living in America, is to be found 
in moderate desires, a moderate establishment, and moderate expen- 
ditures. We have seen so many more examples of success in those 
of even less moderate size, that we had almost said, with Cowley 
“a little cheerful house, a little company, and a very little feast.” 

But among those who undertake too much, by far the largest 
class.is that whose members do so through: ignorance of what is to 
be done. . 

. Although the world is pretty well aware of the existence of pro- 
fessional builders and planters, still the majority of those who build 
and plant, in this country, do it without the advice of- experienced 
persons. There is, apparently, 4 latent conviction at the bottom of 
every man’s heart, that he can build a villa or a cottage, and lay 
out its grounds in a more perfect, or, at least, a much more satisfac- 
tory manner than any of his predecessors or contemporaries. Fatal 
delusion! One may plead his own case in law, or even write a lay 
sermon, like Sir Walter Scott, with more chance of success than he 
will have in realizing, in solid walls, the perfect model of beauty and 
convgnience that floats dimly in his head. We mean this to apply 
chiefly to the production as a work of art. 

As a matter of economy, it is still worse. If the improver 
selects an experienced architect, and contracts with a responsible 
and trustworthy builder, he knows within twenty per cent., at the 
farthest, of what his edifice will cost. If he undertakes to play the 
amateur, and corrects and revises his work, as most amateurs do, 
while the house is in progress, he will have the mortification of 
paying twice as much as he should have done, without any just sat- 
isfaction at last. 

What is the result of this course of one of the new resi- 
dent in the country? That he has obtained a large and showy 
house, of which, if he is alive to improvement, he will live to regret 


t 


128 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


the bad taste; and that he has laid the foundation of expenditures 
far beyond hes income. 

He finds himself now in :a dilemma, of which there are two 
horns. One of them is the necessity of laying out and keeping up 
large pleasure-grounds, gardens, é&c., to correspond to the'style and 
character of his house. The other is to allow the house to remain 
in the midst of beggarly surroundings of meadow and stubble; or, 
at the most, with half executed and miserably kept grounds on 
every side of it, : 

Nothing can be more unsatisfactory than either of: these posi- 
tions. If he is séduced into expenditures en grand seigneur, to keep 
up the style in which the mansion or villa has been erected, he 
finds that instead of the peace of mind and enjoyment which he 
expected to find in the country, he is perpetually nervous about the 
tight place in his income —constantly obliged to make an effort.to 
maintain that which, when maintained, gives no more real pleasure 
than a residence on a small scale. 

If, on the other hand, he stops short, like a prudent man, at the 
mighty show of figures at the bottom: of the builder’s accounts, 
and leaves all about in a crude and unfinished condition, then he 
has the mortification, if possessed of the least taste, of knowing that 
all the grace with which he meant to surround his country home, 
has eluded his grasp; that he lives in the house of a noble, set in 
the fields of a sluggard. This he feels the more keenly, after a 
walk over the grounds of some wiser or more fortunate neighbor, 
who has been able to sweep-the whole circle of taste, and better ad- 
vised, has realized precisely that which has escaped the reach of 
our unfortunate improver. Is it any marvel that the latter should 
find himself disappointed in the pleasures of a country life ? 

Do we thus portray the mistakes of country life in order to dis- 
suade persons from retiring? Far from it. There is no one who 
would more willingly exhibit its charms in the most glowing colors. 
But we would: not lure the traveller into an Arcadia, without telling 
him that there are not only golden fruits, but also others, which 
may prove Sodom-apples if ignorantly plucked. We would not 
hang garlands of flowers over dangerous pits and fearful chasms. It 
is rather our duty and pleasure loudly to warn those who are likely 


ON THE MISTAKES OF CITIZENS IN COUNTRY LIFE. 129 


to fall into such errors, and to open their eyes to the danger that 
lies in their paths; for the country is really full of interest to those 
who are fitted to understand it; nature is full of beauty to those 
who approach her simply and devoutly; and rural life is full of pure 
and happy influences, to those who are wise enough rightly to ac- 
cept and enjoy them. 

What, most retired citizens need,.in country life, are objects of 
real interest, society, occupation. 

We place first, something of permanent interest ; for, after all, 
this is the great, desideratum. AJ] men, with the frog breath of the 
hay-fields of boyhood floating through their memory, fancy that 
farming itself is the grand occupation and panacea of country life. 
This is a profound, error. There is no permanent interest in any 
pursuit which we are not successful in; and farming, at least in the 
older States, is an art as difficult. as navigation. We mean by this, 
profitable farming, for there is no constant satisfaction in any other; 
and though some of the best farmers in the Union are retired citi- 
zens, yet not more than one in twenty succeeds in making his land 
productive. It is well enough, therefore, for the citizen about. retir- 
ing, to look upon this resource with a little diffidence. 

If our novice is fond of horticulture, there is some hope for him. 
In the first place, if he pursues it as an amusement, it is inexhausti- 
ble, because there is no end. to new fruits and flowers, or to the combina- 
tions which he may produce by their aid. And besides this, he need 
not draw heavily on his banker, or purchase a whole township to 
attain his object. Only grant a downright taste for fruits and flowers, 
and a man may have occupation and amusement for years, in an 
hundred feet square of good soil. ; 

Among the happiest men in the country, as we have hinted, are 
those who find an intense pleasure in nature, either as artists or nat- 
uralists. To such.men, there is no weariness; and they should 
choose a country residence, not so much with a view to what cah 
be made by improving it, as to where it is, what grand and beautiful 
scenery surrounds it, and how much inspiration its neighborhood 
will offer them. 

Men ;of society, as we have already said, should, in settling in 
the country, never let go the cord that binds them to their fellows. 

9 


130 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


A suburban country life will most nearly meet their requirements ; 
or, at least, they should select a site where some friends of congenial 
minds have already made a social sunshine in the “wilderness of 
woods and forests.” 

Above all, we should counsel all persons ‘not to underrate the 
cost of building and improving in the country. Do not imagine 
that a villa, or even a cottage ornée, takes care of itself, If you 
wish for rural beauty, at a cheap rate, either on the grand or the 
moderate scale, choose a spot where the two features of home scenery 
aye trees and grass, You may have five hundred acres of natural 
park—that is to say, fine old woods, tastefully opened, and threaded 
with walks and drives, for less cost, in preparation and annual out- 
lay, than it will require to maintain five acres of artificial. pleasure- 
grounds, A pretty little natural glen, filled with old trees and made 
alive by a clear perennial stream, is often a cheaper and more “un- 
wearying source of enjoyment than the gayest flower-garden. Not 
that we mean to disparage beautiful parks, pleasure-grounds, or 
flower-gardens ; we only wish our readers about settling in the céun- 
try to understand that they do not constitute the highest and most 
expressive kind of rural beauty,—as they certainly do the most ez- 
pensive, 

It is so hard to be content with simplicity! Why, we have 
‘seen thousands expended on a few acres of ground, and the result 
was, after all, only a showy villa, a green-house, and a flower-garden, 
—not half so captivating to the man of true taste as a cottage em- 
bosomed in shrubbery, a little park filled with a few fine trees, afawn 
kept short by a flock of favorite sheep, and a knot of flowers woven 
gayly together in the green turf of the terrace under the parlor win- 
dows. But the man of wealth so loves to astonish the admiring 
world by the display of riches, and it is so rare to find those who 
comprehend the charm of grace and beauty in their simple dress! 


VI. 


CITIZENS RETIRING TO THE COUNTRY. 


February, 1852. 
i a former volume we offered a few words to our readers on the 
subject of choosing a country-seat. As the subject: was only 
slightly touched. 5 ik we propese to say something more regarding 
it now. 

There are je or no magnificent country-seats in America, if we 
take as a standard such. residences as Chatsworth, Woburn, Blen- 
heim, and other well kmown English places—with parks a. dozen 
miles round, and. palaces i in their midst larger than our largest pub- 
lic buildings. But any one who notices in the suburbs of our towns 
and cities, and onthe borders of our great rivers and railroads, in 
the older parts of the Union, the rapidity with which cottages and 
ie here are increasing, each one of which: costs from three, 

irty or forty thousand dollars, will find that the aggregate 
amount of money expended in American rural homes, for the last 
ten years, is perhaps larger than has been spent in .any part of the 
world. Our Anglo-Saxon nature leads our successful business men 
always to look forward to a home out of the city; and the ease with 
which freehold property may be obtained here, offers every encour- 
agement to the growth of the natural instinct for landed proprietor- 
ship. 

This large class of citizens turning country-folk, which every sea- 
son’s revolution is increasing, which every successful business year 
greatly augments, and every fortune made in California helps to 
swell in number, is one which, perhaps, spends its means more freely, 


1382 LANDSOAPE GARDENING. 


and with more of the feeling of getting its full value, than any other . 
class, 

But do they get its full value? Are there not many who are 
disgusted with the country after a few years’ trial, mainly because 
they find country places, and country life, as they have tried them, 
more expensive than a residence in town? And is there not some- 
thing that may be done to warn the new beginners of the dangers 
of the voyage of pleasure on which they are about to embark, with 
the fullest faith that it is all smooth water ? 

We think so: and as we are daily brought into contact with 
precisely this class of ‘citizens, seeking for and building country 
places, we should be glad to be able to offer some useful hints'to 
those who are not too wise to find them of value. 

‘Perhaps the foundation of all the miscalculations that arise, as to 
expenditure in forming a country residence, is, that citizens are in 
the habit of thinking every thing-in the country cheap. Land in the 
town is sold by the foot, in the country by the acre. The price of a 
good house in town is, perhaps, three times the cost of one of the 
best farms in the.country. The town buys every thing’: the country 
raises every thing. To live'on your own estate, be it one acre'or'a 
thousand, to have your own milk, butter and eggs, to raise your own 
chickens and gather your-own strawberries, with nature to keep the 
account instead of your grocer and market-woman, that is something 
like a rational life; and more than rational,'it must be cheap. ‘So 
argues the citizen about retiring, not only to enjoy his otium cum 
dignitate, but to wiake a thousand dollars -of his income, produce 
him more of the comforts of life than two thousand did before. 

Well; he goes into the country. He buys a farm (run down 
with poor tenants and bad tillage). He’ builds a new house, with 
his own ignorance instead of architect and master-builder, and is 

- cheated roundly by those who take advantage of this ‘masterly igno- 
rance in the matter of bricks and mortar; or he repairs an old house 
at the full cost of a new one, and has an unsatisfactory dwelling for 
ever afterwards. He undertakes high farming, and knowing’ noth- 
ing of the practical economy of husbandry, every bushel of corn that 
he raises costs hini the price of bushel and a half: in thé market. 
Used in town to-a neat and orderly condition of his premises, he is 


CITIZENS RETIRING TO THE COUNTRY. 133 


disgusted with old tottering fences, half-drained fields and worn-out 
pastures, and employs all the laboring force ‘of the neighborhood to 
put his grounds in good order. 

Now there is no objection to all this for its own sake. On the 
contrary, good buildings, good. fences, and rich pasture fields are 
what especially delight us in the country. What then is the reason 
that, as the country place gets to wear a smiling aspect, its citizen 
owner begins to look serious and unhappy? Why is it that country 
life does not satisfy and content him? Is the country, which all 
poets and philosophers have celebrated as the Arcadia of this world— 
is the country treacherous? Is nature a cheat, and do seed-time 
and harvest conspire against the peace of mind of the retired citizen ? 

Alas! It is a matter of money. Every thing seems to be a mat- 
ter of money now-a-days. The country life of the old world, of the 
poets and romancers, is cheap. The country life of our republic is 
dear. It is for the good of the many that labor should be high, and 
it is high labor that makes country life heavy and oppressive to such 
men—only because it shows a balance, increasing year after year, 
on the wrong side of the ledger. Here is the source of all the trou- 
ble and dissatisfaction in what may be called the country life. of 
gentlemen amateurs, or citizens, in this country—“it don’t pay.” 
Land is cheap, nature is beautiful, the country is healthy, and all 
these conspire to draw our well-to-do citizen into the country. But 
labor is dear, experience is dearer, and a series of experiments in 
unprofitable crops the dearest of all; and our citizen friend, himself, 
as we have said, is in the situation of a man who has set out on a 
delightful voyage, on a smooth sea, and with a cheerful ship’s com- 
pany; but who discovers, also, that the ship has sprung a leak—not 
large enough to make it necessary to call all hands to the pump— 
not large enough perhaps to attract any body’s attention but his own, 
but quite large enough to make it certain that he must leave her or 
be swamped—and quite large enough to make his voyage a serious 
piece of business. 

Every thing which a citizen does in the country, costs him an in- 
credible sum. In Europe (heaven save the masses), you may have 
the best of laboring men for twenty or thirty cents a day. Here 
you must pay them a dollar, at least our amateur must, though the 


184 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


farmers contrive to get their labor for eight or ten dollars 2 month 
and board. The citizen’s home once built, he looks upon all heavy | 
expenditures as over; but how many hundreds—perhaps thousands, , 
has he not paid for out-buildings, for fences, for roads, &c. Cutting . 
down yonder hill, which made an ugly blotch in the view,—it 
looked like a trifling task; yet there were $500 swept clean out of 
his bank account, and there seems almost nothing to show for it,, 
You would not believe now that any hill ever stood there—or at 
least that nature had not arranged it all (as you feel she ought to 
have done), just as you see it. Your favorite cattle and horses have 
died, and the flock of sheep have been sadly diminished by the dogs, 
all to be replaced—and a careful account of the men’s time, labor 
and manure on the, grain fields, shows that for some reason that you. 
cannot understand, the crop—which is a fair one, has actually cost 
you a trifle more than it is worth in a good market. 

To cut a long story short, the larger part of our citizens who re- 
tire upon a farm to make it a country residence, are not aware of 
the-fact, that capital cannot be profitably employed on land in tht 
Atlantic States without a thoroughly practical knowledge of farm- 
ing. A close and systematic economy, upon a good soil, may. 
enable, and does enable some gentlemen farmers that we could 
name, to make a good profit out of their land—but citizens who 
launch boldly into farming, hiring farm laborers at high prices, and 
trusting operations to others that should be managed under the 
master’s eye—are very likely to find their farms a sinking fund that 
will drive them back into business again. 

To be happy in any business or occupation (and country life on 
a farm is a matter of business), we must have some kind of swecess 
in it; and there is no success without profit, and no profit without 
practical knowledge of farming. 

‘The lesson that we would deduce from Dieks reflections is this; 
that no mere amateur should buy a large farm for a country resi- 
dence, with the expectation of finding pleasure and profit in it for 
the rest of his life, unless, like some citizens that we have known— 
rare exceptions—they have a genius for all manner of business, and 
can master the whole of farming, as they would learn a running- 
hand in six easy lessons. Farming, in the older States, where the 


CITIZENS RETIRING TO THE COUNTRY. 135 


natural wealth of the soil has been exhausted, is not a profitable 
business for amateurs—but quite the reverse. And a citizen who 
has a sufficient income without farming, had better not damage it 
by engaging in so expensive an amusement. 

“But we must have something to do; we have been busy near 
all our lives, and cannot retire into the country to fold our hands 
and sit in the sunshine to be idle.” Precisely so. But you need 
not therefore ruin yourself on a large farm. Do not be ambitious 
of being great landed proprietors. Assume that you need occupation 
and interest, and buy a small piece of ground—a few acres only— 
as few as you please—but without any regard for profit. Leave 
that to those who have learned farming in a more practical school. 
You think, perhaps, that you can find nothing to do on a few acres 
of ground. But that is the greatest of mistakes. A half a dozen 
acres, the capacities of which are fully developed, will give you 
more pleasure than five hundred poorly cultivated. And the 
advantage for you is, that you can, upon your few acres, spend just 
as little or just as much as you please. If you wish to be prudent, 
lay out your little estate in a simple way, with grass and trees, and 
a few walks, and a single man may then take care of it. If you 
wish to indulge your taste, you may fill it with shrubberies, and 
arboretums, and conservatories, and flower-gardens, till every tree 
and plant and fruit in the whole vegetable kingdom, of really 
superior beauty and interest, is in your collection. Or, if you wish 
to turn a penny, you will find it easier to take up certain fruits or 
plants and grow them to high perfection so as to command a profit 
in the market, than you will to manage the various operations 
of a large farm. We could point to ten acres of ground from which 
a larger income has been produced than from any farm of five hun- 
dred acres in the country. Gardening, too, offers more variety 
of interest to a citizen than farming; its operations are less rude 
and toilsome, and its pleasures more immediate and refined. Citi- 
zens, ignorant of farming, should, therefore, buy small places, rather 
than large ones, if they wish to consult their own true interest and 
happiness. 

But some of our readers, who have tried the thing, may say that 
it is a very expensive thing to settle oneself and get well established, 


136 . LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


even on a small place in the country.’ ‘And so it is, if we proceed 
upon the fallacy, as we have said, that every thing in the country is 
cheap. Labor is dear; it costs you dearly to-day, and it will cost 
you dearly to-morrow, and the next year. Therefore, in selecting a 
site for a home inthe country, always remember to choose a site 
where nature has done as much as possible for you. Don’t say‘to 
yourself as many have done’ before you—*“ Oh! I want occupation, 
and I rather like the new place—raw and naked though it may 
be. J will create a paradise for myself. 1 will cut down yonder 
hill that intercepts the view, I will level and slope more gracefully 
yonder rude bank, I will terrace this rapid descent, I will make a 
lake in yonder hollow.” Yes, all this you may do for occupation, 
and find it very delightful occupation too, if you have the income 
of Mr. Astor. Otherwise, after you have spent thousands in creat- 
ing your paradise, and chance to go to some friend who has bought - 
all the graceful undulations, and sloping lawns, and sheets of water, 
natural, ready made—as they may be bought in thousands of purely 
natural places in America, for a few hundred dollars, it will give 
you a species of pleasure-ground-dyspepsia to see how foolishly you 
have wasted your money. And this, more especially, when you 
find, as the possessor of the most finished place in America finds, 
that he has no want of occupation, and that far from being finished, 
he has only begun to elicit the highest beauty, keeping and com- 
pleteness of which his place is capable. 

It would be easy to say a great deal more in illustration of the 
mistakes continually made by citizens going into the country; of 
their false ideas of the cost of doing every thing ; of the profits of 
farming; of their own talent for making an income from the land, 
and their disappointment, growing out of a failure of all their theo- 
ries and expectations. But we have perhaps said enough to cause 
some of our readers about to take the step, to consider whether they 
mean to look upon country life as a luxury they are willing to pay 
so much a year for, or as a means of adding something to their 
incomes. Even in the former case, they are likely to underrate the 
cost of the luxury, and in the latter they must set about it with the 
frugal and industrial habits of the real farmer, or they will fail. The 
safest way is to attempt but a modest residence at first, and let 


CITIZENS RETIRING TO THE COUNTRY. 187 


the more elaborate details be developed, if at all, only when we 
have learned how much country life, costs, and how far the expendi- 
ture is a wise one. Fortunately, it is art, and not nature, which 
costs money in the country, and therefore the beauty of lovely 
scenery and fine landscapes (the right to enjoy miles of which may 
often be had for a trifle), in connection with a very modest and 
simple place, will give more lasting satisfaction than gardens and 
pleasure-grounds innumerable. Persons of moderate means should, 
for this reason, always secure, in their fee simple, as much as possi- 
ble of natural beauty, and undertake the elaborate improvement of 
only small places, which will not become a burden to them. Million- 
naires, of course, we leave out of the question. They may do what 
they like. But most Americans, buying a country place, may take 
it for their creed, that 


Man wants but Jittle land below, 
Nor wants that little dear. 


VIL. 


A TALK ABOUT PUBLIC PARKS AND GARDENS. 


October, 1848. 

DITOR. Tam heaetily glad to see you home again. I almost 

fear, however, from your long residence on the continent, that 
you have become a foreigner in all your sympathies. 

Traveller. Not a whit. I come home to the United States 
more thoroughly American than ever. The last few months’ Tesi- 
dence in Europe, with revolutions, tumult, bloodshed on every side, 
people continually crying for liberty—who mean by that word, the 
privilege of being responsible to neither God nor governments— 
ouvriers, expecting wages to drop like manna from heaven, not as a 
reward for industry, but as a sign that the millennium has come; 
republics, in which every other man you meet is a soldier, sworn to 
preserve “ liberty, fraternity, equality,” at the point of the bayonet ; 
from all this unsatisfactory movement—the more unsatisfactory be- 
cause its aims are almost beyond the capacities of a new nation, and 
entirely impossible to an old people—I repeat, I come home again 
to rejoice most fervently that “I, too, am an American.” 

Fd, After five years expatriation, pray tell me what strikes you 
most on returning ? 

Trav. Most of all, the wonderful, extraordinary, unparalleled 

.growth of our country. It seems to me, after the general, steady, 
quiet torpor of the old world (which those great convulsions have’ 
only latterly broken), to be the moving and breathing of a robust 
young giant, compared with the crippled and feeble motions of an 
exhausted old man. Why, it is difficult for me to “catch up” to 


A TALK ABOUT PUBLIC PARKS AND GARDENS. 139 


my countrymen, or to bridge over the gap which five years have 
made in the condition of things. From a country looked upon with 
contempt by monarchists, and hardly esteemed more than a third- 
rate power by republicans abroad, we have risen to the admitted 
first rank every where. To say, on the continent, now, that you are 
from the “ United States,” is to dilate the pupil of every eye with a 
sort of glad welcome. The gates of besieged cities open to you, 
and the few real republicans who have just conceptions of the ends 
of government, take you by the hand as if you had a sort of lib- 
erty-magnetism in your touch. A country that exports, in a single 
year, more than fifty-three millions worth of bread stuffs, that con- 
quers a neighboring nation without any apparent expenditure of 
strength, and swallows up a deluge of foreign emigrarits every 
season,—turning all that “raw material,” by a sort of wonderful 
vital force, into good citizens—such a country, I say, is felt to have 
an avoirdupois about it, that weighs heavily in the scale of nations. 

Fd. Jam glad to see you so sound and patriotic. Very few 

men who go abroad, like yourself, to enjoy the art and antiquities 
of the old world, come home without “turned heads.” The great- 
ness of the past, and the luxury and completeness of the present 
forms of civilization abroad, seize hold of them, to the exclusion of 
every thing else; and they return home lamenting always and for 
ever the “purple and fine linen” left, behind. 
Trav.“ Purple and fine linen,” when they clothe forms of life- 
less majesty, are far inferior, in the eyes of any sensible person, to 
linsey-woolsey, enwrapping the body of a free, healthy man. But 
there are some points of civilization—good points, too—that we do 
‘not yet understand, which are well understood abroad, and which 
are well worth attention here at home, at the present moment. In 
fact, I came here to talk a little, about one or two of these, to-day. 

Ed. Talk on, with all my heart. 

Trav. I dare say you will be surprised to hear me say that the 
French and Germans—difficult as they find it to be republican, in a 
political sense—are practically far more so, in many of the customs 
of social life, than Americans. 

Hd. Such as what, pray? 

Trav. Public enjoyments, open to all classes of. people, pro- 


140 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


vided at public cost, maintained .at public eEpeneey and ae 
daily ‘and ‘hourly, by all classes of persons. 

Ed. Picture galleries, libraries, and the like, I suppose you mt 
lude to?. 

‘Trav. Yes; but more especially at the present moment, iam 
thinking of pustic parks and Garpens—those salubrious and 
wholesome breathing places, provided in the midst of, or upon the 
suburbs of so many towns on the continent—full of really grand 
and beautiful: trees, fresh grass, fountains, and, in many cases, rare 
plants, shrubs, and flowers. Public picture galleries; and even li- 
braries, are intellectual luxuries ; and though we must and will have 
them, as wealth accumulates, yet-I look upon public parks and gar- 
dens, which. are: great social enjoyments, as naturally coming: first, 
Man’s social nature stands before his intellectual one in the order of 
cultivation. 

Ed. But these great public parks are mostly the appendages 
of royalty, and have been created’ for purposes of show and. magni- 
ficence, quite incompatible with our ideas of republican simplicity.: 

Trav. Not atall. In many places these parks were made for . 
royal enjoyment; but, even in these days, they are, on the continent, no 
longer held for royal use, but: are the pleasure-grounds of the public 
generally. Look, for example, at the Garden of the Tuileries—spa- 
cious, full of flowers, green lawns, orange-trees, and rare plants, in 
the very heart of Paris, and all open to the public, without charge. 
Even in third-rate towns, like the Hague, there is a royal park of 
two hundred acres, filled with superb trees, rich. turf, and broad 
pieces of water—the whole exquisitely kept, and absolutely and en- 
tirely at the enjoyment of every well-disposed Se that chooses 
to enter. 

Hd, Still, these are not parks or gardens sits: for the public ; 
but are the result, originally, of princely taste, and afterwards given 
up to the public. 

Trav. But Germany, which is in many respects a most instruc- 
tive country to Americans, affords many examples of public gar- 
dens, in the neighborhood of the principal towns, of extraordinary 
size and beauty, originally made and laid out solely for the general 
use. The public garden at Munich, for example, contains above five 


A TALK ABOUT PUBLIC PARKS AND GARDENS. 141 


hundred acres, originally laid out by the celebrated Count Rumford, 
with five miles of roads and walks, and a collection of all the trees 
and. shrubs that will thrive in that country. It combines the beauty 
of a park and a garden. 

Ed, And Frankfort ? 

Trav. Yes, I was coming to that, for it is quite a model of this 
kind of civilization. The public garden of.Frankfort is, to my mind, 
one of the most delightful sights in the world. Frankfort deserves, 
indeed, in this respect, to be called a “free town;” for I doubt if we 
are yet ready to evince the same capacity for self-government and 
non-imposition of restraint as is shown daily by the good citizens 
of that place, in the enjoyment. of this beautiful public garden. 
Think of a broad belt, about two miles long, surrounding the city 
on all sides but one (being built upon the site of the old ramparts), 
converted into the most lovely pleasure-grounds, intersected with all 
manner of shady walks and picturesque glades, planted not only 
with all manner of fine trees and shrubs, but beds of the choicest 
flowers, roses, carnations, dahlias, verbenas, juberoses, violets, dsc., de: 

Ed. And well guarded, I suppose, by gen-d’armes, or the po- 
lice ! 

Trav. By no means. On the contrary, it is open to every 
man, woman, and child in the city; there are even no gates at the 
various entrances. Only, at these entrances are put up notices, 
stating that as the garden was made for the public, and: is kept up. 
at its expense, the town authorities commit it to the protection of all 
good citizens: Fifty thousand souls have the right to enter and en- 
joy these beautiful grounds; and yet, though they are most tho- 
roughly enjoyed, you will no more see a bed trampled upon, or a 
tree injured, than in your own private garden here at home! 

Zid, There is truly a democracy in that, worth imitating in our 
more professedly democratic country. 

Trav. Well, out of this:common enjoyment of public grounds, 
" by all ‘classes, grows also a.social freedom, and an easy and agreea- 
ble intercourse of all classes, that strikes an American with surprise 
and delight. Every afternoon, in the public grounds of the German 
towns, you will meet thousands of neatly-dressed men, women, and 
children. All classes assemble under the shade of the same trees, 


142 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


—the nobility (even the king is often seen among them), the 
wealthy citizens, the shopkeepers, and the artisans, &c. There they all 
meet, sip their tea and coffee, ices, or other refreshments, from tables 
in the open air, talk, walk about, and listen to bands of admirable 
music, stationed here and there throughout the park. In short, these 
great public grounds are the pleasant drawing-rooms' of the whole 
population ; where they gain health, good spirits, social enjoyment, 
and a frank and cordial bearing towards their neighbors, that is 
totally unknown either in England or America, 

Ed, There appears a disinclination in the Anglo-Saxon race to 
any large social intercourse, or unrestrained public enjoyment. 

Trav. Tt is not difficult to account for such a feeling in Eng- 
land. But in this country, it'is quite unworthy of. us and our insti- 
tutions. With large professions of equality, I find my countrymen 
more and more inclined to raise up barriers of class, wealth, and 
fashion, which, are almost as strong in our social usages, as the law 
of caste is in England. It is quite unworthy of us, as it is the 
meanest and most contemptible part of aristocracy ; and we owe it 
to ourselves. and our republican professions, to set about eeapiniing 
a larger and more fraternal spirit in our social life. 

Ed. Pray, how would you set about it ? 

Trav. Mainly by establishing refined public places of resort, 
parks and gardens, galleries, libraries, museums, &c. By these 
means, you would soften and humanize the rude, educate and en- 
lighten the ignorant, and give continual enjoyment to the educated. 
Nothing tends to beat down those artificial barriers, that false pride, 
which is the besetting folly of our Anglo-Saxon nature, so much as 
a community of rational enjoyments. Now there is absolutely no 
class of persons in this country whose means allow them the luxury 
of great parks, or fine concerts of instrumental music within their 
own houses. But a trifling yearly contribution from all the inhab- 
itants of even a small town, will enable all those inhabitants to have 
an excellent band, performing every fair afternoon’ through the 
whole summer. Make the public parks or pleasure-grounds attrac: 
tive by their lawns, fine trees, shady’ walks, and beautiful shrubs and 
flowers, by fine music, and the certainty of “meeting every body,” 
and you draw the whole moving population of the town there daily. 

Hd. I am afraid the natural géne of our people would keep 


A TALK ABOUT PUBLIC PARKS AND GARDENS. 143 


many of those at home who would most enjoy such places, and that 
they would be given up to those who would abuse the privilege and 
despoil the grounds. Do you think it would be possible, for instance, 
to preserve fine flowers in such a place, as in Germany ? 

Trav. Ihave not, the slightest doubt of it. How can I have, 
after going on board such magnificent steamboats as the Isaac New- 
ton or the Bay State, all fitted up with the same luxury of velvet 
ottomans, rich carpets, mirrors, and the costliest furniture, that I 
have found in palaces. abroad, and all at the use of millions of every 
class of American travellers, from the chimney-sweep to the Presi- 
_ dent, and yet this profuse luxury not abused in the slightest manner ! 

Ed. But the more educated of our people—would they, think 

you, resort to public pleasure-grounds daily, for amusement ? Would 
not the natural exclusiveness of our better-halves, for instance, taboo 
this medley of “all sorts of people that we don’t know?” 
_ Lrav. J trust too much in the good sense of our women to be- 
lieve it. Indeed, I find plenty of reasons for believing quite the op- 
posite. Isee the public watering-places filled with. all classes of so- 
ciety, partaking of the same pleasures, with as much zest as in any 
part ‘of the world; and you must remember that there is no forced 
intercourse in the daily reunions in a public garden or park. There 
is room and space enough for pleasant little groups or circles of all 
tastes and sizes, and no one is necessarily brought into contact with 
uncongenial spirits ; while the daily meeting of families, who ought 
to sympathize, from natural congeniality, will be more likely to bring 
them together than any other social gatherings. Then the advantage 
to our fair countrywomen in health and spirits, of exercise in the 
pure.open air, amid the groups of fresh foliage and flowers, in a 
chat with friends, and pleasures shared with them, as compared with 
a listless lounge upon a sofa at home, over the last new novel or 
pattern of embroidery! When I first retwned home, I assure you, 
I was almost shocked at the extreme delicacy, and apparent univer- 
sal want of health in my countrywomen, as compared with the same 
classes abroad. It is, most clearly, owing to the many sedentary, 
listless hours which they pass within doors; no out-of-deor oecupa- 
tions—walking considered irksome and Gagang-—and almost no 
parks, pleasure-grounds, or shaded avenues, to tempt fair pedestrians 
to this most healthful and natural exercise. - 


144 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. — 


Hd. Enough. I am fully satisfied of the benefits of these 
places of healthful public enjoyment, and of their being most com- 
pletely adapted to our institutions. But how to achieve: them ? 
What do we find among us to warrant a belief that public parks, 
for instance, are within the means of our people ? 

Trav. Several things: but most of all, the condition of our 
public cemeteries at the present moment. Why, twenty years ago, 
such a thing as an embellished, rural cemetery, was unheard of in 
the United States; and,at the present moment, we surpass all: othier 
nations in these beautiful resting-places for the dead. Greenwood, 
Mount Auburn, and Laurel Hill, are as much superior to. the far- 
famed Pere la Chaise of Paris, in-natural beauty, tasteful arrange- 
ment, and all that constitutes the charm of sucha spot, as St. Peter's 
is to the Boston State House. Indeed, these cemeteries are the 
only places in the country that can give an untravelled American 
any idea of the beauty of many of the. public parks and gardens 
abroad. Judging from the crowds of people in- carriages, and on 
foot, which I find constantly thronging Greenwood and Mount Au- 
burn, I think it is plain enough how much our citizens, of all classes, 
would enjoy public parks on a similar scale. Indeed, the only draw- 
back to these beautiful and highly. kept cemeteries, to my taste; is 
the gala-day air of recreation they present. People seem to go there 
to enjoy themselyes, and not to indulge in any serious recollections 
or regrets. Can you doubt that if our large towns had suburban 
pleasure-grounds, like Greenwood (excepting the monuments), where 
the best music could be heard daily, they would become the con- 
stant resort of the citizens, or that being so, they would tend to soften 
and allay some of the feverish unrest of business which seems to 
have possession of most Americans, body and soul ? 

Ed, But the modus operandi? . Cemeteries are, in a measure, 
private speculations ; hundreds are induced to buy Zoés in them from 
fashion or personal pride, besides those whose hearts are touched by 
the beauiful sentiment which they involve; and thus a large fund 
is produced, which maintains every thing in the most perfect order. 

Trav. Appeal to the public liberality; We subscribe hundreds 
of thousands of dollars to give food to the Irish, or to assist the 
needy inhabitants of a burnt-out city, or to send missionaries’ to 
South Sea Islands. Are there no dollars in the same generous 


hy 


A TALK ABOUT PUBLIC PARKS AND GARDENS. 145 


pockets for a public park, which shall be the great wholesome 
breathing zone, social mass-meeting, and grand out-of-door coneert- 
room, of all the inhabitants daily? Make it praiseworthy and laud- 
able for wealthy men to make bequests of land, properly situated, 
for this public enjoyment, and commemorate the public spirit. of 
such men by a statue or a beautiful marble vase, with an inscription, 
telling all succeeding generations to. whom they are indebted for the 
beauty and enjoyment that constitute the chief attraction of the 
town. Let the ladies gather money from young and old, by fairs, 
and “tea parties,” to aid in planting and embellishing the grounds. 
Nay, I would have lifemembers, who on. paying a certain sum, 
should be the owners in “ fee simple” of certain fine trees,,or groups 
of trees; since there are some who will never give money but. .for 
some tangible and, visible property. 

Ed. It is, perhaps, not so difficult to get the public park or gar- 
den, as to meet. all the annual expenses required to keep it in the re- 
quisite condition. 

Trav. Thereis, te my mind, but one effectual and rational 
mode of doing this—by a voluntary taxation on the part of all the 
inhabitants. A few shillings each person, or a small per, centage on 
the value of all the property in a town, would keep a park of a 
hundred or two acres in admirable order, and defray all the inciden- 
tal expenses. Did you ever make a calculation of the sum volun- 
tarily paid in towns like this, of nine thousand inhabitants, for pew 
rent,in churches and places of worship # 

Ed, No. 

Trav. Very well; I have had the curiosity lately to do so,.and 
find that in a town of nine thousand souls, and with ten “ meeting- 
houses” of various sects, more than ten thousand dollars are volun- 
tarily paid every year for the privilege of sitting in these churches. 

Does it appear. to you impossible that half that sum (a few. shillings 
a year each) would be.willingly paid every year for the privilege of 
a, hundred acres of beautiful park or pleasure-grounds, | where every 
man, woman, and child in the community ‘could have, for, a few 
shillings, all the soft: verdure, the umbrageous foliage, the lovely 
flowers, the place for exercise, recreation, repose, that Victoria has in 
her Park of Windsor ? 

10 


146 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


Ed. Not at all, if our countrymen could be made to look upon 
the matter in the same light as yourself. But while no men contri- 
bute money so willingly and liberally as we Americans for the sup- 
port of religion, or indeed for the furtherance of any object of moral 
good, we are slow to understand the value and influence of beauty 
of this material kind, on our daily lives. 

Trav. But we must believe it, because the Brautirut is no less 
eternal than the Truz and the Goop. And it is the province of the 
press—of writers who have the public ear—to help those to see 
(who are slow to perceive it), how much these outward influences 
have to do with bettering the condition of a people, as good citizens, 
patriots, men. Nay,more; what an important influence these pub- 
lic resorts, of a rational anil refined character, must exert in ele- 
vating the national character, and softening the many little jealousies 
of social life by a community of enjoyments. . A people will have 
its pleasures, as certainly as its religion or its laws; and whether 
these pleasures are poisonous and hurtful, or innocent and salutary, 
must greatly depend on the interest taken in them by the directing 
minds of the age. Get some country town of the first class to set 
the example by making a public park or garden of this kind. Let. 
our people once see for themselves the influence for good which it 
would effect, no less than the healthful enjoyment it will afford, and 
I feel confident that the taste for public pleasure-grounds, in the 
United States, will spread as rapidly as that for cemeteries has done. 
If my own observation of the effect of these places in Germany is 
worth any thing, you may take my word for it that they will be, 
better preachers of temperance than temperance societies, better re- 
finers of national manners than dancing-schools, and better promot- 
ers of general good feeling than any lectures on the philosophy, of 
happiness ever delivered in the lecture-room. In short, I am in 
earnest about the matter, and must therefore talk, write, preach, do 
all Ican about it, and beg the assistance of all those who have pub- 
lic influence, till some good experiment of the kind is fairly tried in 
this country. 

Zd, Iwish you all success in your good undertaking ; and will, 


at least, print our conversation for the benefit of the readers.of the 
Horticulturist. 


VIII. 


THE NEW-YORK PARK. 


August, 1851. 

HE leading topic of town gossip and newspaper paragraphs just 
now, in New-York, is the new park proposed. by Mayor Kings- 
land. ‘Deluded New-York has, until lately, contented itself with the 
little door-yards of space—mere grass-plats of verdure, which form 
the squares of the city, in the mistaken idea that they are parks. 
The fourth city in the world (with a growth that will soon make it 
the second), the commercial metropolis of a continent spacious enough 
to border both oceans, has not hitherto been able to afford sufficient 
land to give its citizens (the majority of whom live there the whole 
year round) any breathing space for puré air, any recreation ground 
for healthful exercise, any pleasant roads for riding or driving, or any 
enjoyment of that lovely and refreshing natural beauty from which 
they have, in leaving the country, reluctantly expatriated themselves 
for so many years—perhaps for ever. Some few thousands, more 
fortunate than the rest, are able to escape for a couple of months, 
into the country, to find repose for body and soul, in its leafy groves 
and pleasant pastures, or to inhale new life on the refreshing sea- 
shore. But in the mean time the city is always full. Its steady 
population of five hundred thousand souls is always there; always 
on the increase. Every ship brings a live cargo from over-peopled 
Europe, to fill up its over-crowded lodging-houses ; every steamer 
brings hundreds of strangers to fill its thronged thoroughfares. 
Crowded hotels, crowded streets, hot summers, business pursued till 
it becomes a game of excitement, pleasure followed till its votaries 


48 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


re exhausted, where is the quiet reverse side of this picture of town 
fe, intensified almost to distraction ? a 

Mayor Kingsland spreads it out to the vision of the dwellers in 

ais arid desert of business and dissipation—a green oasis for the re- 
‘eshment of the city’s soul and body. He tells the citizens of that 
werish metropolis, agevery intelligent man will tell them who knows 
ae cities of the old world, that New-York, and American citiés 
enerally, are voluntarily and ignorantly living in a state of com- 
lete forgetfulness of nature, and her innocent recreations. That, 
ecause it is needful in civilized life for men to live in cities,—yes, 
nd unfortunately too, for children to be born and educated without 
daily sight of the blessed horizon,—it is not, therefore, needful for 
1em to bs so miserly as to live utterly divorced from all Pleasant 
nd healthful intercourse, with gardens, and green fields. He, in- 
wms,them that cool umbrageous groves have not forsworn them- 
alves within town limits, and that half a million of people have a 
ight to ask for the * greatest happiness” of parks and plassune: 
rounds, as well as for paving stones and gas-lights. 

Now that, public opinion has fairly settled that.a park is neces- 
wy, the parsimonious declare that the plot of one hundred and 
ixty acres proposed by Mayor Kingsland is extravagantly large. 
hort-sighted economists! If the future growth of the city. were 
onfined to the boundaries their narrow vision would fix, it, would 
oon cease to be the commercial,emporium of the country. If they 
rere the purveyors of the young giant, he would soon present the 
srry spectacle of a robust youth magnificently developed, but whose 
xtremities had outgrown every. garment that they. had provided to 
over his. nakedness. 

These timid tax-payers, and : men nervous in their private pockets 
f the municipal expenditures, should take a lesson from some of 
heir number-to whose admirable foresight we owe the unity of ma- 
arials displayed. i in the New-York City-Hall. Every one familiar 
rith New-York, has wondered or smiled at the apparent perversity 
f taste which gave us a building—in the most conspicuous part of 
he-city, and devoted to the highest municipal uses, three sides of 
rhich are pure white marble, and the fourth of coarse, brown stone. 
3ut few of thase who see, that incongruity, know that it was dictated 


THE NEW-YORK PARK. 149 


by the narrow-sighted frugality of the common council who were 
its building committee, and who determined that it would be useless 
to waste marble on the rear of the City-Hall, “ since that side would 
only be seen by persons living in the suburbs.” 
Thanking Mayor Kingsland most heartily for his proposed new 
park, the only objection we make to it is that it is too small. One 
hundred and sixty acres of park for a city that will soon contain 
three-quarters of a million of people! It is only a child’s play- 
ground. Why London has over six thousand acres either within 
its own limits, or in the accessible suburbs, open to the: enjoyment 
of its population—and six thousand acres composed too, either of 
the grandest and most lovely park scenery, like Kensington and 
Richmond, or of luxuriant gardens, filled with rare plants, hot-houses, 
and hardy shrubs and trees, like the National Garden at Kew. 
Paris has its Garden of the Tuileries, whose alleys are lined with 
orange-trees two hundred years old, whose parterres are gay with 
the brightest flowers, whose cool groves of horse-chestnuts, stretching 
out to the Elysian Fields, are in the very midst of the city. Yes, 
and on its outskirts are Versailles (three thousand acres of imperial 
groves and gardens there also), and Fontainbleau, and St. Cloud, 
with all the rural, scenic, and palatial beauty that the opulence of 
the most profuse of French monarchs could create, all open to the 
people of Paris. Vienna has its great Prater, to make which, would 
swallow up most of the “unimproved” part of New-York city. 
Munith has a superb plédsure-ground of five hundred acrés, which 
makes the Arcadia of her citizens. Even the smaller towns are pro- 
vided with public grounds to an extent that would beggar the imag- 
ination of our short-sighted economists, who would deny “a green- 
ery” to New-York; Frankfort, for example, is skirted by the most 
beautiful gardens, formed upon the platform which made the old 
‘ramparts of the city—gardens filled with the loveliest plants and 
shruhs, tastefully grouped along walks over two miles in extent. 
Looking at the present government of the city as about to pro- 
vide, in the People’s Park, a breathing zone, and healthful place for 
exercise for a city of half a million of souls, we trust they will not 
be content with the limited number of acres already proposed. ' 
Five hundred acres is the smallest area that should be reserved for 


150 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


the future wants of such a city, now, while it may be obtained. 
Five hundred acres may be selected. between Thirty- -ninth-street, and 
the Harlem River, including a varied surface of land, a good ‘deal of 
which is yet waste area, so that the whole may be purchased, at 
something like a million of dollars. In that area there would be 
space enough to have broad reaches of park and pleasure- grounds, 
with a real feeling of the breadth and beauty of green fields, the 
perfume and freshness of nature. In its midst would be located, the 
great distributing reservoirs of the Croton aqueduct, formed ‘into 
lovely lakes of limpid water, covering many acres, and heightening 
the charm of the sylvan accessories by the finest natural contrast. 
In such a park, the citizens who would take excursions in carriages 
or on horseback, could have the substantial delights of country roads 
and country scenery, and forget, for a time the rattle of the pave- 
ments and the glare of brick walls. Pedestrians would find quiet 
and secluded walks when they wished to be solitary, and broad alleys 
filled with thousands of happy faces, when they would be gay. The 
thoughtful denizen of the town would go out there in the morning, 
to hold converse with the whispering trees, and the weary tradesmen 
in the evening, to enjoy an hour of happiness by mingling in the 
open space with “all the world.” 
The many beauties and utilities that would gradually grow out 

of a great park like this, in a great city like New-York, suggest 
themselves immediately and forcibly. Where would be found so 
fitting a position for noble works of art, the statues, monuments, and 
buildings commemorative at once of the great men of the nation, 
of the history of the age and country, and the genius of our high- 
est artists? In the broad area of such a verdant zone would grad- 
ually grow up, as the wealth of the city increases, winter gardens 
of glass, like the great Crystal Palace, where the whole people 
could luxuriate in groves of the palms and spice trees of the tropics, 
at the same moment that sleighing parties glided swiftly and noige- 
lessly over the snow-covered surface of the country-like avenues 
of the wintry park without. Zoological Gardens, like those of Lon- 
don and Paris/ would gradually be formed by private subscription 
or public funds, where thousands of old and young would find daily 
pleasure in studying natural history, illustrated by all the wildest 


THE NEW-YORK PARK. 151 


and strangest animals of the globe, almost as much at home in their 
paddocks and jungles, as if in their native forests; and Horticultu- 
ral and Industrial Societies would hold their annual shows there, 
and great expositions of the arts would take place in spacious build- 
ings within the park, far more fittingly than in the noise and din of 
the crowded streets of the city. ‘ 

We have said nothing of the social influence of such a great 
park in New-York. But this is really the most interesting phase of 
the whole matter. Itis a fact not a little remarkable, that, va 
democratic as are the political tendencies of America, its most in 
telligent social tendencies are almost wholly in a contrary direction. 
And among the topics discussed by the advocates and opponents of 
the new park, none seem so poorly understood as the social aspect 
of the thing. It is, indeed, both curious and amusing to see the 
stand taken on the one hand by the million, that the park is made 
for the “upper ten,” who ride in fine carriages, and, on the other 
hand, by the wealthy and refined, that a park in this country will 
be “usurped by rowdies and low people.” Shame upon our repub- 
lican compatriots who so little understand the elevating influences 
of the beautiful in nature and in art, when enjoyed in common by 
thousands and hundreds of thousands of all classes without distinc- 
tion! They can never have seen, how all over France and Germa- 
ny, the whole population of the cities pass their afternoons and 
evenings together, in the beautiful public parks and gardens. How 
they enjoy together the same music, breathe the same atmosphere 
of art, enjoy the same scenery, and grow into social freedom by the 
very influences of easy intercourse, space and beauty that surround 
them. In Germany, especially, they have never seen how the high- 
est and the lowest partake alike of the common enjoyment—the 
prince seated beneath the trees on a rush-bottomed chair, before a 
little wooden table, supping his coffee or his ice, with the same free- 
dom from state and pretension as the simplest subject. Drawing- 
room conventionalities are too narrow for a mile or two of spacious 
garden landscape, and one can be happy with ten thousand in the 
social freedom of a community of genial influences, without .the 
unutterable pang of not having been introduced to the company 
‘present. 


152 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


These social doubters who thus intrench themselves in the sole 
sitadel of exclusiveness-in republican America, mistake our people 
ind their destiny. If we would but have listened to them, our mag- 
iificent river and lake steamers, those real palaces of the million, 
vould have had no velvet couches, no splendid mirrors, no luxurious 
arpets. Such costly and rare appliances of civilization, they would 
iave told us, could only be rightly used by the privileged families 
if wealth, and would be trampled upon and utterly ruined by the 
lemocracy of the country, who travel one hundred miles for half a 
lollar.. And yet these, our floating palaces and our monster hotels, 
vith their purple and fine linen, are they not respected, by the ma- 
jority who use them, as truly as other palaces by their rightful sov- 
reigns? Alas, for the faithlessness of the few, who possess, regarding 
he capacity for culture of the many, who are wanting.. Even upon 
he lower platform of liberty and education that the masses stand 
n Europe, we see the elevating influences of a wide popular enjoy- 
nent of galleries of art, public libraries, parks and gardens, which 
iave raised the people in social civilization and social culture to a 
ar higher level than we have yet attained in republican America. 
And yet this broad ground of popular refinement must be taken in 
epublican America, for it belongs of right more truly here, than 
Jsewhere. It is republican in its very idea and tendency. It takes 
tp popular education where the common school and ballot-box leave 
t,'and raises up the working-man to the. same level of enjoyment 
vith the man of leisure and accomplishment. The higher social 
ind’ artistic elements ‘of every man’s nature lie dormant within him, 
und évery laborer is a possible gentleman, not by the possession of 
noney or fine clothes—but through the refining influence of intel- 
ectual arid moral culture. Open wide, therefore, the doors of your 
ibraries and picture galleries, all ye true republicans! Build halls 
vhere knowledge shall be freely diffused among men, and not shut up 
vithin the narrow walls of narrower institutions. Plant spacious 
oarks in your cities, and unlodse their gates as wide as the gates of 
norhing to the whole people. As there are no dark places at noon 
lay, so education and culture—the true sunshine of the soul—will 
sanish the plague spots of democracy; and the dread of the igno- 
‘ant exclusive who has no faith in the refinement of a republic, will 


THE NEW-YORK PARK, 153 


stand abashed in the next century, before a whole people whose sys- 
tem of voluntary education embraces (combined with perfect indi- 
vidual freedom), not only common schools of rudimentary know- 
ledge, but common:enjoyments for all classes in the higher realms 
of art, letters, science, social recreations, and enjoyments. Were 
our legislators but wise enough to understand, to-day, the destinies 
of the New World, the gentility of Sir Philip Sidney, made univer- 
sal, would be not half so much a miracle fifty years hence in Amer- 
ica, as the idea of a whole nation of laboring-men reading and 
writing, was, in his day, in England. 


IX. 


PUBLIC CEMETERIES AND PUBLIC GARDENS. 


: July, 1849. 

NE of the most remarkable illustrations of the popular taste, in 

this country, is to be found in the rise and progress of our rural 
cemeteries, 

Twenty years ago, nothing better than a common grave-yard, 
filled with high grass, and a chance sprinkling of weeds and thidhes, 
was to be found in the Union. If there were one or two exceptions, 
like the burial ground at New Haven, where a few willow trees 
broke the monotony of the scene, they existed only to prove the'rule 
more completely. 

Eighteen years ago, Mount Auburn, about six miles from Boston, 
was made a rural cemetery. It was then a charming natural ‘site, 
finely varied in surface, containing about 80 acres of land, and ad- 
mirably clothed by groups and masses of native forest trees. It was 
tastefully laid out, monuments were built, and the whole highly em- 
bellished. No sooner was attention generally roused to the charms 
of this first American cemetery, than the idea took the public mind 
by storm. Travellers made pilgrimages to the Athens of New Eng- 
land, solely to see the realization of their long cherished dream of a 
resting-place for the dead, at once sacred from profanation, dear to 
the memory, and captivating to the imagination. 

Not twenty years have passed. since that time; and, at the pres- 
ent moment, there is scarcely a city of note in the whole country 
that has not its rural cemetery. The three leading cities of the 
north, New-York, Philadelphia, Boston, have, each of them, besides 


PUBLIC CEMETERIES AND PUBLIC GARDENS. 155 


their great cemeteries,—Greenwood, Laurel Hill, Mount Auburn,— 
many others of less note ; but any of which would have astonished 
and delighted their inhabitants twenty years ago. Philadelphia has, 
we learn, nearly twenty rural cemeteries at the present moment,— 
several of them belonging to distinct societies, sects or associations, 
while others are open to all.* 

The great attraction of these cemeteries, to the mass of the com- 
munity, is not in the fact that they are burial- -places, or solemn places 
of meditation for the friends of the deceased, or striking exhibitions 
of monumental sculpture, though all these have their influence. All 
these might be realized in a burial-ground, planted with straight 
lines of willows, and sombre avenues of ever, greens. The true secret 
of the attraction lies in the natural beauty of the sites, and in the 
tasteful and harmonious embellishment of these sites by art. Nearly 
all these cemeteries were rich portions of forest land; broken by hill 
and dale, and varied by copses and glades, like Mount Auburn and 
Greenwood, or old country-seats, richly wooded with fine planted 
trees, like Laurel Hill. Hence, to an inhabitant of the town, a visit 
to one of these spots has the united charm of nature and art,—the 
double wealth of rural and moral associations. It awakens at the 
same moment, the feeling of human sympathy and the love of nat- 
ural beauty, implanted in every heart. His must be a dull ora 
trifling soul that neither swells with emotion, or rises with admira- 
tion, at the varied beauty of these lovely and. hallowed spots. 

indeed, in the absence of great public gardens, such as we must 
surely one day have in America, our rural cemeteries are doing a 
great deal to enlarge and educate the popular.taste in rural embel- 
lishment. They are for the most part laid out with admirable taste ; 
they contain the greatest variety of trees and, shrubs to be found in 
the country, and several of them are kept in a manner seldom equal- 
led in private places. + 


* We made a rough calculation from some data obtained at Philadelphia 
lately, by which we find that, including the cost of the lota, more than a 
million and a half of dollars have been expended in the purchase and decora- 
tion of cemeteries in that neighborhood alone. 

+ Laurel Hill is especially rich in rare trees. We saw, last month, almost, 
every procurable species of hardy tree and shrub growing there,—among 


156 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


The character of each of the three great cemeteries is essentially 
distinct. Gréenwood, the largest,-and unquestionably the finest, is 
grand, dignified, and park-like. It is laid out in a broad and simple 
style, commands noble ocean views, and is admirably kept. Mount 
Auburn is richly picturesque, in its varied hill and dale, and owes 
its charm mainly to this variety and intricacy of sylvan features, 
Laurel Hill is a charming pleasure-grownd, filled with beautiful and 
rare shrubs and flowers ; at this season, a wilderness of rosés, as well 
as fine trees and monuments.* 

To enable the reader to form a correct idea of the influence 


others, the Cedar of Lebanon, the Deodar Cedar, the Paulownia, the Arav- 
ecaria, etc. Rhododendrons and Azaleas were in full bloom; and the purple 
Beeches, the weeping Ash, rare Junipers, Pines, and deciduous trees were 
abundant in many parts of the grounds. Twenty acres of new ground have 
jest been added to this cemetery. It is a better arboretum than can easily 
be found elsewhere in the country. 

* Few things are perfect; and beautiful and interesting as our mpral 
cemeteries now are,—more beautiful and interesting than any thing of the 
same kind abroad, we cannot pass by one feature in all, marked by the most 
violent bad taste; we mean the hideous ironmongery, which they all more 
or less display. Why, if the separate lots must be inclosed with iron rail- 
ings, the railings should not be of simple and unobtrusive patterns, we are 
wholly unable to conceive. As we now see them, by far the greater part 
are so ugly as to be positive blots on the beauty of the scene. Fantastic 
conceits and gimeracks in iron might be pardonable as adornments of the 
balustrade of a circus or a temple of Comus; but how reasonable beings can 
tolerate them as inclosures to the quiet grave of a family, and in such scenes 
of sylvan beauty, i is mountain high above our comprehension. 

But this is not all; as if to show how far human infirmity can go, we 
noticed lately several lots in one of these cemeteries, not only inclosed with 
a most barbarous piece of irony, but the gate of which was positively orna- 
mented with the coat of arms of the owner, accompanied by a brass door- 
plate, on which was engraved the owner’s name, and city residence! ‘All 
the world has amused itself with the epitaph ona tombstone in Pére la 
Chaise, erected by a wife to her husband’s memory; in which, after recapit- 
ulating the many virtues of the departed, the bereaved one concludes with 

—‘his disconsolate widow still continues the business, No. —, Rose-street, 
Paris.” We really have some doubts if the disconsolate sadowe epitaph 
advertisement is not in better taste than the cemetery brass doorplate ira: 
mortality of our friends at home. 


PUBLIC CEMETERIES AND PUBLIC GARDENS. 157 


which these beautiful cemeteries constantly exercise on the public 
mind, it is only necessary to refer to the rapidity with which they 
have increased in fifteen years, as we have just remarked. To en- 
able them to judge how largely they arouse public curiosity, we may 
mention that at Laurel, Hill, four miles from Philadelphia, an ac- 
count was kept of the number of visitors during last season; and the 
sum total, as we were told by one of the directors, was nearly 30,000 
persons, who entered the gates between April and December, 1848. 
Judging only from occasional observations, we should imagine that 
double that number visit Greenwood, and certainly an equal num- 
ber, Mount Auburn, ina season. 

We have already remarked, that, in the absence of public gar- 
dens, rural cemeteries, in a certain degree, supplied their place. But 
does not this general interest, manifested in; these , cemeteries, prove 
that public gardens, established in a liberal. and suitable manner, 
near our large cities, would be equally successful? , If 30,000. per- 
sons visit a cemetery in a single season, would not a large public 
garden be equally a matter of curious investigation? Would not 
such gardens educate the public taste more rapidly. than any thing 
else? And would not the progress of horticulture, as a science and 
an art, be equally benefited. by such establishments? The passion 
for rural pleasures is destined to be the predominant passion of all 
the more thoughtful and educated portion of our people; and any 
means of gratifying their love.for ornamental or useful gardening, 
will, be eagerly seized by hundreds of thousands of our countrymen. 

Let us suppose a joint-stock company, formed in any of our 
cities, for the purpose of providing its inhabitants with the luxury 
of a public garden. A site should be selected with the same judg- 
ment which has already been shown by the cemetery companies. 
It should have a varied surface, a good position, sufficient natural 
wood, with open space and good soil enough for the arrangement 
of all those portions which require to be newly planted. 

Such a garden might, in the space of fifty to one hundred acres, 
afford an example of the principal modes of laying out grounds,— 
thus teaching practical landscape-gardening. It might contain a 
collection of all the hardy trees and shrubs that grow in this cli- 
mate, each distinctly labelled—so that the most ignorant visitor 


158 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


could not. fail to learn something of trees. It might have a botani- 
cal arrangement of plants, and a lecture-room where, at the proper 
season, lectures on botany could be delivered, and the classes which 
should resort there could study with the growing plants under their 
eyes. It might be laid out so as, in its wooded position, to afford a 
magnificent drive for those who chose so to enjoy it; and it might be 
furnished with suitable ices and other refreshments, so that, like the 
German gardens, it would be the great promenade of all strangers 
and citizens, visitors, or inhabitants of the city of whose suburbs it 
would form a part. But how shall such an establishment be sup- 
ported ? Cemeteries are sustained by the prices paid for lots, which, 
though costing not a large sum each, make an enormous sum ‘in 
the aggregate. 

We answer, by a small admifsion fee. Only those who are 
shareholders would (like those owning lots in a cemetery) have 
entrance for their horses and carriages. This privilege alone would 
tempt hundreds to subscribe, thus adding to the capital, while the 
daily resort of citizens and strangers would give the necessary“in- 
come; for no traveller would leave a city, possessing such a publie 
garden as we have described, without seeing that, its most imterest- 
ing feature. The finest band of music, the most rigid police, the 
certainty of an agreeable promenade and excellent refreshments, 
would, we think, as surely tempt a large part of the better class of 
the inhabitants of our cities to such a resort here as in Germany. 
If the road to Mount Auburn is now lined with coaches, continu- 
ally carrying the inhabitants of Boston by thousands and tens of 
thousands, is it not likely that such a garden, full of the most varied 
instruction, amusement, and recreation, would be ten times more 
visited? Fétes might be held there, horticultural societies would 
make annual exhibitions there, and it would be the general holiday- 
ground of all who love to escape from the brick walls, paved streets, 
and stifling atmosphere of towns. 

Would such a project pay? This is the home austen of all 
the calculating part of the community, who must open their purse- 
strings to make it a substantial reality. 

We can only Judge by analogy. The mere yearly rent of Bar- 
num’s Museum in Broadway is, we believe, about $10,000 (a sum 


PUBLIC CEMETERIES AND PUBLIC GARDENS. 159 


more than sufficient to meet all the annual expenses of such a gar- 
den); and it is not only paid, but very large profits have been made 
there. Now, if hundreds of thousands of the inhabitants of cities, 
like New-York, will pay to see stuffed boa-constrictors and un-hu- 
man Belgian giants, or incur the expense and trouble of going five or 
six miles to visit’ Greenwood, we think it may safely be estimated 
that a much larger number would resort to a public garden, at once 
the finest park, the most charming drive, the most inviting pleasure- 
ground, and the most agreeable promenade within their reach. That 
such a project, carefully planned, and liberally and _,judiciously car- 
ried out, would not only pay, in money, but largely civilize and 
refitie the national character, foster the love of rural beauty, and in- 
crease the knowledge of and taste for rare and beautiful trees and 
plants, we cannot entertain a reasonable doubt. 

It is only necessary for one of the three cities which first opened 
cemeteries, to set the example, and the thing once fairly. seen, it 
becomes universal. The true policy of republics, is to foster the 
taste for great public libraries, sculpture and picture galleries, parks, 
and gardens, which lJ may .enjoy, since our institutions wisely 
forbid the growth of private fortunes sufficient to achieve these de- 
sirable results in any other way. 


x. 


e * 
HOW TO CHOOSE A SITE FOR A COUNTRY-SEAT. 
: ; December, 1847. 
OW to choose the site for a country house, is a subject now 
occupying the thoughts of many of our countrymen, and 
therefore is not undeserving a few words from us.at the. present 
moment. : 

The greater part of those who build country-seats in the United 
States, are citizens who retire from the active pursuits of town to en- 
joy, in the most rational’ way possible, the fortunes. accumulated 
there—that is to say, in the creation of beautiful and agreeable rural 
homes. 

Whatever may be the natural taste of this class, their avoca- 
tions have not permitted them to become familiar with the difficul- 
ties to be encountered in making a new place, or the most successful 
way of accomplishing all that they propose to themselves. Hence, 
we not unfrequently see a very complete house surrounded, for years, 
by very unfinished and meagre grounds. Weary with the labor and 
expense of levelling earth, opening roads and walks, and clothing a 
naked place with new plantations, all of which he finds far less easily 
accomplished than building brick walls in the city, the once san- 
guine improver often abates his energy, and loses his interest in the 
embellishment of his grounds, before his plans are half perfected. 

All this arises from a general disposition to underrate the difli- 
culty and cost of making plantations, and laying the groundwork 
of a complete country residence. Landscape gardening, where all 
its elements require to be newly arranged, where the scenery of a 


HOW TO CHOOSE A SITE FOR A COUNTRY-SEAT. 161 


place requires to be almost wholly created, is by no means either a 
cheap or rapid process. Labor and patience must be added to 
taste, time and money, before a bare site can be turned into smooth 
lawns and complete pleasure-grounds. 

The best advice which the most experienced landscape gardener 
can give an American about to select ground for a country residence, 
is, therefore, to choose a site where there is natural wood, and where 
nature offers the greatest number of good features ready for a basis 
upon which to commence improvements. 

We have, already, so often descanted on the sueriotity of trees 
and lawns to all other features of ornamental places united, that our 
readers are not, we trust, slow to side with us in a thorough appre- 
ciation of their charms. 

Hence, when a site for a country place is to be selected (after 
health and good neighborhood), the first points are, if possible, to 
secure a position where there is some existing wood, and where the 
ground is so disposed as to offer a natural surface for a fine lawn. 
These two points secured, half the battle is fought, for the framework 
or background of foliage being ready grown, immediate shelter, 
shade, and effect is given ds soon as the house is erected; and a 
surface well shaped for a lawn (or one which requires but trifling 
alterations) once obtained, all the labor and cost of grading is 
avoided, and a single season’s thorough preparation gives you velvet 
to walk about upon. 

Some of our readers, no doubt, will say this is excellent advice, 
but unfortunately not easily followed. So many are forced to build 
on a bare site, “and begin at the béginning.” 

This is no doubt occasionally true, but in nine cases out of ten, 
in this country, our own observation has convinced us that the 
choice of a poor location is the result of local prejudice, or want of 
knowledge of the subject, rather than of necessity. 

How frequently do we see men paying large prices for indifferent 
sites, when at a distance of half a mile there are one or more posi- 
tions on which nature has lavished treasures of wood and water, and 
spread out undulating surfaces, which seem absolutely to court, the 

‘finishing touches of the rural artist. "Place a dwelling in such a 
site, and it appropriates all nature’s handiwork to itself in a moment. 
11 


162 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


The masses of trees are easily broken into groups that have imme- 
diately the effect of old plantations, and all the minor details of 
shrubbery, walks, and flower and fruit gardens, fall gracefully and 
becomingly into their proper positions. Sheltered and screened, 
and. brought into harmony with the landscape, these finishing touches 
serve in turn to enhance the beauty and value of the original trees 
themselves. 

We by no means wish to deter those who have an abundance 
of means, taste, enthusiasm and patience, from undertaking the 
creation of entire new scenery in their country residences. There 
are few sources of satisfaction more genuine and lasting than that 
of walking through extensive groves and plantations, all reared by 
one’s own hands—to look on a landscape which one has transformed 
into leafy hills arid wood-embowered slopes. We scarcely remem- 
ber more real delight evinced by any youthful devotee of our favor- 
ite art, in all the fervor of his first enthusiasm, than has been ex- 
pressed to us by one of our venerable ex-Presidents, now in a,ripe 
old age, when showing us, at various times, fine old forest trees, 
oaks, hickories, etc., which have been watched by him in their en- 
tire cycle of development, from the naked seeds deposited in the: 
soil by his own hands, to their now furrowed trunks and umbra- 
geous heads ! 

But it must be confessed, that it is throwing away a large part of 
one’s life—and'that too, more especially, when the cup of country 
pleasures is not brought to the lips till one’s meridian is well nigh 
past-——to take the whole business of making a landscape from the 
invisible carbon and oxygen waiting in soil and atmosphere,:to be 
twméd by the slow alchemy of ten or twenty summers’ growth into 
groves of weeping elms, and groups of overshadowing oaks ! 

Those, therefore, who wish to start with the advantage of a good 
patrimony from nature, will prefer to examine what mother Earth 
has to offer them in her choicest nooks, before they determine on 
taking hold of some meagre scene, where the woodman’s axe and 
the ploughman’s furrow have long ago obliterated all the original 
beauty of the landscape. If a place cannot be found well wooded, 
perhaps a fringe of wood or a background of forest foliage can be 
taken advantage of. These will give shelter, and serve as a ground- 


HOW TO CHOOSE A SITE FOR A COUNTRY-SEAT. 163 


work to help. on the effects of the ornamental planter. We have 
seen a cottage or a villa site dignified, and. rendered attractive for 
ever, by the possession of even three or four fine trees of the original 
growth, judiciously preserved, and taken as the nucleus of a whole 
series of belts and minor plantations. 

‘There is another most striking advantage in the possession of 
considerable wooded surface, properly located, in a country resi- 
dence. This is the. seclusion and privacy of the walks and drives, 
which such bits of woodland afford. "Walks, in open lawn, or even 
amid-belts of shrubbery, are never felt to have that seclusion and 
comparative solitude which belong to the wilder aspect of wood- 
land scenes. And no contrast is more agreeable than that from 
the open.sunny: brightness of the lawn and pleasure-grounds, to the 
retirement and quiet of a woodland walk. 

Again, it is no small matter of consideration to many persons 
settling in the country, the production of picturesque effect, the 
working out of a realm of beauty of their own, without any serious 
inroads into their incomes. One’s private walks and parterres, un- 
luckily, cannot be had at the cost of one’s daily bread and butter— 
though the Béautiful.overtops the useful, as stars outshine farthing 
candles.. But the difference of cost between keeping up a long 
series of walks, in a place mainly composed of flower-garden, 
shrubbery, and pleasure-grounds, compared with another, where 
there are merely lawns and sylvan scenery, is like that between 
maintaining a chancery suit, or keeping on pleasant terms with 
your best friend or favorite country neighbor. Open walks must 
be scrupulously neat, and broad sunshine and rich soil make weeds 
grow faster than a new city in the best “western diggins,” and 
your gardener has no sooner put the series of walks in perfect order, 
than he looks over his shoulder, and beholds the enemy is there, to 
be conquered over again. On the other hand, woodland walks are 
swept and repaired in the spring, and like some of those gifted indi- 
viduals, “born neat,” they require no more attention than the rain- 
bow, to remain fresh and bright till the autumn leaves begin to drop 
again. 

Our citizen reader, therefore, who wishes to enjoy his country- 
seat as an elegant sylvan retreat, with the greatest amount of beauty 


164 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


and enjoyment, and the smallest care and expenditure, will choos 
a place naturally well wooded, or where open glades and bits o 
lawn alternate with masses or groups, and, it may be, with exten 
sive tracts of well-grown wood. A house once erected on such 
site, the whole can very easily be turned into a charming labyrint] 
of beautiful and secluded drives and walks. And as our improve 
cultivates his eye and his taste, nature will certainly give him fres 
hints; she will tell him how by opening a glade here, and piercin, 
a thicket there, by making underwood occasionally give place t 
soft turf, so as to show fine trunks to the greatest advantage, an 
thereby bringing into more complete contrast some wilder an 
more pictiresque dell, all the natural charms of a place may b 
heightened into a beauty far more impressive and significant tha 
they originally possessed. 

Why man’s perception of the Beautiful seems clouded ove 
in most uncultivated natures, and is only brought out by a certai 
process of refining and mental culture, as the lapidary bring 
out, by polishing, all the rich play of colors in a stone that :on 
passes by as a common pebble, we leave to the metaphysicians t 
explain. Certain it is, that we see, occasionally, lamentable proot 
of the fact in the treatment of nature’s best features, by her untt 
tored children. More than one instance do we call to mind, of se 
tlers, in districts of country where there are masses and great wood 
of trees, that the druids would have worshipped for their grandeu 
sweeping them all down mercilessly with their axes, and then plan 
ing with the supremest satisfaction, a straight line of paltry sapling 
before their doors! It is like exchanging a neighborhood of prou 
and benevolent yeomanry, honest and free as the soil they sprin 
from, for a file of sentinels or gens-d’armes, that watch over one 
outgoings and incomings, like a chief of police ! 

Most happily for our country, and its beautiful rural scenery, th 
spirit of destruction, under the rapid development of taste that 
taking place among us, is very fast disappearing. “ Woodma 
spare that tree,” is the choral sentiment that should be instilled an 
taught at the agricultural schools, and re-echoed by all the agricu 
tural and horticultural societies in the land. If we have neither ol 
castles nor old associations, we have at least, here and there, o. 


HOW TO CHOOSE A SITE FOR A COUNTRY-SEAT. 165 


trees that can teach us lessons of antiquity, not less instructive and 
poetical than the ruins of a past age. 

Our first hint, therefore, to persons about choosing a site for a 
country place, is, in all possible cases, to look for a situation where 
there is some natural wood. With this for the warp—strong, rich, 
and permanent—you may embroider upon it all the gold threads 
of fruit and floral embellishment with an effect equally rapid and 
successful. Every thing done upon such a groundwork will tell at 
once; and since there is no end to the delightful task of perfecting 
a country place, so long as there are thirty thousand species of 
plants known, and at least thirty millions of varied combinations of 
landscape scenery possible, we think there is little fear that the 
possessor of a country place will not find time enough to employ 
his time, mind, and purse, if he really loves the subject, even though 
he find himself in possession of a fee-simple of a pretty number of 
acres of fine wood. 

But we have already exhausted our present limits, and must 
leave the discussion of other points to be observed in choosing a 
country place until a future number. 


XI. 


HOW TO ARRANGE COUNTRY PLACES. 


March, 1850. 
OW to lay out a country place? That is a question about 
which we and our readers might have many a long’ conversa- 
tion, if we could be brought on familiar terms, colloquially speak- 
ing, with all parts of the Union where rural improvements are going 
on. As it is, we shall touch on a few leading points this month, 
which may be considered of universal application. 

These cardinal points within the bounds of a country Gales 
are (taking health and pleasant locality:for granted), convenience, 
comfort—or social enjoyment—and beauty ; and we shall touch on 
them in a very rambling manner. 

Innumerable are the mistakes of those novices in forming coun- 
try places, who reverse the order of these three conditions,—and 
placing beauty first (as, intellectually considered, it deserves to be), 
leave the useful, convenient, and comfortable, pretty much to them- 
selves ; or, at least, consider them entitled only to a second place in 
their consideration. In the country places which they create, the 
casual visitor may be struck with many beautiful effects; but when 
a trifling observation has shown him that this beauty is not the re- 
sult of a harmony between the real and the ideal,—or, in other 
words, between the surface of things intended to be seen and the 
things themselves, as they minister to our daily wants,—then all the 
pleasure vanishes, and the opposité feeling takes its place. 

To begin at the very root of things, the most defective matter in 
laying out our country places (as we know from experience), is the 


HOW TO ARRANGE COUNTRY PLACES. 167 
i 


want of forethought and plan, regarding the location of what is 
called the kitchen offices. By this, we refer, of course, to that wing 
or portion of a country house containing the kitchen, with its store- 
room, pantry, scullery, laundry, wood-house, and whatever else, more 
or less, may be included under this head. 

Our correspondent, Jeffreys, has, in his usual bold manner, 
pointed out how defective, in all cases (where the thing is not im- 
possible), is a country house with a kitchen below stairs; and we 
have but lamely apologized for the practice in some irons by the 
greater economy of such an arrangement. But, in truth, we quite 
agree with him, that no country house is complete unless the kitchen 
offices are on the same level as the principal floor containing the 
living apartments. 

At first thought, our inexperienced readers may not see precisely 
what this has to do with laying out the grounds of a country place. 
But, indeed, it is the very starting point and fundamental substratum 
on which the whole thing rests. There can be no complete country 
place, however large or small, in which the greatest possible amount 
of privacy and seclusion is not attained within its. grounds, espe- 
cially within that part intended for the enjoyment of the family. Now 
it is very clear, that there can be no seclusion where there is no 
separation of uses, no shelter, no portions set apart for especial pur- 
poses, both of utility and enjoyment. First of all, then, in planning 
a country place, the house should be so located that there shall be 
at least two sides; an entrance side, which belongs to the living, or 
best apartments of the house ; and a kitchen side (or “ blind side”), 
complete in itself, and more or less shut out from all observation 
from the remaining portions of the place. 

This is as indispensable for the comfort of the inmates of the 
kitchen as those of the parlor. By shutting off completely one side 

- of the house by belts or plantations of trees and shrubbery from the 
rest, you are enabled to make that part more extensive and complete 
in itself. The kitchen yard, the clothes-drying ground, the dairy, 
and all the structures which are so practically important in a country 
house, have abundant room and space, and the domestics can per- 
form their appointed labors with ease and freedom, without disturb- 
ing the different aspect of any other portion of the grounds. There 


168 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


. 


are few new sites where there is not naturally a “ blind side” indi- 
cated ; a side where there is a fringe of wood, or some natural dis- 
position of surface, which points it out as the spot where the kitchen 
offices should be placed, in order to have the utmost shelter and 
privacy,—at the same time leaving the finer glades, openings, and 
views, for the more refined, social and beautiful portions of the resi- 
dence. Wherever these indications are wanting, they must ‘be 
created, by artificial planting of belts, and groups of trees and 
shrubs,—not in stiff and formal lines like fences, but in an irregular 
and naturally varied manner, so as to appear as if formed of a natu- 
ral copse, or, rather, so as not to attract special attention at all. 

We are induced to insist upon this point the more strenuously, 
because, along with the taste for the architecture of Pericles (may 
we indulge the hope that he is not permitted to behold the Greek 
architecture of the new world!) which came into fashion in this 
country fifteen or twenty years ago, came also the fashion of sweep- 
ing away every thing that was not templedike about the house. Far 
from recognizing that man lives a domestic life-—that he cooks, 
washes, bakes and churns in his country house, and, therefore, that 
kitchen offices (tastefully concealed if you please, but still ample) 
are a necessary, and therefore truthful part of his dwelling,—they 
went upon the principle that if man had fallen, and was no longer 
one of the gods, he might still live in a temple dedicated to the im- 
mortals, A clear space on all sides—pediments at each end, and 
perhaps a colonnade all round ; this is the undomestic, uncomfortable 
ideal of half the better ooantey houses in America. 

Having fixed upon and arranged the blind side of the ine 
whieh, of course, will naturally be placed so as to connect itself 
directly with the stable and other out-buildings,—the next point of 
attack is the kitchen garden. This is not so easily disposed of as 
many imagine. All persons of good taste agree that however neces- 
sary, satisfactory, and pleasant a thing a good kitchen garden is, it 
is not, zesthetically, considered a beautiful thing; and it never accords 
well with the ornamental portions of a country place, where the latter 
is large enough to have a lawn, pleasure-grounds, or other portions 
that give it an ornamental character. The fruit trees (and we in- 
clude now, for the sake of conciseness, kitchen and fruit garden), 


HOW TO ARRANGE COUNTRY PLACES. 169 


the vegetables, and all that makes the utility of the kitchen garden, 
never harmonize with the more graceful forms of ornamental scene- 
ry. Hence, the kitchen garden, in a complete country place, should 
always form a scene by itself, and should, also, be shut out from 
the lawn or ornamental grounds by plantations of trees and shrubs. 
A good locality, as regards soil, is an important point to be consi- 
dered in determining its site; and it will usually adjoin the space 
given to the kitchen offices, or that near the stable or barns, or, perhaps 
lie between both, so that it also is kept on the blind side of the house. 


After having disposed of the useful and indispensable portions 
of the place, by placing them in the spots at once best. fitted for 
them, and least interfering with the convenience and beauty of the 
remaining’ portions, let us now turn to what may properly be called 
the ornamental portion of the place. 

This may be confined to a mere bit of lawn, extending a few 
feet in front of the parlor windows, or it may cover a number of 
acres, according to the extent of the place, and the taste and means 
of the owner. 

Be that as it may, the groundwork of this part should, in our 
judgment, always be lawn. There is in the country no object which 
at all seasons and times gives the constant satisfaction of the green 
turf of a nicely kept lawn. If your place is large, so much larger 
and broader is the good effect: of the lawn, as it stretches away, over 
gentle undulations, alternately smiling and looking serious, in the 
play of sunshine and shade that. rests upon it. If it is small—a 
mere bit of green turf before your door—then it forms the best and 
most becoming setting to the small beds and masses of ever-bloom- 
ing roses, verbenas, and gay annuals, with which you embroider it, 
like a carpet. * 

Lawn there must be, to give any refreshment to the spirit of 
man in our country placés; for nothing is so intolerable to the eye 
as great flower-gardens of parched earth, lying half baked in the 
meridian sun of an American summer. And though no nation 
under the sun may have such lawns as the British, because Britain 
lies in the lap of the sea, with a climate always more or less humid, 
yet green and pleasant lawns most persons may have in the Northern 
States, who will make the soil deep and keep the grass well mown. 


170 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


To mow a large surface of lawn—that is to say, many acres— 
is a thing attempted in but few places in America, from the high 
price of labor. But a happy expedient comes in to our aid, to save 
labor and trouble, and produce all the good effect of. a well-mown 
lawn. We mean sheep and wire fences. Our neighbor and cor- 
respondent, Mr. Sargent, of Wodenethe, on the Hudson, who. passed 
a couple of years abroad, curiously gleaning all clever foreign no- 
tions that were really worth naturalizing at home, has already told 
our readers how wire fences may be constructed round lawns or 
portions of the pleasure-grounds, so that only a strip round the house 
need be. mown, while the extent of the lawn is kept short by sheep. 
This. fence, which costs less than any tolerable looking fence: of 
other materials, is abundantly strong to turn both sheep and cattle, 
and is invisible at the distance of 40 or 50 rods. Mr. Sargent is not 
a theorist, but: has actually inclosed his own lawn of several acres 
in this way; and those who have examined the plan are struck, with 
the usefulness and economy of the thing, in all ornamental country 
places of considerable extent. i 

We have said nothing, as yet, of the most important feature of 
all country places—trees. A country place without trees, is like a 
caliph without his beard; in other words, it is not a country place. 
We shall assume, therefore, that all proprietors who do not already 
possess this indispensable feature, will set about planting with more 
ardor than Walter Scott ever did. It is the one thing needful for 
them ; and deep trenching, plentiful manuring, and sufficient mulch- 
ing, are the powerful auxiliaries to help them forward in the good 
work. 

It is, of course, impossible for us to tell our readers how to 
arrange trees tastefully and well, under all circumstances, in this 
short chapter. We can offer them, however, two or three hints as 
to arrangement, which they may perhaps profit by. 

The first principle in ornamental planting, is to study the charac- 
ter of the place to be improved, and to plant in accordance with it. 
If your place has breadth, and simplicity, and fine open views, plant 
in groups, and rather sparingly, so as to heighten and adorn the 
landscape, not.shut out and obstruct the beauty of prospect which 
nature has. placed before your eyes. Scattered groups, with con- 


HOW TO ARRANGE COUNTRY PLACES. 171 


tinuous reaches or vistas between, produce the best effect in such 
situations. In other and more remote parts of the place, greater 
density of foliage may serve as a contrast. 

In residences where there is little or no distant view, the con- 
trary plan must be pursued. Intricacy and variety must be created 
by planting, Walks must be led in various directions, and con- 
cealed from each other by thickets, and masses of shrubs and trees, 
and occasionally rich masses of foliage; not forgetting to heighten 
all, however, by an occasional contrast of broad, unbroken surface 
of lawn. 

In all country places, and especially in small ones, a:great object 
‘to be kept in view in planting, is to produce as perfect seclusion 
and privacy within the grounds as possible. We do not entirely 
feel that to be our own, which is indiscriminately enjoyed by each 

’ passer-by, and every man’s individuality and home-feeling is invaded 
by the presence of unbidden guests. Therefore, while you preserve 
the beauty of the view, shut out, by boundary belts and thickets, all 
eyes but those that are fairly within your own grounds. This will 
enable you to feel at home all over your place, and to indulge your 

‘individual taste in walking, riding, reciling your next speech or 
sermon, or wearing any peculiarly rustic costume, without being 
suspected of being a “ queer fellow” by any of your neighbors ; while 
it will add to the general beauty and interest of the country at 
large,—since, in passing a fine place, we always imagine it finer 
than it is, if a boundary plantation, by concealing it, forces us to 
depend wholly on the imagination. 


« 


XII. 


THE MANAGEMENT OF LARGE COUNTRY PLACES. 


March, 1851. 

OUNTRY places that may properly be called ornamental, are 

increasing so’fast, especially in the neighborhood of the large 
cities, that a word or two more, touching their treatment, will not 
be looked upon as out of place here. ' 7 

All our country residences may readily be divided into two 
classes. The first and largest class, is the suburban place of from 
five to twenty or thirty acres; the second is the country-seat, prop- 
erly so called, which consists of from thirty to five hundred or more 
acres. ‘ "2 

In all suburban residences, from the limited extent of ground, 
and the desire to get the utmost beauty from it, the whole, or at 
least a large part of the ornamental portion, must be considered 
only as pleasure-grounds—a term used to denote a garden scene, 
consisting of trees, shrubs, and flowers, generally upon a basis of 
lawn, laid out in walks of different styles, and kept in the highest 
order. The aim, in this kind of residence, is to produce the great- 
est possible variety within a given space, and to attain the utmost 
beauty of gardening as an art, by the highest keeping and culture 
which the means of the proprietor will permit. 

Of this kind of pleasure-ground residence, we have numberless 
excellent examples—and perhaps nowhere more admirable specimens 
than in the neighborhood of Boston. Both in design and execution, 
these little places will, at the present moment, bear very favorable 
comparison with many in older countries. The practical manage- 


THE MANAGEMENT OF LARGE COUNTRY PLACES. 173 


ment of such places is also very well understood, and they need no 
especial mention in these remarks. 

But in the larger country places there are ten instances of fail- 
ure for one of success. This is not owing to the want of natural 
beauty, for the sites are picturesque, the surface varied, and the ‘woods 
and plantations excellent: The failure consists, for the most part, in 
a certain incongruity and want of distinct character in the treatment 
of the place as a whole. They are too large to be kept in order as 
pleasure-grounds, while they are not laid out or treated as parks. 
The grass which stretches on all sides of the house, is partly mown, 
for lawn, and partly for hay; the lines of the farm and the ornamental 
portion of the grounds, meet in a confused and unsatisfactory manner, 
and the result is a residence pretending to be much superior to a 
common farm, and yet not rising to the dignity of a really tasteful 
country-seat. 

It appears to us that a species of country places particularly 

adapted to this country, has not, as yet, been: attempted, though it 
offers the largest.possible satisfaction at the least cost. 
. We mean a place which is a combination of the park-like and 
pastoral landscape. A place in which the chief features should be 
fine forest trees, either natural or planted, and scattered over a sur- 
face of grass, kept short by the pasturage of fine cattle. A place, 
in short, where sylvan and pastoral beauty, added to large extent and 
great facility of management, would cost no more than a much 
smaller demesne, where a large part is laid out, planted, and kept 
in an expensive though still unsatisfactory manner. 

There are sites of this kind, already prettily wooded, which may 
be had in many desirable localities, at much cheaper rates than the 
improved sites. On certain portions of the Hudson, for instance, 
we could purchase, to-day, finely wooded sites and open glades, in 
the midst of fine scenery—in fact what could, with very trifling ex- 
pense be turned into a natural park—at $60 per acre, while the im- 
proved sites will readily command $200 or $300 per acre. 

‘ Considerable familiarity with the country-seats on the Hudson, 
enables us to state that, for the most part, few persons keep up a 
fine country place, counting all the products of the farm-land at- 
tached to it, without being more or less out of pocket at the end of 


174 LANDSCAPE: GARDENING. 


the year. And yet there are very few of the large places. that can 
be looked upon as examples of tolerable keeping. 

_The explanation of. this lies in the high price of all kinds of la- 
bor—which costs us nearly double or treble what it does on the: 
other side of the Atlantic, and the comparatively small profits of 
land managed in the expensive way common on almost all farms 
attached to our Atlantic country-seats. The remedy for this unsat- 
isfactory, condition of the large country places is, we think, a very 
simple one—that of, turning a large part of their areas into park 
meadow, and feeding it, instead of mowing and cultivating it. 

The great and distinguishing beauty of England, as every one 
knows, is its parks. And yet the English parks are only very large 
meadows, studded. with oaks and elms—and grazed—yprofitably 
grazed, by deer, cattle; and sheep, We believe it is a commonly 
received idea in this country, with those who have not travelled 
abroad, that English parks are portions of highly-dressed scenery— 
at least that they are kept short by frequent mowing, etc. It is an 
entire mistake. The mown lawn with its polished garden scenery, 
is confined to the pleasure-grounds proper—a spot of greater or less 
size, immediately surrounding the house, and wholly separated from 
the park by a terrace wall, or an iron fence, or some handsome 
architectural barrier. The park, which generally comes quite up to 
the house on one side, receives no other attention than such as be- 
longs to the care of the animals that graze in it, As most of these 
parks afford excellent pasturage, and though apparently one wide, 
unbroken surface, they are really ‘subdivided into large fields, by 
wire or’ other invisible fences, they actually pay a very fair income 
to the proprietor, in the shape of good beef, mutton, and venison. 

Certainly, nothing can be a more beautiful sight in its way, than 
the numerous herds of deer, short-horned cattle and fine sheep, 
which embroider and give life to the scenery of an English country 
home of this kind.* There is a quiet pastoral beauty, a spacious- 


* All attempts fo render our native deer really tame in home grounds 
have, so far as we know, failed among us—though with patience the thing 
may doubtless be done. It would be well worth while to import the finer 
breeds of the English deer, which are thoroughly domesticated in their habits, 
and the most beautiful aninials for a park, 


THE MANAGEMENT OF LARGE COUNTRY PLACES. 175 


ness and dignity, and a simple feeling of nature about it which no 
highly decorated pleasure-grounds or garden scenery can approach, 
as the continual surrounding of a country residence. It ‘is, in fact, 
the poetical idea of Arcadia, a sort of ideal nature—softened, refined, 
and ennobled, without being made to look artificial. 

Of course, any thing like English parks, so far as regards extent, 
is almost. out of the question here; simply because land and for- 
tunes are widely divided here, instead of being kept in large bodies, 
intact, as in England. Still, as the first class country-seats of the 
Hudson now command from $50,000 to $75,000, it is evident that 
there is a growing taste for space and beauty in the private do- 
mains of republicans. What we wish to suggest now, is, simply, 
that the greatest beauty and satisfaction may be had here, as in Eng- 
land—(for the plan really suits our limited means better), by treat- 
ing the bulk of the ornamental portion as open park pasture—and 
thus getting the greatest, space and beauty at the least original ex- 
penditure, and with the largest annual profit. 

To some of our readers who have never seen the thing, the idea 
of a park, pastured by animals almost to the very door, will seem 
at variance with all decorum and elegance. This, however, is not 
actually the case. The house should either stand on a raised ter- 
race of turf, which, if it is a fine mansion, may have a handsome 
terrace wall, or if a cottage, a pretty rustic or trellis fence, to sepa- 
rate it from the park. Directly around the house, and stretching 
on one or more $igles, in the rear, lie the more highly dressed portions 
of the scene, which may be a flower-garden and shrubbery set in 
a small bit of lawn kept as short as velvet—or may be pleasure- 
grounds, fruit, and kitchen-gardens, so multiplied as to equal the 
largest necessities of the place and family. All that is to be borne 
in mind is, that the park may be as large as you can afford to pur- 
chase—for it may be kept up at a profit—while the pleasure 
grounds and garden scenery, may, with this management, be com- 
pressed into the smallest space actually deemed necessary to the 
place—thereby lessening labor, and bestowing that labor, in a con- 
centrated space, where it will tell. 

The practical details of keeping the stock upon such a place, are’ 
familiar to almost every farmer. Of course, in a country place, only 


176 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


comely animals would be kept, and a preference would be given to 
breeds of fine stock that “take on flesh” readily, and command the 
best price in the market, In cases where an interest is taken in breed- 
ing cattle, provision must be made, in the shape of hay and shelter, 
for the whole year round; but we imagine the most profitable, as 
well as least troublesome mode, to the majority of gentlemen pro- 
prietors, would be to buy the suitable stock in the spring, put it in 
good condition, and: sell it again in the autumn. The sheep would 
also require to be folded at night to prevent the flocks from being 
ravaged by dogs. 

With this kind of arrangement and management of a country 
place, the owner would be in a position to reap the greatest enjoy- 
ment with the least possible care. To country gentlemen ignorant 
of farming, such an extent of park, with its drives and walks, along 
with its simplicity of management, would be a relief from a multi- 
tude of embarrassing details; while to those who have tried, to their 
cost, the expenses .of ieeoping a large place in high order, it would 
be an equal relief to the debtor side of the cash account. = 


we 


XTIL 
COUNTRY PLACES IN AUTUMN. 


"December, 1850. 
Neo which is one of the least interesting months to those 
who come into the country to admire the freshness of: spring 
or the fulness of summer and early autumn, is one of the most in- 
teresting to those who live in the country, or who have country 
places which they wish to improve, 

When the leaves have all dropped from the trees, when the en- 
chantment and illusion of summer are over, and “ the fall” (our ex- 
pressive American word for autumn) has stripped the glory from 
the sylvan landscape, then the rural improver puts on his spectacles, 
and looks at his demesne with practical and philosophical eyes. 
Taking things at their worst, as they appear now, he sets about find- 
ing out what improvements can be made, and how the surroundings 
which make his home, can be so arranged as to offer.a fairer picture 
to the: eye, or a larger share of enjoyments and benefits to the 
family, in the year that is to come. 

' The end of autumn is the best month to buy a country place, 
and the best to improve one. You see it then in thebarest skeleton 
expression of ugliness or beauty—with all opportunity to learn its 
defects, all its weak points visible, all its possible capacities and sug- 
gestions for improvement laid bare to you. If it satisfy you now, 
either in its present aspect, or in what promise you see in it of order 
and beauty after your moderate plans are carried out, you may buy 
it, with the full assurance ‘that you will not have cause to repent 
when you learn to like it better as seen in the fresher and fairer as- 
pect of its summer loveliness, 

12 


.. 178 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


As a season for rural improvements, the fall is preferable to the 
spring, partly because the earth is dryer, and more easily moved and 
worked, .and partly because there is more time to do well what we 
undertake. In the middle States, fine autumnal weather is often 
continued till the middle of December; and as long as the ground 
is open and mellow, the planting of hardy trees may be done with 
the best chances of success. The surface may be smoothed, drains 
made, walks and roads laid out, and all the heavier operations on 
the surface of the earth—so requisite as a groundwork for lawns and 
pleasure-grounds, kitchen’ or flower-gardens—may be carried on 
more cheaply and efficiently than amid the bustle and hurry of 
spring. And when sharp frosty nights fairly set in, then is the time 
_,to commence the grander operations of transplanting. Then: is the 
time for moving large trees—elms, maples, ete. ; afew of which will 
give more effect to a new and bare site than dhioiaais of the young 
things, which are ‘the despair of all improvers of little faith and ar- 
dent imaginations. With two or three “ hands,” a pair of horses or 
oxen, a “stone boat,” or low sled, and some ropes or “tackle, * the 
removal of trees twenty- -five feet high, and six or eight inches in the 
diameter of the stem, is a very simple and easy process, A little 
practice will enable a couple of men to do it most perfectly and 
efficiently ; and if only free-growing trees, like’ elms, maples, lin- 
dens, or horse-chestnuts, are chosen, there is no more doubt of suc- 
cess than in: planting a currant bush, .Two or three points we may, 
however, repeat, for the benefit of the novice, viz. to prepare the 
soil thoroughly by digging a large hole, trenching. it two-and-a-half 
feet deep, and filling it with rich soil; to take up the tree with a 
good. mass of roots, inclosed in a ball of frozen earth:* and to re- 
duce the ends of the limbs, evenly all over the top, in order to lessen 
the demand for sustenance, made on the roots the first summer after 
removal. 

This is not only the season to ae very hardy trees; it is also 


* This is easily done by digging a trench all round, leaving a ball about 
four or five feetin diameter; undermining it well, and leaving it to freeze for 
one or two nights) Then turn the tree down, place the uplifted side of the 
ball upon the “stone boat;” right the trunk, and get the whole ball firmly 
upon the sled, and then the horses will drag it easily to its new position. | 


COUNTRY. PLACES IN AUTUMN. 179 


the time to feed those which are already established, and are living 
_ on too scanty an income. And how many trees, are there upon 
lawns and in gardens—shade trees and fruit trees—that are literally 
so poor that they are starving to.death! Perhaps’ they have once 
‘been luxuriant and thrifty, and have borne the finest fruit and _blos- 
soms, so that their owners have smiled, and said’ pleasant words in 
their praise, as they passed beneath their boughs. Then they had 
a good subsistence ; ‘the native strength of the soil passed into their 
limbs, and made then stretch out and expand with all the vigor of 
a young Hercules. Now, alas, they are mossy and decrepit—the 
leaves small—the blossoms or fruit indifferent. And yet they are 
not old. Nay, they are quite in the prime of life. If they could 
speak to their master or mistress, they would say— First of all, give 
us something to eat. Here are we, tied hand and foot'to one spot, 
where we have been feeding this dozen or twenty years, until we 
are actually reduced to our last morsel. What the gardener has oc- 
casionally given us, in his scanty top-dressing of manure, has been 
as a mere crust thrown out to a famished man. If you wish us to 
salute you next year with a glorious drapery of green leaves—the 
deepest, richest green, and start into new forms of luxuriant growth 
—feed us. Dig a trench around us, at’ the extremity of our roots,. 
throw away all the old worn-out soil you find there, and replace it 
with some fresh soil from the lower corner ‘of some rich meadow, 
where it has lain fallow for years, growing richer every day. Mingle 
this with some manure, some chopped sods—any thing that can 
allay our thirst and’ satisfy our hunger for three or four years to 
come, and see what a new leaf—yes, what volumes ‘of new leaves 
we will turn over for you next year. We are fruit trees, perhaps, 
and you wish us to bear fair and excellent fruit. Then you must 
also feed us. The soil is thin, and contains little that we can digest; 
or it is old, and ‘sour’ for the want of being aired. Remove all 
the earth for several yards about us, baring some of our roots—and 
perhaps shortening a few. Trench the ground, when our new roots 
will ramble, next year, twenty inches deep. Mingle the top and 
bottom soil, rejecting the worst parts of it, and making the void good 
—very good—by manure, ashes, and decaying leaves. Then you 


# 


180 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


shall have bushels of fair and fine pears and apples, where you now 
have pecks of spotted and deformed fruit.” 


Be \ 
‘ Such is the sermon which the “tongues in trees” preach to those 


who listen to them at this season of the year. We do not mean to 
poets, or lovers of nature (for to them, they have other and more 
romantic stories to tell); but to the earnest, practical, working 
owners of the soil,—especially to those who grudge a little food and 
a little labor, in order that the trees may live contented, healthy, 
beautiful, and fruitful lives. We have written it down here, in 
order that our readers, when they walk round their gardens and 
grounds, and think “the work of the season is all done,” may not 
be wholly blind and deaf to the fact that the trees are as capable, 
in their way, of hunger and thirst, as the ‘cattle in the farm-yards ; 
and since, at the oftenest, they only need feeding once a year, now 
is the cheapest and the best time for doing it. The very frosts of 
winter creep into the soil, loosened. by stirring at this season, and 
fertilize, while they crumble and decompose it, Walk about, phen, 
and listen to the sermon which your. hungry trees. preach. 


XIV. 


A CHAPTER ON LAWNS. 


) 


November, 1846. 

ANDSCAPE GARDENING embraces, in the circle of its per- 

fections, many elements of beauty ; certainly not a less number 
than the modern chemists count as the simplest conditions of mat- 
ter. But with something of the feeling of the old philosophers, who 
believed that earth, air, fire and water, icluded every thing in na- 
ture, we like to go, "padk to plain and simple facts, of breadth and 
importance enough to embrace a multitude of little details. The 
great elements then, of landscape ‘gardening, as we understand it, 
are TREES and GRASS. 

Trezs—delicate, beautiful, grand, or majestic frome pliantly 
answering to the wooing of the softest west wind, like the willow ; 
or bravely and sturdily defying centuries of storm and tempest, like 
the oak—they are indeed the great “princes, potentates, and peo- 
ple,” of our realm of beauty. But it is not to-day that we are per- 
mitted to sing triumphal’songs in their praise. 

In behalf of the grass—the turf, the lawn,—then, we ask our 
readers to listen to us for a short time. And. by this we do not 
niean to speak of it in a moral sense, as did the inspired preacher 
of old, when he gravely told us that “all flesh is grass;” or ina 
style savoring of the vanities of costume, as did Prior, when he 
wrote the couplet, 


“Those limbs in Zawn and softest silk arrayed, 
From sunbeams guarded, and of winds afraid.” 


182 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


Or with the keen relish of the English Jockey, -whose only idea of: 
“the turf,” is that of the place nature has specially pronided him: 
upon which to race horses. : 

Neither do we look upon grass, at the present moment, mali the 
eyes of our friend Tom Thrifty, the farmer, who cuts “three tons to 
the acre.” ‘We have, in our present mood, no patience, with the tall 
and giganti¢ fodder, by this name, that grows in the fertile bottoms, 
of the West, so tall that the largest Durham is lost to view while’, 
walking through it. 

No—we love most the soft twf which, beneath the iekaeng 
shadows of scattered trees, is thrown: like a smooth natural carpet 
over the swelling outline of the smiling earth. Grass, not grown 
into tall meadows, or wild bog tussocks, but softened and refined by: 
the frequent touches of the patient mower, till at last it becomes a 
perfect wonder of tufted freshness and verdure. . Such grass, in 
short, as Shakspeare had in his mind, when he said, in words since 
echoed ten thousand times, | 


ag re ry 


“How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon = bank ;” 


or Ariosto, in his Orlando— - 
J 


“The approaching night, not knowing where to pass, 
- She checks her reins, and on the velvet grass, 
Beneath the umbrageous trees, her form she throws, 
To cheat the tedious hours with brief repose.” 
’ i, 


In short, the ideal of grass is a lawn, which is, to a meadow, 
what “ Bishop’s lawn” is to homespun Irish linen. : 

With such a lawn, and large and massive trees, one has indeed ' 
the most enduring sources of. beauty in a country residence. Per- 
petual neatness, freshness and verdure in the one; ever expanding 
beauty, variety and grandeur. in the other—what more does a rea- 
sonable man desire of the beautiful about him.in the country? 
Must we add flowers, exotic plants, fruits ? Perhaps so, but they 
are all, in an ornamental light, secondary to trees and grass, where 
these can be had in perfection. Only one other grand element is 
needed to make our landscape garden complete—water, A river, 
or a lake, in which the skies and the “ eae trees” may see them- 


A CHAPTER ON LAWNS. 183 


selves reflected, is ever an sca feature to a perfect land- 
scape. 

How to obtain a fine ea is a question which has no diate 
already puzzled many of our readers. They have thought, perhaps, 
that it would be‘quite sufficient to sow with grass seeds, or lay down 
neatly with sods, any plat of common, soil, to mow it occasionally, 
to be repaid by the perpetual softness and verdure of an “English 
lawn.” 

They have found, however, after a patient frial in several seasons, 
that an American summer, so bright and sunny as to give us, in our 
fruits, almost the ripeness and prodigality of the tropics, does not, 
like that of Britain, ever moist and humid, naturally favor the con- 
dition of fine lawns. , 

Beautiful as our lawns usually are in’ May, June, September, and: 
October, yet in July.and August, they too often lose that freshness 
and verdure which is for them what the rose-bloom of youth is to a 
beauty of seventeen—their most, captivating feature. 

There are not wanting admirers of fine lawns, who, witnessing 
this summer searing, have pronounced it an impossible thing to pro- 
duce a fine lawn in this country. To such an opinion we can never 
subscribe—for the very sufficient reason that we have seen, over and 
over again, admirable lawns wherever they have been properly 
treated. Fine’ lawns are therefore possible in all the northern half 
of the Union. What then are the necessary conditions to be ob- 
served—what the preliminary steps to be taken in order to obtain 
them? Let us answer in a few words—deep: soil, the proper kinds 
of grasses, and frequent mowing. z 

First of all, for,us, deep soil. In a’moist climate, where showers 
or fogs give'all vegetable nature a weekly succession of baths, one 
may raise a pretty bit of turf on a bare board, with half an inch of 
soil. But here it does not require much. observation or theory to 
teach us, that if any plant is to maintain its verdure through a long 
and bright summer, with alternate periods « of wet and drouth, it 
must have a.deep soil in which to extend its roots. We have seen 
the roots of common clover, in trenched soil, which had descended 
to the depth of four feet! A surface drouth, or dry. weather, had 
little power over a plant whose little fibres were in the cool moist 


184 LANDSCAPE GARDENING, 


understratum of that depth. And a lawn which is well established: 
on thoroughly trenched soil, will remain, even in midsummer, of _ 
a fine dark verdure, when upon the same soil untrenched, every 
little period of dryness would give a brown and. ade look to the 
turf. 

The most essential point being a deep soil, we need not say that 
in our estimation, any person about to lay down a permanent lawn, 
whether of fifty acres or fifty’ feet square, must provide Bonkelt 
against failure by this groundwork of success. 

Little plats of ground are easily trenched with the spade. 
Large lawn surfaces are only to be managed (unless expense is not 
a consideration), with the subsoil plough. With this. grand: de- 
veloper of resources, worked by two yoke of oxen, let: the whole 
area to be laid down be thoroughly moved and broken up two feet 
deep. The autumn or early winter is the best season for perform-- ~ 
ing this, because the surface will have ample time to settle, and 
take a proper shape before spring. 

After being ploughed,.subsoiled and harrowed, let the whole 
surface be entirely cleared of even the smallest stone. It is quite 
impossible to mow a lawn well that isinot as smooth as ground can 
be made. Manure, if necessary, should be applied: while subsoil- 
ing. We say, if necessary, for if the land is strong and in good 
heart, it isnot needed. The object in a lawn, it will be remem- 
bered; is not to obtain a heavy crop.of hay, but simply to main- 
tain perpetual verdure. Rich soil would defeat our -objéet by 
causing a rank growth: and coarse stalks, whem we wish a short 
growth and soft herbage. Let the soil, therefore, be good, but not 
rich; depth, and the power of retaining moisture, are the truly 
needful qualities here. If the land is very.light and sandy (the 
worst naturally), we would advise a mixture of loam or clay; 
which indeed subsoiling, when ahs substratum is heavy, will often 
most readily effect. 

The soil, thus prepared, lies all winter to mellow and -settle,. 
with the kindly influences of the atmosphere and frost upon it.” - 

As early in the spring, as itis in friable working condition, stir 
it lightly with the plough and harrow, and ‘make the surface as 
smooth as possible—we do not mean level, for if the ground is not 


A CHAPTER ON LAWNS. 185 


a flat, nothing is so agreeable as gentle swells or undulations. But 
quite smooth the surface must be. 

‘Now for the sowing; and here a farmer would advise you to 
“seed down ‘with oats,” or some such established agricultural pre- 
cept. Do not listen to him for a moment! What you desire is a 
close turf, and therefore sow nothing but grass ; and do not suppose 
you are going to assist a weak growing plant by sowing along 
with it a coarser growing one to starve it. 

Choose, if possible, a calm day, and sow your seed as evenly as 
you can, The seed to be sown is a mixture of red-top (Agostis 
wulgaris) and white clover (Trifolium repens), which are hardy 
short grasses, and on the whole make the best and most enduring 
lawn for this climate.* The proportion should be about three- 
fourths. red-top to one-fourth white clover. The seed should be 
perfectly clean ; then sow four bushels of it to the acre; not a pint 
less as you hope to walk upon velvet!’ Finish the whole by rolling 
the surface evenly and neatly. 

A few soft vernal showers, and bright sunny days, will show you 
a coat of verdure bright as emerald. By the first of June, you will 
find it necessary to look about-for your rhower. 

And this reminds us.to say a word about a lawn scythe. You 
must not suppose, as many ignorant people do,'that a lawn can be 
mown with a brush hook, or 4 common meadow scythe for cutting 
hay in the fastest possible manner. It can only be done with a 
broad-bladed scythe, of the most perfect temper and quality, which 
will hold an edge like a razor. The easiest: way to get such an 
article is to inquire at any of the agricultural warehouses in the 
great cities, for an “English lawn scythe.” When used, it should 
be set low, so as to be level with the plane of the grass; when the 
mower is erect, he will mow without leaving any oe and with 
the least possible exertion. 

After your lawn is once fairly established, there are but two 
secrets in keeping it perfect—frequent mowing and rolling. With- 
. out the first, it will soon degenerate into a coarse meadow; the 


* We learn the blue-grass of Kentucky makes a fine lawn at the West; 
but with this we have no experience. 


186 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


latter will render it firmer, closer, shorter, and finer every time it ig 
repeated. 

‘A good lawn must be mown every ten days or fortnight. The 
latter may be assumed as the proper average time in this climate: 
Ten days is the usual limit of growth for the best kept lawns in 
England, and it is surprising how soon a coarse and wiry bit of 
sward will become smooth turf, under the magic influences of 
regular and oft repeated mowing and rolling. 

Of course, a lawn can only: be cut when the grass is dary, and 

_ rolling is best’ performed direetly after rain. The English always 
roll a few hours before using the scythe. On large lawns, a donkey 
or light horse may be adeantaghoutly employed in performing this 
operation. 

There are but few good. ae ‘yet in America; but we have 
great pleasure in observing that they are rapidly multiplying. 
Though -it may seem a heavy tax to some, yet no expenditure in 
ornamental gardening is, to our mind, productive of so much, beau- 
ty as that incurred in producing a well-kept lawn. ‘Without this 


feature, no place, however great its architectural beauties, its charms. - 


of scenery, or its collections of flowers and shrubs, can be said te. 
deserve consideration in point of landscape gardening; and with it 
the humble cottage grounds will possess a charm which is, among 
pleasure-grounds, what a refined and graceful manner is in, society 
—a universal passport. to admiration. « - 
There ‘aré two residences in this country which so far surpass all 


others in the perfection of their lawns, that we hope to be pardoned 


for holding them up to commendation. - These are the Uprzr 
Lrvineston Manor, -the seat of Mrs. Mary Livingston, about 
seven miles from Hudson, N. Y., and the Camac Corraaz, near 
Philadelphia.* 

The lawn at the Livingston Manor is very extensive and park- 
like—certainly the largest well-kept’ lawn in America, and we wish 
all our readers who are skeptical regarding an American lawn, 

--could see and feel its many excellent perfections. They would only 


* See Downing’s “Landscape Gardening,” pp. 45, 58. 


A CHAPTER ON LAWNS. 187 


be still more surprised when they were told how few men keep so 
large a surface in the highest order. 

The Camac Cottage is a gem of neatness and high keeping, 
We hope Pennsylvanians at least, who, we think, have perhaps our 
best lawn climate, will not fail to profit by so admirable an example 
as they will find there, of what Srensrr quaintly and prettily calls 
“ the grassie ground.” 


if 


XV. 
MR. TUDOR’S GARDEN AT NAHANT. 


August, 1847, 

Ev miles east of Boston, boldly jutting into the Atlantic, 

lies the celebrated promontory of Nanant. Nature has made 
it remarkable for the grandeur and bleakness of its position. It. is 
a headland of a hundred acres, ‘more or less, sprinkled | with a light 
turf, and girded about with bold cliffs. of rock, against which *the 
sea dashes with infinite grandeur and majesty. No tree anciently 
deigned to raise its head against the mde breezes that blow herein 
winter, as if tempest-driven by Boreas, himself; and that, even in 
summer, make of Nahant, with its many cottages and hotels, a re- 
frigerator, for the preservation of the dissolving souls and bodies of 
the exhausted population,’ of Boston, in ne months of any and 
August. 

At the present moment, the interesting feature at Nahant, after 
the Ocean itself, is, strange to say, one of the most remarkable 
gardens in existence. We mean the grounds of the private resi- ° 
dence of Frederic Tudor, Esq., a gentleman well known in the four 


' quarters of the world, as the originator of the present successful 


mode of shipping ice to the most distant tropical countries; and, 
we may here add, for the remarkable manner in which he has again 
triumphed over nature, by transforming some acres of her bleakest 
and most sterile soil into a spot of luxuriant verdure, fruitfulness, 


and beauty. 


To appreciate the difficulties with which this gentleman had to 
contend, or, as we might more properly say, which stimulated all: 


MR, TUDOR’S GARDEN AT NAHANT. 189 


his efforts, we must recall +o mind that, frequently, in high winds, 
the salt spray drives over the whole of N ahant ; that, until Mr. 
Tudor began his improvements, not even a bush grew naturally on 
the whole of its area, and that the east winds, which blow from the 
Atlantic in the spring, are sufficient to render all gardening possi- 
bilities in the usual way nearly as chimerical as cultivating the vol- 
canoes of the moon. 

Mr. Tudor’s residence there now, is a curious and striking illus- 
tration of the triumph of art over nature, and as it involves some 
points that we think ‘most instructive to horticulturists, we trust he 
will pardon us for drawing the attention of our readers to it at the 
present time.. Our first visit to his grounds was made in July, 1845, 
one of the driest and most unfavorable seasons for the growth of 
trees and plants that we remember. But at that time, perhaps the 
best possible one to test the merits of the mode of cultivation 
adopted, we found Mr. Tudor’s garden in a more flourishing condi- 
tion than any one of the celebrated places about Boston. The 
average growth of the thriftiest standard fruit-trees about Boston, 
at that time, was little more than six inches to a foot. In this Na- 
hant garden it was two feet, and we measured shoots on some of 
the standard trees three feet in length. By far the largest and finest 
cherries we tasted that season, were from trees growing there; and 
there was an apparent health and vigor about every species elie 
its boundary, which would have been creditable any where, but 
which at Nahant, and in a season so unfavorable, quite astonished us. 

The two strong points in this gentleman’s gardening operations 
at Nahant, appear to us to be the following: First, the employment 
of screens to break the force of the wind, producing thereby an ar- 
tificial climate ; and second, the thorough preparation of the soil by 
trenching and manuring. 

Of -course, even the idea of a place worthy of the name of a 
garden in this bald, sea-girt cape, was out of the question, unless 
some mode of overcoming the violence of the gales, and the bad 
effects of the salt spray, could be devised. The plan Mr. Tudor has- 
adopted is, wé believe, original with him, and is at once extremely 
_ simple, and perfectly effective. 

It consists merely of two, or at most three, ere rows of high 


190 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.: 


open fences, made of rough slats or palings, nailed in the common 
vertical manner, about three inches wide, and a space of a couple 
of inches left between them. These-paling fences are about sixteen 
feet. high, and usually form a double row (on the’most exposed side 
a triple row), round the whole garden. The distance between that. 
on the outer boundary ‘and the next interior one is about four feet. 

The garden is also intersected here and there by tall trellis fences . 
of the same kind, all of which help to increase the shelter, while 

some of those in the interior serve as frames for training trees 

upon. 

The-effect of this double or triple barrier of‘ high paling is mar- 
vellous. ° Although like a common paling, appareritly open and per- 
mitting the wind free passage, yet in practice, it is found entirely 
to rob the gales of their violence, and their saltness. To use Mr. 
Tudor’s words, “ it completely sifts the air.” After great storms, 
when the outer barrier will be fourid covered with a coating of salt, 
the foliage in the garden is entirely uninjured. It acts, in short, 
like a rustic veil, that admits just so much of the air, and in such a 
manner as most to promote the growth of the trees, while it breaks 
and wards off all the: deleterious influences of a génuine ocean 
breeze—so pernicious to terder leaves and shoots. 

Again, regarding the luxuriant growth, which surprised us in a 
place naturally a sterile gravel, we were greatly struck with the ad- : 
ditional argument which it furnished us with in support of our fa- 
vorite theory of the value of trenching in this climate. My. Tudor 
has, at incredible labor, trenched and manured tHe soil of his garden 
three feet deep. The consequence of this is, that, although it is 
mainly of a light, porous texture, yet the depth to which it has been 
stirred and cultivated, renders it proof against the effects of drouth. 
In the hottest and driest seasons, the growth here is luxuriant, and 
no better proof can be desired of the’ great value of thoroughly. 
tretiching, as the first and indispensable foundation of all good cul- 
ture, even in thin and. poor soils, 

It is worthy: of record, among the results of Mr. Tudor’s culture, 
that, two years after the principal plantation of his fruit-trees was 
made, he carried off thé second prize for pears, at the annual exhi- 
bition. of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, among dozens of 


MR. TUDOR’S GARDEN AT NAHANT. 191 


zealous competitors, and with the fruit most carefully grown in that 
vicinity. ; 

We have’ observed also, and noted as indicative of no small de- 
gree of practical skill, that. in various quarters of the garden are 
standard trees, apples and pears especially, that have been trans- 
planted from Boston, with large heads and trunks, six or eight inches 
in. diameter, and are now in a state of complete luxuriance and 
fruitfulness. 

There are, of course, but few individuals who have the desire 
and the means thus to weave a spell of freshness and beauty over a 
spot which nature has created so stern and bald; perhaps there are 
still fewer who would have the cour age to plan and carty out im- 
provements of this kind, to the attainment of so beautiful a result, 
in the very teeth of the elements. But there are many who may 
learn something: valuable from Mr. Tudor’s labor in the cause of 
Horticulture,, There are, for example, hundreds along the sea-coasts, 
to whom gardening of any sort is nearly impossible, from the i inju- 
Tious effects of breezes. loaded with. salt water. There: are, again, 
many beautiful sites that we could name on the shores of some of 
our great inland lakes, and. the number i is every day increasing, sites 
where the soil is deep and excellent, and the skies warm and bright, 
but the violence of the vernal and autumnal winds is such, that the 
better culture of the orchard and garden makes little progress. , 

In all such sites, Mr. Tudor’s Nahant screens for sifting the air, 
will at once obviate all the difficulty, temper. the wind to the tender 
buds, and make for the spot a soft climate in a naturally harsh and 
bleak aspect. 


XVI. 


A VISIT TO MONTGOMERY PLACE, 


October, 1847. 

HERE are few persons, among what may be called the travelling 

class, who know the beauty of the finest American country- 
seats. Many are ignorant of the very existence of those rural gems 
that embroider the landscapes here and there, in the older’ and 
wealthier parts of the country. Held in the retirement of private 
life, they are rarely visited, except by those who enjoy. the friend- , 
ship of their ‘Possessors. The annual tourist by the railroad and 
steamboat, who moves through wood and meadow and_ river and 
hill, with: the eelerity of a rocket, and then fancies he’ knows the ° 
country, is in a state, of-total ignorance of their many attractions ; 
and those whose taste has not led them to seek this spécies of plea-. 
sure, are equally unconscious of the landseape-gardening beauties 
that are developing themselves every day, with the. advancing De 
perity of the country. 

It has been our good fortune to ‘know a par number of the 
finest of these delightful residences, to revel in their beauties, and 
occasionally to chronicle their charms. If we have not_ sooner 
spoken at large of Montgomery Place, second as it is to no seat in 
America, for its combination of attractions, it has been, rather that. 
we ‘were silent—like a devout gazer at the marvellous beauty of 
the ‘Apollo—from excess of enjoyment, than from not. deeply 
feeling all its varied mysteries of pleasure-grounds and lawns, wood 
and water. | 

Montgomery Place is one.of the superb old seats belonging to 


A VISIT TO, MONTGOMERY PLACE. 193 


the Livingston family, and situated in that part of Dutchess county 
bordering on the Hudson. About one hundred miles from New- 
York, the .swift river steamers reach this part of the river in six 
ian and the guest, who leaves the noisy din of the town in the 
early morning, finds himself, at a little past noon, plunged amid all 
the seclusion and quiet of its leafy groves. 

And this accessible perfect seclusion is, perhaps, one of the most 
captivating features in the life of the country gentleman, whose lot. 
is cast on this part of the Hudson. For twenty miles here, on the 
eastern shore, the banks are nearly a continuous succession of fine 
seats. The landings are by no ‘means towns, or large villages, 
with the busy’ air of trade, but quiet stopping places, serving the 
convenience of the neighboring residents. Surrounded by exten- 
sive pleasure-grounds, fine woods or parks, even the adjoining 
estates are often concealed from that part of the grounds around the 
house, and but for the broad Hudson, which forms the grand feature 
in all these varied landscapes—the Hudson always so full of life in 
its numberless bright sails and steamers—one might fancy himself a- 
‘thousang miles from all crowded and busy haunts of men. ‘ 

Around Montgomery Place, indeed, this air of quiet and seclu- 
sion lurks more bewitchingly than in any other seat whose hospitality 
we have enjoyed. Whether the charm lies in the deep and mysterious 
wood, full of the echo of water-spirits, that forms the Northern 
boundary, or whether it grows out of a profound feeling of com- 
pleteness and perfection in foregrounds of old trees, and distances of 
‘calm serene mountains, we have not been able to divine; but cer- 
tain it is that there is a spell in the very air, which is fatal to the 
energies of a great speculation. .It is not, we are sure, the spot for 
a man to plan campaigns of conquest, and we doubt even whether - 
the scholar, whose ambition it is 


“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. 
There is not wanting something of the charm ‘of historical asso- 
13 } 


194 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. j 


ciation here. The estate derives its name from Gen, Montgomery,'the 
hero and martyr of Quebec (whose portrait, among other fine family 
pictures, adorns the walls of the mansion). Mrs. Montgomery, after 
his lamented: death on the heights of Abraham, resided here during 
the remainder of her life, At her death, she bequeathed it to her 
brother, the Hon. Edward Livingston,-our late Minister to France. 


Here this distinguished diplomatist and jurist passed, in elegant 4 Po 


retirement, the leisure intervals of a life largely devoted tothe service 
of the State, and here still reside his family, whose greatest pleasure 
seems to be to add, if possible, every year, some admirable im- 
provement, or elicit some new charm of its extraordinary natural 
beauty. 

The age of Montgomery Place heighten’ its interest in no ordi- 
nary degree, Its richness of foliage, both in ‘natural wood and 
planted trees, is one of its marked features. Indeed, so great is the’ 
variety and intricacy of scenery, caused by the leafy woods, thickets 
and bosquets, that one may pass days and even weeks here, and not 
thoroughly explore all its fine points— ws 

: * se e 

“Milles arbres, de ces lieux ondoyante, parure 
Charme de V’odorat, de gout et des regarda, 
Elégamment groupés, négligemment épars, 
Se fuyaient, s’approchaiént, quelquefois 4 la vue 
Ouvraient dans la lointain un seéne imprévue; 
Ou, tombant jusqu’a terre, et recourbant leurs bras ; 
Venaient d’un doux obstacle embarrasser leurs pas 
Ou pendaient sur leur téte en festons de verdure, 7 
Et de fleurs, en passant, semaient leur chevelure, 
Dirai-je ces foréts d’arbustes, ‘Warbrisseaux, 
Entrelagant en vodte, en aleove, en bereeaux, 
Leurs bras voluptueux, et leurs tiges fleuriés ?” 

\ ‘ 4 

About four hundred acres comprise the’ estate called. Mont- 
:gomery Place, a very large ‘part of which is devoted to pleasure- 
‘grounds and ornamental purposes. The ever-varied surface affords 
the finest scope for the numerous’ roads, drives, and walks, with 
-which it abounds, Even its natural boundaries are . admirable. 
‘On the west is the Hudson, broken by islands into an outline un- 
«usually varied and picturesque. On the north, it is separated from 


A VISIT TO MONTGOMERY PLACE. 195 


Blithewood, the adjoining seat, by a wooded valley, in the depths of 
which runs a broad stream, rich in waterfalls. On the south is a 
rich oak wood, in the centre of which is a private drive. On the 
‘east it touches the post road. Here is the entrance gate, and from 
it leads a long and stately avenue of trees, like the approach to an 
old French chateau. Half-way up its length, the lines of planted trees 
give place to a tall wood, and this again is succeeded by the lawn, 
which. opens in all its stately dignity, with imcreased effect after the 
.. deeper shadows of this vestibule-like wood. The eye is now caught 
at once by the fine specimens of hemlovk, lime, ash and_ fir, 
whose proud heads and large trunks form the finest possible acces- 
sories to a large and spacious mansion, which is one of the best 
specimens of our manor houses. Built many years ago, in the most 
’ substantial manner, the edifice has been retouched and somewhat 
enlarged within a few years, and is at present both commodions, and 
architectural_in character. 

Without going into any details of ‘the interior, we may call at- 
tention to the unique effect of the pavilion, thirty feet wide, which 
forms the north wing of this house. It opens from the library and 
drawing-room by low windows. Its ribbed roof is supported by a 
tasteful series of columns and archés, in the style of an Italian ar- 
cade. As it is on the north side of the ‘dwelling, its, position is al- 
ways cool in summer; and this coolness is still further increased by 
the abundant shade of tall old trees, whose heads cast a pleasant 
gloom, while their tall trunks allow the eye to feast on the rich 
‘landscape spread around it.* 

“Yo attempt to describe the scenery, which bewitches the eye, as 
it wanders over the wide expanse to the west from this pavilion, 
would be but an idle effort to make words express what even the 
pencil of the painter often fails to.copy. As a foreground, imagine 
a large lawn waving in undulations of soft verdure, varied with fine 
groups, and margined with rich belts of foliage. Its base is waslied 
by the river, which is here a broad sheet of water, lying like a long 
lake beneath the eye. Wooded banks stretch along its margin.’ Its 
bosom is studded with islands, which are set like emeralds on its 


* See Downing’s ‘Landscape Gardening,” p. 47. 


196 LANDSCAPE GARDENING, 


_pale blue bosom. On the opposite shores, more than a mile distant, 
is seen a rich mingling of: woods and corn-fields. But the crowning 
glory of the landscape is the background of mountains. The Kaat- 
skills, as seen from this part of thé Hudson, are, it seems to us, moré 
beautiful than any mountain scenery in the middle States. It is not 
merely that their outline is bold, and that the summit of Roundtop, 
rising three thousand feet above ‘the surrounding” country, gives an 
air of more grandeur than is usually seen, even in thé Highlands; 
but it is the color which renders the Kaatskills so captivating a 
feature in the landscape here. Never harsh or cold, like somé of our 
finest hills, Nature seems to delight in’ casting a veil of the softest 
azure over these mountains—immortalized by the historian of Rip 
Van Winkle. Morning and noon, the shade only varies from softer 


to deeper blue. But the hour of sunset is the magical time for the’ 


fantasies of the color-genii of these mountains. Seen at this period, 
from the terrace of the pavilion of Montgomery Place, the eye is 
filled with wonder at the various dyes that bathe the receding hills 
—the most distant of which are twenty or thirty miles away. Azure, 
purple, violet, pale grayish-lilac, and the dim hazy hue of the most 
‘distant cloud-rift, are all seen distinct, yet blending magically into 
each other in these receding hills, It is a spectacle of rare beauty, 
and he’ who loves tones of color, soft and.dreamy as one of the 
mystical airs of a German maestro, should see the sunset fade into 
twilight from the seats on this part of the Hudson. 


THE MORNING WALK. 


Leaving the terrace on the western front, the steps of the vain 
exploring Montgomery Place, are naturally directed: towards the 
river bank: A path on the left of the broad lawn leads one to the 
fanciful rustic-gabled seat, among a growth of locusts at the bottom 


of the slope. Here commences a long walk, which is the favorite 


morning ramble of. guests. Deeply shaded, winding along the 
thickly woodéd bank, with the refreshing sound of the: tide-waves 
gently dashing against the rocky shores below, or expendig them- 


selves on the beach of gravel, it curves along the bank for a great . 


distance. Sometimes overhanging cliffs, crested with pines, frown 
darkly over it; sometimes thick tufts of fern and mossy-carpeted 


A VISIT TO MONTGOMERY. PLACE. 197 


racks border it, while at various points, vistas or long reaches of the 
beautiful river scenery burst upon the eye. Half-way along this 
morning ramble, a rustic seat, placed on a bold little plateau, at the 
base of a large tree,. eighty feet above the water, and fenced about 
with a rustic barrier, invites you to linger and gaze at the fascinat- 
ing river landscape here presented. It embraces the distant moun- 
tains, a sylvan foreground, and the broad river stretching away for 
miles, sprinkled with white sails. The coup-d’wil is heightened 
by its being seen through a dark framework of thick leaves and 
branches, which open here just sufficiently to show as much as the 
eye can enjoy or revel in, without change of position. , 

A little farther on, we reach a flight of. stony steps, leading up 
to the border of the lawn. -At the top of these is.a rustic seat with 
a thatched canopy, curiously. built round the trunk. of an aged tree. 

Passing these steps, the morning walk begins to descend more 
rapidly toward the river. At the distance of. some hundred yards, 
we found ourselves on the river shore, and on, a pretty jutting point 
of land stands a little rustic pavilion, from which a much lowor 
and wider view of the landscape is again enjoyed. Here you find a 
boat ready for an -excursion, if the spirit leads you to reverse the 
scenery, and behold the leafy banks from the water. 


‘THE WILDERNESS. 


Leaving the morning walk, we enter at once into “The Wilder- 
ness.” This is a large and long wooded ‘valley. It is broad, and 
much varied in surface, swelling into deep ravines, and spreading, 
into wide hollows. In its lowest depths runs a large stream of water, 
that.has, in portions, all the volume and swiftness of a mountain tor- 


“pent. But the peculiarity of “The Wilderness,” is in the depth and 


massiveness of its foliage. . It is covered with the native growth of 
trees, thick, dark and shadowy, so that once plunged in its recesses, . 
you can easily imagine yourself in the depths of an old-forest, far 
away from the haunts of civilization. Here and there, rich thickets 
of the kalmia or native laurel clothe the surface of the ground, and 
form the richest underwood. 

But the wilderness is by no means savage in the aspect. of its 
beauty; on the’ contrary, here as elsewhere in this demesne, are evi- 


198 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


dences, in every improvement, of a fine appréciation of the natural 
charms of the locality. The whole of this richly wooded valley is 
threaded with walks, ingeniously and naturally conducted so as to 
penetrate to all the most interesting points ; while a great variety‘of 
rustic seats, formed beneath the trees, in’ deep secluded thickets, by 
the side of the swift rushing stream, or on some inviting eminence, 
enables one fully to enjoy them. 

There are a couple of miles of these walks, and from the depth 
and thickness of the wood, and the varied surface of the ground, 
their: intricacy is such that only the family, or those: very familiar 
with their course, are at-all able to follow them all with any’ thing 
like positive certainty as to their destination. Though we have 
threaded them several seasons, yet our late visit to Montgomery 
Place found us giving ourselyes up to the pleasing perplexity of 
choosing one at random, and trusting to a wore guess to beng us 
out of the wood at the desired point. 

Not long after Jeaving the rustic pavilion,* on descending by 
one of the paths that diverges to the left, we reach a charming fi ittle 
covered resting-place, in the form of a rustic porch. The roof is 
prettily thatched with thick green moss. Nestling under a dark 
canopy of evergreens in the shelter of a rocky. fern-covered. bank, 


an hour or two may be. whiled away within it, almost unconscious 


of the passage of time. ; 


THE CATARACT. 


But the stranger who enters the depths of this dusky wood by 
this route, is not long inclined to remain here. His imagination is 
excited by the not very distant sound of waterfalls, o 
. “ Above, below, aérial murmurs Pan ; 

From hanging wood, brown heath and bushy dell; 
A thousand gushing rills that shun the light, 
Stealing like music on, the ear of night.” 


He takes another path, passes by an airy-looking rustic bridge, and 
plunging for a moment into the thicket, emerges again in-full view 


* See Downing’s “ Landscape Gardening,” p. 48. 


A VISIT. TO MONTGOMERY PLACE. 199 


of the first cataract. Coming from the solemn deptlis of the wood, 
he is astonished at the noise and volume of the stream, which here 
rushes in wild foam and confusion’ over a rocky fall, forty feet in 
depth. Ascending a flight of steps made in the precipitous banks 
of the stream, we have another view, which is eoarcely less spirited 
and picturesque. 

Thisswaterfall, beautiful at all seasons, would alone be considered 
a sufficient attraction to give notoriety to a rural locality in most 
country neighborhoods. But as if Nature had intended to lavish 
her gifts here, she has, in the course of this valley, given two other 
cataracts. These are all striking enough to be worthy of the pencil 
of the artist, and they make this valley a féast of wonders to the 
lovers of the picturesque. 

There is a secret charm which binds us to these haunts of the 
water spirits. The spot is filled with the music of the falling water. 
Its echoes pervade the air, and beget a kind of dreamy revery. The 
memory of the world’s toil gradually becomes fainter and fainter, 
under the spell of the soothing monotone; until’ at last one begins 
to doubt the existence of towns and cities, fall of busy fellow-beings, 
and to fancy the true happiness of life lies in a more simple exist- 
ence, where man, the dreamy silence of thick forests, the lulling 
tones of babbling brooks, and the whole heart of nature, make one 
sensation, full of quiet harmony and joy. 


THE LAKE, 


That shadowy path, that steals away so enticingly from the 
neighborhood of the cataract, leads to a spot of equal, though a dif, 
ferent kind of loveliness. Leaving the border of the stream, and 
following it past one or two distracting points, where other paths, 
starting out at various angles, seem provokingly to tempt one away 
from the neighborhood ‘of the water, we suddenly behold, with a 
feeling of delight, the lake.* 

Nothing can have a more charming effect than this natural 
mirror in the bosom of the-valley. It is a fine expansion of the 
same stream, which farther down forms the large cataract. Here 


* See Downing’s “Landscape Gardening,” p. 49. 


200 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


it sleeps, as lazily and glassily as if quite incapable of aught but re- 
flecting the beauty of the-blue sky, and the snowy clouds, that float 
over it. On two sides, it is overhung and deeply shaded by the 
bowery thickets of the surrounding wilderness; on the third is a 
peninsula, fringed with the graceful willow, and rendered more at- 
tractive by a rustic temple ; while the fourth side is more sunny 
and open, and permits a‘peep at the distant azure mountain tops. 

This part of the grounds is seen at the most advantage, either 
towards evening, or in moonlight. Then the effect of contrast in light 
and shadow is most striking, and the seclusion and beauty.of the 
spot are more fully enjoyed than at any other hour. Then you will 
most certainly be tempted to leave the curious rustic seat, with its 
roof wrapped round with a rude entablature like Pluto’s crown; 
and you will take a seat in Psyche’s boat, on whose prow is poised 
a giant butterfly, that looks so mysteriously down into thé depths 
below as to impress you with a belief that it is thé metempsychosis 
of the spirit of the place, guarding against all unhallowed viglation 
of its purity and solitude. 

The peninsula, on the north of the lake, is carpeted with the dry 
leaves of the thick cedars that cover it, and form ‘so umbrageous a 
resting-place that the sky over it ‘seems absolutely dusky at noon- 
day. On its northern bank is a rude sofa, formed entirely of stone. 
Here you linger again, to wonder afresh at the novelty and beauty 
of the second cascade. The stream here emerges from a dark’thick- 
et, falls about twenty féet, and then rushes away on the side of the 
peninsula opposite the lake. | * Although only separated by a short 
walk and the mass of cedars on the promontory, from the lake itself, 
yet one cannot be seen from the other; and the lake, so full of the 
very spirit of repose, is a perfect opposite to this foaming, noisy little 
waterfall. ey 

Farther up the stream is another cascade, but leavin that for 
the present, let us now select a path leading, as near as we can 
judge, in the direction of the open pleasure-grounds near the house. ' 
Winding along the sides of the valley, and ‘stretching for a good: 
distance across its broadest part, all the while so deeply immersed, 
however, in its umbrageous shelter, as scarcely to see the sun, or in- 


\ 


t 


A VISIT TO MONTGOMERY PLACE. - 201 


deed to feel very certain-of our whereabouts, we emerge in the neigh- 
borhood of the Consrrvaroxy.* 

This is a large, isolated, glazed. structure, designed by Mr. Cathe 
erwood, to add to the scenic effect of the pleasure-grounds. On its 
northern side are, in summer, arranged the more delicate green- 
house plants; and in front are. groups ‘of Jarge oranges, lemons, 
citrons, Cape jasmines, eugenias, etc., in tubs—plants remarkable 
for their,size and beauty. Passing under neat and tasteful archways 
of wirework, covered with rare climbers, we enter what is properly 


THE FLOWER-GARDEN,. 


How different a scene from the deep sequestered shadows of the 
Wilderness! Here all is gay and smiling. Bright parterres of 
brilliant flowers bask in the full daylight, and rich masses of color 
seem to revel in the sunshine. The walks are fancifully laid out; so 
as to form a tasteful whole; the beds are surrounded by low edgings 
‘of turf or box, and the whole looks like some rich oriental pattern or 
carpet of embrdidery. : In the centre of the garden stands a large 
vase of the Warwick pattern ; others occupy the centres: of parterres 
in the midst of its two main divisions, and at either end is a fanciful 
light :summer-house, or pavilion, of Moresque character. The whole 
garden is swrounded and shut out from the lawn, by a belt of 
shrubbery, and above and behind this, rises, like a noble framework, 
the background of trees of the lawn and the Wilderness. If there 
is arly prettier flower-garden scene-than this ensemble in the country, - 
we have not yet had the good fortune to behold it. 

It must be an industrious sight.seer who could accomplish more 
' than we have here indicated of the beauties of this residence, in a 
‘day. Indeed there is enough of exercise for the body, and enjoy- 
ment for the senses in it, fora week. But another morning may be 
most agreeably passed in a portion of the-estate quite apart from 
that which has met the eye from any point yet examined. This is 


THE, DRIVE. 


On the southern boundary is an oak wood of about fifty acres. 


* See Downing’s “Landscape Gardening,” /p. 453. 


202 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 


It is totally different in character from the Wilderness on the north, 
and is a nearly level or slightly undulating surface, well covered with 
fine Oak, Chestnut, and other timber trees. Through it is laid out 
the Drive; a sylvan route as agreeable for exercise in the carriage, 
or 9n horsebadke -as the “ Wilderness,” or the “Morning Walk,” is. 
for a ramble on foot. It adds no small additional charm to a coun- 
try place in the eyes of many persons, this secluded and Ey 
private drive, entirely within its own limits. 

Though Monreomury Pract itself is old, yet a apie ever new 
directs the improvements carried on within it. Among those. more 
worthy of note, we gladly mention an arboretum, just commenced 
on a fine site in the pleasure-grounds, set apart and thoroughly pre- 
pared for the purpose. Here a scientific arrangement of all the most 
beautiful hardy trees and shrubs, will interest the student, who looks 
upon the vegetable kingdom with a more curious eye than the ordi- 
nary observer. 

The whole extent of the private roads bi walks, within the pre- 
cincts of Monr¢omery Pace, is between five and six miles.” The 
remarkably natural beauty which it embraces, has been elicited and 
heightened every where, in a tasteful and judicious manner. There 
are numberless lessons here for the landscape gardener ; there are 
an hundred points that will delight the artist; there are meditative 
walks and a thousand suggestive aspects of natnte for the poet;: and 
the man of the world, engaged in a feverish pursuit of its gold and 
its glitter, may here taste, something of the beauty and refinement 
of rural life in its highest aspect, and be able afterwards understand- 
ingly to wish that 


“One fair asylum from the world he knew, 
One chosen seat, that charms the various view. 
Who boasts of more, (believe the sérious strain,) 
Sighs for a home, and sighs, alas! in vain. . 
Thro’ each he roves, the tenant of a day, 
And with the swallow wings the year away.” ; 
a "  Rogsrs. 


. 


RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 


RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 


I. 


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 inilding “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 
witk 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 évery 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, catidles the dwelling agreeable 
and ornamental as well as comfortable, we think there is abundant 
reason to hope, so far as the country i 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 a¥ 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 haye, 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 ceniition 
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 inthis 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. Jt 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 


i A FEW WORDS ON RURAL ARCHITECTURE, 207 


_stoyy 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- 
tutesque 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, é&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- 
criminate 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-Hovsszs,” 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 hoyse 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 évery family, possessed of character 


208 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 


may be made to express that marie and will be most beaugiful 
(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, : 

Wé would have the cottage, the farm-house, and ie. 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 dignity 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 in 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, chersetess and : 
daily lives. 


IL. 


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 wpon the most meagre plan. A shelter from the 
inclemencies of: the weather; space enough in which to eat, drink 
and sleep; perliaps some exvellence of ‘mechanical workmanship 
in the details; these were the characteristic featurés of the great 
mass of our elias Tonia especially country houses—a few 
years ago. 

A dwelling- house, for a civilized man, built with no higher 
‘aspirations than these, we look upon with the same feelings that 
inspite 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 manta itself in fitting, appro- 
priate, ahd 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 


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 i 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 fhe . 


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 alll, : 
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 mora effects of the 
fine arts.. We believe in the bettering influence of beautiful cottages 
and country houses—in the improvement of human, nature necessa- 
Tily resulting to all classes, from the, possession of lovely gardens 
and: fruitful orchards. 3 
We do not. know how we. can present any argument of. this 
matter, if itrequires one, so good as one of that long- ago distin- 
guished man—Dr. Dwight. He is describing, in his Travels in. 
: Anorten, the influence of good architecture, as evinced in its effects 
on the manners and character of the inhabitants in a town in New 
England: 


a 


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 ; a character in which morality is chilled, 
or ‘absolutely. frozen. in most persons, this perception is awakened 
by what may be called the eaterior 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 sociéty spring, will scarcely gain even their passing 
notice. They may pay their debts, but they will neglect almost 
every thing of value in the edueation 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 suchi 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 sa aaa 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 
itis 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 nieans of promoting public. vacting and the gerpral 
good. 

' We have said beautiful and appropriate re 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 whi 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 tasté, 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. 


TIL. 


A FEW “WORDS ON .OUR PROGRESS IN BUILDING. 


June, 1851. 
HE “ Genius of Architecture,” said Thomas Jefferson, some fifty 
years ago, “hds’ shed its malediction upon America.” Jeffer- . 
son, though the “boldest of democrats, had a secret respect and ad- 
miration for the magnificent results of aristocratic 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 tothe i improve- 
ment and embellishment of public and private edifices ; many foreign 
architects’ have: settled in the Union; numerous works—especially 
upon- domestic architecture—have bast 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 i in that 
quarter. ; 
There are many persons who are as Guaoniauled with this new hot 
bed growth of architectural beauty, as Jefferson was with the earlier 
and ranker growth of deformity in hisday. Some denounce “fancy 


A FEW WORDS ON OUR PROGRESS IN BUILDING... 215 
- ; 7 


« 


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 in 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 cértain 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 Sea oealy style a 
architecture. - es 

A little learning, we have been rightly told, is one of the articles 
to be labelled “dangérous.” Our hypereritical friends prove the 
truth of the saying, by expectitig 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. Laté discoy- 
‘erers have proved that Grecian Architecture was only perfected in 
Greece—the models of their temples were found in older Egypt.* 


*- According to the last conelusiotis of the savans, dolsident 8 Téinple 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 ftom 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 moder 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 ofa 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, acing 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 im character, manners and 
art; but the development of the finer and more intellectual traits of 
character’ are slower in a nation than they are ina ay and only 
time can develope them healthily i in either case. =e 
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. * proprietor on 
the lower part of the Hudson, i 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. 217 


‘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 buildiig” 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, i: e. 
edifices for purely -dévotional purposes—aré 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 
-maind, 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 - 
achieving a pure and correct taste, are, perbaps, greater than in civil 
or. ecclesiastical edifices. There are so many priyate fancies, and 
personal vanjties, which seek to manifest. themselves in the house of 
the ambitious private citizen, and which are defended’ under the 
child of that miserable falschood, “there is no disputing about 


218 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 


tastes,” (If the proverb read whims, it would be gospel truth.) 
Hence we see nwmberless 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 offen 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. a, 
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, aré-to.be found in that ‘class of. travelled smatterers in 
virtu, who have picked up here’ and there, i 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 lar, ger class, who ambitiously imitate in'a small cottage, all 
that belongs to ‘palaces, castles and buildings of princely dimensions. 
The first<¢lass 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 : ae 
“The architect is s requested, perhaps, by a man of great wealtht" 
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 
T 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 ielandas I think he said, sir. Log, you ob- 
serve ; scalps, and boa constrictor skins; curious. Something like 
this, sir, would lock neat, I think,. for ihe front door ; ew 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 Rae sir; angel’s heads putting their tongues out, 
rolled up in cabbage eves 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 
Indicrous 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 
contented 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 readness 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. H 


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 efit. 
ting their locality, and the uses to which they were destined. But; 
judging from some criticisms on these farm-houses im one of the 
western. papers, we believe it will not “be an easy task to convinee 
the future proprietors of farm-houses and rural cottages, that truth-, 
ful simplicity is better than borroweel: i ecorations, in their country 
homes. Our critic wonders -why darmers should not bé allowed to 
live in as handsome, houses (confounding: méré; decorations with 
beauty) as any other: “elas of.our citizens, if they can ‘afford it-—and- 
claims for them, the: use: of the most ornamental architecture i in their, 
farm-houses.? “We have only to answer to this, that the simplest OX 
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 ciroumstiices. | We will add, by way of: illustration,’ that there 
‘Is no moral or elitical objection, that we ‘know, of a farmér’s wear- 
ing a general’s: uniform in his corn-fields, “if “he likes it-betfr than 
plain clothes} but to our mind, his costume=undoubtedly hand: 
somer in the right ial be both-absurd and ugly, behind, 
the harrow. ° 345 , 
We are glad to’find, however, that our feeling of the folly of 
this exaggerated pretension in cottage aratiteobir e, is gradually 
finding its expresijon i in other channels of the public press—a on 
sign that it will eventually take hold of public opinion. The fol! 
lowing satire on tlie 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 ‘readleii ‘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 
experiméntal age of architecture. fe 


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 
Angitwelve feet r more of ‘awn. 


wre vet 
He fad laid business on the shelf 
 Torgive his taste expansion, -~ - - 
And, since no man, retired with pel, 
The building mania can shun, 
Knott being middle-aged himself, 
- Resolyedsto build (unhappy elf!) 
A medieval mansion. 


He, called an architect in counsel; _ 
“JT 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 sat 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 troagi Would do, 
¥ painted a. judicious: blue ?) 
The woodland Tve attendéd 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 i 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 atone, 
When stone of deal is cheaper.” 


And so the greenest of antiques 
Was reared for Knott todwell 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, 
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 o 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. 


tS 


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 in 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. 


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 rota 
And crannies without number, 
Where though, as you may well: presume, 
The wind, like water through a flume, 
. Came rushing in ecstatic, 
Leaving in all three floors, no' room 
That was not a rheumatic ;- 5 
And what, with points and squares : and: ‘rounds, 
_ Grown shaky on their poises, 
The house at night was full of pounds, 


 Thumps, bumps, creaks, scratchings, 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 ermads 

To a family of Ni oyeses.” 


IV. 


COCKNEYISM IN THE COUNTRY. 


September, 1849. 
Y)7HEN 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 deseribe 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, oy 
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 asksra solemn question, now and then, 
about passing the winter there, as he would about a passage 
through nee Straits, or a pic-nic on the borders of the Dead 
Sea. 

But this is all very harmless. On their own ground, ae 
folks have the advantage of the cockneys. The scale is turned 
then ; and knowing perfectly well how to mow, cradle, build stone 
ealty and drive ‘oxen, —undeniably useful and substantial kinds of 
knowledge,—they are scarcely less amused at thé 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 open or the a of the last 
redowa. 2 it 
But if the cockney visitor is hen iis adiiey resident i ig 
not. When the downright citizen retires.to the country,—not 
because he has any taste for it, but because itis 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 taste 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 ledstereflection 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 corie 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 Jong 
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 
Jike 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 
Jarge parlors for display, and small bed-rooms for daily use ; placing 
the house 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 ey imhooreaty and uncalled for*in the 
country.’ 

, We remember few things more unpleasant than to enter a cock- 
ney house in the country. ; As thé 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 interioy an@ 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 salvon,—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 fq 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 imitation 
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 separa and, becoming 
modesty of expression. 

The pith of all that should be said on this subject, lies in a fay 
words, viz., that true taste lies in the union of the beautiful and the 
apnea - 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 
ot appropriateness is felt instantly by every one, when it is attained 
+-though display only imposes on vulgar minds. We have seén 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 
scarcély 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 pain which 
have been familiar to them in cities. 

As, however, it is an indisputable axiom, that there ard: a 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 uate 
and freedom of umbrageous trees and green lawns. 

He who comes from a. city, and wishes to build himsélf 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, hé 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. 


¥: 


ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF COUNTRY VILLAGES. 


June, 1849. 
F ‘you, or atly man of taste, wish to have a fit of the blues, let 
_4 him come to the village of I have just settled: here; 
aad 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 come 
places ?” ; 

We beg our correspondent, fie: 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 , is 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 2 condition not less pitiable 
than a community without a schoolmaster, ora 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 
‘hot made compulsory ‘by the strong arm of the law ; while, dn the » 
other hand, slow 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: jal quoted, aré es 
of taste, must not be discouraged by lukewarmness and- opposition 
on the part of the inhabitants of these GRAcELESs vitLacEs. They 
must expect sneers and derision from the ignorant and prejudiced ; 
for, strange to say, pdor human nature does not: love te 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 pleasute 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, whick 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- 
fal 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 idea 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 cer{ain 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, 


2 
! : 


= 


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 isa 
bower of elms; and the inhabitants who now walk -béneath 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 graceless 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 eannot 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’ goed 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, ee 
we must also introduce it here: 

“Why are not the streets of all our diy shaded and adornéd 
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, hurridd 
and pressed as they are by care and business, there is no just appre- 
ciation of the importgnce of the subject? Oris 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 use, 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 is 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 4s 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 ela ‘the love of money, and teach him to 
‘love ~what is lovel yy, adorm 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’ @lubs to goand 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.sce 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 canbe found from the 
Penobscot to 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 anyyther 
land—whether merry England, fa 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 voleanoes, in our great back-bone rangé 
of the’ Pacific—the Rocky Mountains—which may, safely hold oe 
their heads along with Mont Blane and the Jungfrau. 

Providence, then, has blessed this country—our eountryiii 
“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.” ae Ne 


For in’ the one, we every where see utility and — harmoniously, 


ge 


} 


OUR COUNTRY VILLAGES. 237 


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 true faith; we mean the 
true rural faith, viz, tlrat 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 moré 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 line-into New-York—a State of far 
greater wealth than Massachusetts, as long settled and nearly as pop- 
-. wlous—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 ihe 
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 haye the country’s health and beauty 
known, as we look for the health and. beauty of its fait’ 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*ymay 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 eountry where pigs 
can’t have their liberty.” Newburgh is. by no means a well-planned village, 
though seareely surpassed for scenery; but we believe it may claim the 
credit of being the only one among all the towns, cities aid 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 thg 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—fifteen 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 ous 
rural villages, with some pretension to taste and. comfort; and aim, 
at least, at combining the advantages of the country saith 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), willbe inter- 
ested to know what. i 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, lined on each side with 
shade-trees, and bordered with rows of houses. For the most part, 
those houses—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 Jots, though certain that his neighbor will still be. 
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 inhabitants 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 ar ound him, 
instead of houses on all sides, almost: as. closely plseetlas ‘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 
tight 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 eon- 


* We say plan, but we do not mean to. include in this such villages as 
Northampton, Brookline, é:c., 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: 1st, a large open space, common, or park, situated 
inthe middle of the village—not less than twenty ‘acres ; and better, 
if fifty or more in extent. This shoyld 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 3 “and i in others, a considerable 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 ehns 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 
iniperative arrangernent 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 sedson. Those who had 

16 


242 és RURAL -ARCHITECTURE. 


neither the means, timé, nor inclination, to devote to the culture of 
private pleasure-groynds, cold thus enjoy those which belonged ‘to 
all. Others might prefer to devote their own garden to Auta 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 in hsdcion of such public iat e- 
grounds, would be the social and’ common enjoyment of’ them. 
Upon the-well-snown glades of lawn, and beneath the shadé 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 fréquenters of the park with popular 
airs. 

Do we overrate the mental and moral aoe of stick, @ com- 
mon ground of entertainment as this, when we say: that the inhabit-. 
ants of such a village—enjoying in this way @ 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 individual home. We devote our 
life 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 mich 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 inthis way what the reigning power does in a monarchy. 
If the kings and princes in Germany, and the sovereign of Engkand, 
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. 
\ 
j . 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 longer 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 saan ang ee charming and i in _ 
best taste. 

In some parts of the sessile: 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 succes’ 


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 moré 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 désign 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 f 

We imagine the answer to this lies plainly in the fact, that the 
most erroneous notions prevail respecting the proper use of pEcoRA- 
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 Kitruwianized. 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 who 
preside over beauty and hate, 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 pfopriety. Many" of the perishable 
wooden Porticoes have fallen down; many more will soon do s0; 
and many have been pulled: down, and replaced .by less prothaading 

_piazzas 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 vergé-boards, and unmeaning gables. 
Tt 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 inthe 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 deoprations 
of that style. 

So too, we now see erected a iosden cottage of a few foot in 


ON SIMPLE RURAL COTTAGES. 247 


length, gothicized by the introduction of three or four pointed win- 
dows, little gables ehough 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 aulbjecds 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 prety, com- 
fort, or sound workmanship.” 

The chiefest objection that we make to these pec 
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. 

Tt 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 ‘tender 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- 
plicity, offensive and distasteful through: its ambitious, borrowed 
decorations. 

By adopting such ornaments they must therefore violate pro- 
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 seotenanehip, 


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' cottge 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 eg If 
the cottage is of wood, we would even build it with ae rough 
boards, painting and sanding the same. 

‘We would, first of all, give our cottage the Bait proportions. 
Tt should not be-too narrow ; it should not be too high. These are 
the two prevailing faults with us. After giving it an 1 agreeable pro- 
portion—which isthe 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. he 


* Of course, these remarks regarding decorations do not apply eae 
to the case of cottages for the tenants, ‘gardeners, farmers, etc, 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. Yeteven in this case, we much prefer a becoming simplicity in tho 
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 endéavored 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 ; itis expressive of the 
simple wants of its occupant; and it is, we conceive, not without 
some tasteful character. 2 

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, (i. e. the thin clap-boarding i 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 govered on the outside with a narrow strip of inch board, 
from two to three inches wide, The epecnpanyne cut, fg. 3, a, 


* We do not give the interior plan of aes at pee 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 “ Cutten 
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 


b f for the. country ; it is 
stronger, equally'cheap 
and. much more dura- 

¢ . ble than the thin sid_ 
‘ing; and it has a cha- 
LLM. YOW Wh: : 
a -racter of strength and 
x permanence, which, to 
ss \, Fig. = Cottage Siding and Roofing. . our eye, narrow an d 


thin boards never can have. When filled é 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 puipose 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 ican which should have a bold and . siniple 
character, and made by nailing on the weather ‘boarding : stout 


* The simplest mode of for ming an eave gutter ona projecting roof Vike 
this, is shown in the cut, fig. 3.at ¢. It consists merely of atin trough, fast- 
etied 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 str aight line, avoiding the angles necessary in 
the common mode. 


1 


ON’ SIMPLE RURAL COTTAGES. 251 
. strips, four inches wide, fig. 4, a, of plank, one inch and a half in 
thickness. The coping Weer is of the same ae and six 
to eight inches wide, 


, 


a t 

‘supported by a couple | ., ny } \ 

of pieces of joists, ¢, weal 8 Moy 
nailed under it for) , | 

brackets. \ 


’ We have tried the | 
effect. of this kind of | 
- exterior, using un- | al 
planed boards, to. 
which .we have given 
_ two good coats. of 
paint, sanding the} N 
second coat. The ef- 
fect we think much 
more agreeable—be- 
cause. it is in better 


-keeping with a rustic | } LT | | 
‘cottage, than when aa] Th B a 


the more - expensive ao Ve Lvl 
mode of using planed TRAE we penn Re Ne 
boards is resorte d to. Fig. 4. Cottage Window Dressing. 

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 sur younding hues of the counitry itself: 

These twé little designs . are antonded for the. simplest cottages, 
to cost from two to five hundred: dollars... :Our readers will’ not un-. 
derstand ps 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 tinie, 
‘with various other examples. 


VIII. 


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 in. the 
humor that often follows too lavish a bestowal of sugar plums on 
spoiled children, made now arid 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 domi 
on Monday morning !” 

There is no wonder that any tourist, aoratoned to the aie 
and harmonious color of buildings in an Hnglih 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 auzeiuat 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. 253 


Now, genuine white lead (the color nontinally 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 néwness 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 sew house. N. othing 
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 country. Seclusion 
and privacy are the only blue devils of his imagination.. He wishes 
évery passer-by on the river, railroad, or highway, to see and know 
that this is Mr. Broadcloth’s villa. It must be conspicuous—there- 
fore it is painted wuuiTE. 

Any one who has watchéd 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 illlenes 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 ynder 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. N: ature, 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 uae the trees, the 
grass, and, the surface of the earth. 

Our second objection to white is, that it does not: ents 
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, ee 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- 
tenaneé—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, 


"In whose enclosed shadow there was set 
A fair , pavilion scarcely to be seen,” 


a ne 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 snit- 
able shades of color. t . 

We have said that one should look to nature for hints i 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 in 


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. en, : ws : 

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, &c., and that all postive colors, = 


such as white, yellow, red, blue, black, &c., should always be avoided 5 : 
neutral tints being those drawn from nature, and harmonizing best 
with her, and positive colors being most discordant when introduced 
into rural scénery. ba 

In the second place; we would — the shade of aioe -as far 
as possible, to the expression, style; or character.of the house itself. 
Thus, a large mansion may very properly receive a somewhat séber 
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 4 lighter shade than those standing exposed. ‘And a 
new house, entirely unrelieved by foliage, as it is rendered conspicu- 
oug by the very nakedness of its position, should be painted several 
shades darker than the same building if placed in a well wodded . 
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 2 
of ee is to be preferred. 

Wordsworth remarks, in speaking of, houses in the Lake coun- . 
try, that many persons who haye heard white condemned, have erréd 
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 gerieral 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 deroyns the glare of white, the 
only color which reflects adi 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 thg bad effect of white, have rush- 
ed into the opposite extreme, and colored their country houses of 
sucha sombre hue that they give a melancholy character to the 
whole neighborhood around them. 

A species of monotony is also produced by sige 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, dc. 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 oh failure. 

: 1 


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&c., dc.) 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, &¢., 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 counizy 
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, gr by fiery reds. There are, we may 
add, many house-painters who appear to be equally benumbed to 
any deli¢ate 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 necessar y shadé by mixing the re- 
quisite quantity of brown with’ the color used in the body of the house. 
There is an éxcellent 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 offonsive 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 sorhething of harmony and beauty. 


1x. 


A SHORT CHAPTER ON COUNTRY. CHURCHES. a 


ioe 1861. - 
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 i 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, i is—the 
Vittace Cuurce. 

And yet, are our stay 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 2 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 isa 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 ugliest 
church architecture in Christendom, is'at this moment to be found 
in the country towns ahd villages of the United States. Doubtless, 
the hatred which originally existed m 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, isa key to the bareness and baldness, and ab- 
sence of all that is lovely to the eye in the primitive churches of 
New Exigland—which are for the most part the type-churches, of 
all America. , 

But, little by little, ithis itizaesresiaatat spirit is wearing off. 
Men are not now so blindéd 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 témples. 
This has been the prevailing taste, if it is worthy of that naine, 
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-héeaded, and cut in two by a gallery on 
the inside; a clumsy porticd 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’auvres 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 
eéngregations seem.to have felt this, and contented ‘themselves with 
ealling them “ meeting-houses, ” Tf they would go a step farther, - 
and turn them into town meeting-houses—or at least would, in fa- 
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 
atchitécts are men who merely put together certain pretty lines and 
ornaments, to pide an agreeable ‘effect’ and. saat pe 
lar eye, 

Tn 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 introdue- 
tion of pointed arehes 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.” In 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 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, if 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 vatllted 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 devotf®n which leads us to 
look upward, is it possible, in the narrow compass of a village 
church which cogts but a few hundred, or at most, a few thousand 
dollars, to presetve this idea ? | 

. We answer, yés. 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 
ean 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. - 


c 


Indeed, we could quote numberless instances where the sums 
pei e 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, 1 to the end of all time. 

And in truth, we would not desire to make the country church 
other than simple, truthful, and harmonious.@ We would avoid all 
pretensions to elaborate aichitectural 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 perishabléa material as woot!) —with 
climbing plants—the i 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 i)? 


* We have seén with pain, ce one of those great temple churches 
erected in a country town on the Hudson, at'a cost of $20,000. It looks 
outside and inside, no more like a church, than does the Custom House. 
And yet this sum would have built the most aS of devotional edifices ” 1" 
for that congregation, ; 


X. 


A CHAPTER ON SCHOOL-HOUSES.. 


March, 1848. - 
F theta is any one itiie 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 Bes 
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 
” meatis 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 light 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 out 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- 
tyines, 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 eternals of our country schoo]-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 its. 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 neIgAPO 
hood had abandoned it to the genius of desolation. 

This condition of things is almost-universal. It must, thetdide, 
"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- heaiald is ow- 
ing to a general license of what the phrenologists would call the 
organs of destructiveness ini 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 tobe simply this. 
The school-master does not himself appreciate the beautiful in rural 
objects; and, content with doing what he conceives this duty to the 
heads of his: pupils, while they are within the school Bones, he 
abandons its externals to the juvenile “ reign of terror.” 

' Nothing ig so convincing on these subjects as example. .We 
saw, last summer, in Dutchess County, New-York, a free school, 
erected t6 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 projécting ‘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 féstoons over the windows. Groups of trees, and flowering 
shrubs, were thriving within its inclosure. A Dit of neat lawn sur- 
» rounded the building, and was evidently an object of care and re- 
spéct with the pupils themselves. Altogether, it was a picture of a 
common district school which, cotipared 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 a which is only 
eight miles from: us. 3 

- 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. Au! it is precisely at that 
age—in youth—when the heart, is most sensitive, when the feelings 
are more keenly alivé 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. - 


wath 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 
maghificent—however perfect to the more educated: eye, are ever 
able to efface these first daguerreotypes, eas on the fresh pages 
of the youthful, soul? . “4 

Tt is rather because teachers wind the nature of\-man, 
and more especially. of boyhood, that we see so much to deplore in 
the extetiors 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 oné-sided and short-sighted, which does not aim 
to Ges: human nature completely, fully. 

‘We have an ideal picture, that refreshes our istiagination, of | 
common school-houses, scattered. all. over our wide country; nat 
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 jive an. influence in,this matter,’ 
__ tey to work a little. reform i 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 tothe topmost 
standard. Suppose the trees are considered to be the property and 
under the protection of certain chiefs of the classes. And, suppose 


Plan of a School House 


RECITATION 


4g Room 
GIRL'S SCHOOL 10:0%15:0 BOY'S SCHOOL 
ROOM ROOM 
20:0 X 26:0 r 20.0X 25-0 


HALL 


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, ey fifty of the projects which will this year 
come before it ? 

For ourselves, we have perfect faith in 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 sensationg—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, reposts, after’ ‘death, in those cemeteries, bensath a turf 
covered with violets and roses ; but for him, it is too late! Many a 
fine intellect, overtasked and ‘necked & 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- 
merée—the professions—and all other busy, engrossing occupations, 
whose cares become, else, almost a fever i in’ the veing of our ardent, 
enterprising. people, 4 


6 


Ornamental Ice Houss above Ground ,° 


XI. 


HOW TO BUILD ICE-HOUSES.. 

: Qecember, 1846. 
\HE icz-novse and the nor-novss, typ@imef 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 im,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 -—~ erystal |. 
Yet, if happint&s, as some philosophers fave affirmed, consists 
in a variety of sensations, we denizens of temperate latitudes have 
greatly, the advantage of him. What sufprise 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 
a 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 ' Keres, 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 


272 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 


\ 


man’s éstablishment 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-crearns 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 thé construc- 
tion of an ice-house, and we: now cheerfully offer all the- sabe 
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 subiciently aie smmcondugion: All that it 
is necessary to do, is to. 
dig a pit, twelve: le 
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, are com- 
mon in various parts of the omar a 

But it often happens that: ‘one’s residence is upon a strong loamy 
or clayey soil, based upon clay or slate, or, atleast, rocky i in its sub- 
stratum. Gali 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 thr ough the summer in a locality of that kind. The 
clayey or rocky soil is always damp—it i is always an excellent con- 
ductor, and the i ice melts in it in spité Sof. all the, usital precautions. ; 

Something more than the éommon ice-house is therefore needed 


Fig..8. The common Ice-house below ‘ground: 5 


4 


HOW TO BUILD ICE-HOUSES. 273 


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: ‘Wryeth’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- 
marks, “we now never 
build or use an ice- 
house ‘under ground ; 
it never preserves ice 
BU ES ey 8 as well as those built 


Si t 
SSSSUINHENS ERE = xy above ground, 4 and 
K " : 


however, send you di- 
rections for the con- 
struction of both 
“kinds, with slight 
sketches in explana- 
tion.” The following 
are Mr. Wyeth’s di- 
rections for building: 

“1gt, An ice-house 
=== above ground. An ice- 
‘house above ground 
Fig 4, Section of the Ice-house above ground. Should be built upon 


i 


N 
N 
AN 
| 
{ 
\ 
\ 
N 


* Few of our readers are aware of the’ magnitude’ which the business of 
supplying foreign countries with i ice has attained in New England. Millio 
of dollara worth have been shipped from the port of Boston aloné, witht 

18 


2i4 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 — 


, apart at the bottom, 
and'two feet deep at 
the top. .At-the top 
these joists should be 
Zz Mnortised into... the 
7 cross-beams, which are 

Fic. 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 thé joists nearest each othitr, so 
that one range of joists shall be. outside the building, and the es 
inside the ice-room.or vault. (Fig. 5.) 

“The space between these boardings or partitions should - filled 


‘two, feet. and one-half. 


> 


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, ne or 
no ice will melt at the sides of the vault. ; 

“The bottom of the ice vault should be filled about afoot deep sith 
‘sinall blocks of wood ; these are levelled and covered: with, wood shav- 
ings, oe which a strong plank floor should be laid to receive the ice. 

U ! 
the last eight years; and the East and West Indies, China, England, and the 
South, arevconstantly supplied with ice from. that neighborhodd., Wenham 
Lake is now as well known in London for its ice, as Westphalia : for its hams, 


This enterprise owes its suecess mainly to the energy of Frederick Tudor, Eaq: Sg 
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 
td the purpose, conveys the ice to alte a lying in the harbor. 


HOW TO BUILD ICE-HOUSES. 275 


“Upon the beams above the vault, a pretty tight floor should 
also bé 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 gablé 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 
in mortar. 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 boots of the vail, the floor, the lattice win- 
dows i in the gables for ventilation, etc. the same remarks will apply 
that have just been given for the fsstignts above ground, with the 
‘addition that in one of the gables, in this case, must be the door for 
ge 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 a the ee 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 medivm 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 ¢ube 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 ‘openizig 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. > ie 


} 


Fig. 6. Double Door of the Ice-house. 


HOW TO BUILD ICE-HOUSES. . QrT 


i 


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-bdarded, 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 ristic 
brackets which support this roof, and the rustic columns of the other 
design, will be rendered: more durable by stripping the bark off, and 
eR yume 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, 


XI 


THE FAVORITE POISON OF AMERICA. 
. November, 1850. 

NE ‘ofthe most complete and salutary reforms ever, perhaps, 

madé 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 afdent 
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 AMERICA. 279 


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 Aapeaeas 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! Are they not well housed 
and. comfortable : ? Are not their lives virtuous, and their affairs 
prosperous? Alas, yes! But they are not theless 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 tieath—< 
“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 
ouy 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. Eyen jn 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! “ It 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 af 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 popes to utter la- 
mentations over it. 

Now there is a curious but indisputable fact fesidaieay must say 
it), touching our present condition and appearance, as a nation of 
mei, 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 couritrywomen, compare most 
unfavorably with all but the absolutely.starving classes, on thé 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 andthe 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.” a 

With this sort of impression weighing disapreeably 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 Hiese 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., oe 

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 beatity—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, inthe heart of Paris, and especially among the 
peasantry, who are almost wholly i 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 alr, both as a duty and: a 
‘teases 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 
petson—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 object 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 luxirious 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 cea 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 Jess 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 smoke.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 sa 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 rogm is shut up. The 
windows are.made pretty tight to keep out the cold; and as there is 
very little 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 Dress 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. 

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 ne as if it were the air of Par- 
adise ? 

We very well — that we aie 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 heré 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 eteam 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, everyother 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 Hovsszs, 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 


j 


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, sd 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—veniilate 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. 


T 
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 he had not bought them by different 
appellations,) than by any empty spaces wee 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 trées 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 yhether the distribution 
of ‘two valuable. hardy trees: or climbers ve years, or till they 
became so common all over the surroundings as to: make a distinet 
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 tasté for horticulture, by giving 
premiums of certain select small assortments of standard fruit trees, 
ornamental trees, shrubs, and vines, (purchased by the society of 
the nuyserymen,) 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 ir of neatness, order, and attention, of such pre- 

miums. In this way, the valuable plants will fall into the right’ 
hands; the vendor of trees and plants will be directly the gainer, | 
and the stimulus given to cottage gardens, and the spread of me 

popular taste, will be immediate and decided. 

_ “Tall oaks from little acorns grow”—is a seule 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 millenniumgs In Saxony, the traveller beholds with no 
less surprise and aca, 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 ikkore, 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 
hain, those embellishments that turn the highway. into pleasure 
grounds, arerrespected, and grow and bloom as Sif 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? 


‘ 


I. 
\ 7 


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 1 in a fair way to take care of itself, 
we feel that the most obvious duty is to endeavor to_arouse 4 co 
responding’ spirit in certain rural improvements aa amore 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. - = id 

‘Pleasure and profit are certain, sooner of later, to awaken a Jarge 
portion, of our countrymen to the advantages of i 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 takitig 
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 a8 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 ary 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 bgdeck | 
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 ofthe 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 zsthetics 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‘citizéns 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, anid made penalties for tndilipenoes in fine 
linen, live in villages avenhadowel 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 numbeis 


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 
degre, 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 livés. 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 apalogy ‘of intelligent persons who live in sith 
places, and are more alive to this glaring defect 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 thé Union, this town is known as the “ City 
of Elms.” The stranger always pauses, and bears tribute to the 
taste of its inhabitants, 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 acon conquerors who have 
died with the honors. of capainny kingdoms, and aisuuslishing 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, excellent work of 
adorning the country at large, let them form a society 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 direet 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 6ut, 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 dapooity of adapting themselves te 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 jits 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. 


, 


IV. 


TREES IN TOWNS AND VILLAGES. 


March, 1847, 
HE man ai jie 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 coffins, 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 ladle.” 

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 enougli 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- 

* astroy 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 prinéiple of 


304 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 ade 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 
thing 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 delight upon exceptions—many beautiful 
towns and villages i 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. 


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 5 ; 
but as ageneral 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 brat- 
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 improve 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 clipping them: at the ends to 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- veal of green 
boughs at the end of it.* 
We suppose this very common pleasure—for it must be a 
ete ane so aay persons find in trimming up ornamental 


* Some of our readers may not be aware that to cut off the side branches 
ona young trunk, eeinally lessens the growth i 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, in many cases, is effected at the 
acknowledged. digiacion 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, i 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 
fora 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. 


IL. 


HOW TO POPULARIZE THE TASTE FOR PLANTING. 
July, 1862. 
OW to opalases 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 
noust 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 i in that cotmtry; 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 conttast with the comparatively naked and neglected coun- 
try dwellings that are the average rural tenements of our country at 
large, is very striking. 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 “froxit yard.” 

What we Jack, perhaps, more than all, is, not the pret 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, 
tothe 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 ‘attaimed. 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. 

Inthe 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 point 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, odorows 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. Weare 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 al themselves, which are worthy 
of attention. 

The first of rere 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 plants, that would be a, 
decided acquisition to the gardens of his neighborhood. - Oné 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 brdad- 
cast among those who desire to possess it, and so the labor of love 
night 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. 3 é a 

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 owned 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 
4, shade-tree, now and then; from a neighbor whom he knows to'be. 
“curious in such things”—by all means, we say to’ the nursany- 
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 beginning 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’ 
_ Tose, radiant with, the sentiment of the best of French women, and 
the loveliness of intrinsic biid-beauty once touches his, hitherto dull 
‘9708 so that. the scales of his blindness to the fact. that one rose 


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 ofa single tree. 

What must be done in such cases?’ There must bs 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 afew 
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 
moré eloquent orations than “ gray goose quills” can. write. Their 
luxtiant 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 in 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 propérty ; 
and in a few towns that, we have heard of, no young bachelor can 


* Which probably eoobdnae more well grown specimens of different spe- 
cies of forest-trees, than any similar space of ground in pane 


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. adepied by the citizens of Northampton, Massachu- 
setts. 

This, as we learn, is no lass than an‘ Ornamental -Tree Sole, 
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, whq 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 imitation, 
and who consequently will not begin to plant trees, till it is the-fash-. 
ion to do 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- 
axaple of every neighbor around them—neighbors who have been 
‘stimulated into action by the zeal of the society. And last ofall, 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 
inresistible 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, 807 


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, leafs, and repulsive town and village in. 
the country. There-can scarcely be one, where there are not three 
persons of taste and ‘spirit efiough 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 a an unmeaning 
obelisk of marble or granite. 

Let us add a few words respecting the best = 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 ourselyes 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, itis 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 Downey is 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 nine-tenths of all the ornamental 
planting of that period, was made up of. this now si 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 ity TREES, 


The principle wiiek would govern us, if we were planting the 
streets of rural towns, is this: . Select the jinest indigenous tree or 
trees ; such as the soil and: climate of the place will bring.to the 
Fe shit perfection. Thus, if it were.& 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, 2 

It_is because this principle iid been, jahaga 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 ofthe 
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 nae cheat the difference of 
effect. é i 

There are no grander or more superb — than our ihvnertoan 
oaks. Those who know them only as they growin the midst, or 
on the skirts of a thick forest, have no proper notidn 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, 
iyet 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 along avenue of that tall and most elegant tree, the tulip-tree 
or whitewood ? For a village i 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 appréciate 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 eriocanpum). : 

* The oak is easily transplanted from the quence — auch not from 
the ‘woods, unless in the latter case, it has been prepar ed a year beforehand 
by shortening the roots and branches, 
N 


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, alorig 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. 


VV; 


SHADE-TREES IN CITIES. - 


August, 1852. 
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 Jean 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 . 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 i in the free and luxu- 


312. . 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 conttis 
within limits. 

Down with the ailanthus! therefore, we cry with the ‘populace. 
Dut 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 sernious; be a bath of oblivion-waters to wash out. all 
memory of its vices. For if the Tartar is not laid viclent 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—little 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-goné.’ 
favorite—then, are twofold. In the first place, it smedls horribly, 
both in leaf and flower—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 1 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 Brown it has, to be sure, a fair 


* The ailanthus, ‘though or iginally from Chins, was first coined into. 
., this country from Europe, as the “Tanher’s. sumae”—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, 


SHADE-TREES IN CITIES. ; 318 


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 agoung 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 wnbalmy June air, if you live in town, and invariably give a 
wide berth to the heavenly avenue, if you belong.td 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 he 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 forsivear their own orange-trees and figs, pomegranates and 
citrons,.and plant ‘their streets'and gardens with the poison sumac- 
tree of our swamps 2 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? Rae ea “ha 
And while in the vein, we would sreldase 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 sir 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 ete even worse than those of the alanis, 
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 


814 "TREES. 


good taste—oh! that they knew and could understand ‘the surpane- 
ing beauty of our native shade-trees. More than forty species of oak 
are there ingNorth 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 om the eee of 
Pomona for 1852. 

In this confession’ of our sins of commission in slicing 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 shifting the responsibility—ever 
since the first trouble about trees in the Garden of Eden.) 4 

“Well! ane ifthe 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—raté. 
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 2”. 

‘ 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 canbe 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. 815 


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 experiénce of 
_ the unfortunate possessor of these sylvan treasures. of a far-off 
countty.* 

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, 
aud 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’af 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 maple; and, much vaunted as ailan- 
thuses and poplarsgre, for their lightning growth, take.our word for 

‘it, that it is only a good go-off at thie 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 
gracefal 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 fREES. ‘ 
the sugar maplé, If any one wishes to know the glory and beauty’ 
ofthe sugar maple’as a’street tree, let him make a pilgrimage’ to! 
Stockbridge, i 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 Ise the use of théir 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 sepreseliss of 
posterity. 3 
* 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 reniember, 4 in 
any public street. We mean the tulip 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 ina 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 bronzeshaded !. 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 highy and spreading into the finest symmetry of \ outline} 
For a street tree, its columnar stem, beautifull ejgher 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- 
eause 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 ane avenues of it in the royal parks of Gor many 
—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 oné hundred feet high, 
and three to six feet i in diameter. 


SHADE-TREES IN CITIES. 817 


~ 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 ome difficult to 

, transplant. It-is, the gardeners will tell you, much asier to plant 
ailanthuses, or, if you pr efer, 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 oné point which, if attended to as it: is in 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: prépares the tree for the removal thai; it feels no. shock 
at all.*, Nurserymen éould well afford’ to grow tulip-trees to the 
size suitable for street planting, and have them twice cut or removed 
peforehand, so as to enable them to warrant their growth i 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.” a . 

_ 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 prepavation, and we trust.that im 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) ae 
trees. ae is 


The Cedar of Lebanon. 


Full grown tree at Foxley, planted by Sir Uvedale Price. 
[Scale 1 in. to 12 feet.) 


VI. 


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 j is one tree, almost every. case ‘naturalized: in Europe 
—an evergreen tree as pre-eminently grand and beautiful among 
evergreens, a8.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 5 ‘and yet, notwithstanding all 
these unrivalled elaims to attention,. we believe there are not at this 
moment a dozen good specimens of it, bvehty 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 ypon 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 
_ 1s indeed most probable that they never recovered or were renewed 
afterwards, since modern travellers give accounts of their; gradual 
disappearance.. Such, however, is the gr eat 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. 


1839, gives the following account of them’: 

“We alighted and sat down under a rock to entenaplate 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 oat ‘and contract their, boughs, inclining them 
towards heaven, or towards: earth, according as the.snow-prepares to 
fall ot to melt. These trees diminish in 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. ae 
to these cedars, and celebrate mass at their feet.” How many pray- 


ers have resounded under these , branches 5 and what more: beautiful a 


canopy for worship can exist!” a 
The trunks of the largest of these venerable trees measure from 
30 to 40 feet in circuniference.. 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 so fond 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 in England, is that. at 
Strath fieldsaye, 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 Fosley, plant- 
ed by Sir Uvedale 
Price, which is 50 
fees high,. with a 
trunk mieasuring “4 
feet in diameter. 
The finest speci- 
men of: this ever- 
green in the United States, i is that upon the grounds of Thomas 
Ash, Esq,, at Throg’s Neck, Westchester county;N. Y. 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 
“— a few more years : will give it, ‘Still, it is a very fine tree, and 
we : 21 


Fis. 1 The Bron Oi Cédar. 


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 iidbande’s is eo 
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 i in an of- 
namental, point of view, by any syl- 
"van tree of temperate regions.. 
Its character being, easentially 
grand and magnificent, it. therefore 
Fig. 2. Cedar of Lebanon, at Mi. ae should only be planted where there 
> RARER Ore 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 like any other of the pine family. But planted in the midst 
of a broad lawn, it will eventually forma sublime: object, far more 
impressive and magnificent than most of the country houses which 
bglong to the private life of a republic, 

The Cedar of Lebanon grows in almost every soil, from the 
poorest gravel to the richest, loam. Tt has been remarked in Eng- 
land that its growth is most vapid i 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 i 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° Te- 
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 front England, we trust 
— our leading nurserymen who are now 
importing thousands of fruit trees froni 
‘London and Paris annually, will provide 
a sufficient stock of this most desirable 
evergreen for the spring sales of 1848. 
Tf 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 
Pc: ieee, ao eee! fe climate not too inclement for its growth, 
saanereaas ’ then we have greatly overrated the 
taste of those engaged in rural improvements at the present mo- 


* Mr. Ash pr esented 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 i in a cellar till spring, and then kept 
during the summer following in a eool and rather shaded situation—the 
next ‘winter in a cellar or cold ‘pit, and the sueceeding spring ' they may be 
transplanted into the nursery. 


824 | 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, ~~ 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 tobe 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 Cum Ping, Araucatia. imbricata,-a 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 scalelike 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. Posppig informs us, ’ supply the place of both the palm 
and corn to the Indians of the Chilian 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 ¢aten either fresh, boiled, 
or roasted ; and for winter’s ‘use, the women prepare a kind of pastry 
from hen: 3 


* Arboretum Britannicum, p. 2488. 


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 iwelrs 
feet high. We also add, 
from the London Horticul- 
tural Magazine, the following 
memorandum. respecting a 
tree at Dropmore, taken last 
summer (1846). 

“The following is the 
height and dimensions of 
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 
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 Avaneantl or Chili Pine, one- The tree has made a rapid 

sixth of the natural size, growth this season, and pro- 
mises to gét a foot higher, or more, before autumi; it is about 
sixteeti 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. A plant here, from a cutting, made, a leading shoot 
in the year 1833, and 'is now 19 feet 6 inches in height, and has 
every appearance of making a splendid plant.” 
_ In Scotland, also, it stands without the slightest protection, and 
we have before us, in the Revue Horticole, an account of a planta- 


826 TREES. 


tion, of these trees at Brest, in the north of France, a climate very 
much like our own. The soil is a light sandy loam, poor and thin. 
Yet the trees, fully exposed, or sheltered, el by a. small belt of 
pines, have proved per- « 
fectly hardy, resisting 
without injury, even the 
rigorous winter of 1829- 
30, when the thermome- 
ter was several dégrees 
below zero of Fahren- 
heit. “ The largest now 
measures about twenty 
feet in height. Its cir- O% 
cles or tiers of branches 
are five in number, dis- 
posed at perfectly equal 
distances, and closely re- 
sembling, in effect, a 
magnificent pyramid — 
The stem, the branches, 
and. their shoots, are all — 
completely clothed with Fig. 5,—The ‘Chili Pine, or Arancania-Tree, 
leaves of a fine deep green ; these leaves are regularly and symmet- 
rically disposed, and are remarkable in their being bent: backwards 
at their extremities, giving the effect, as well as the form, of the 
antique girandole.” ? 

Mr. Buist, the well known Philadelphia nurseryman, who' has 
already distributed agood many specimens of this tree in the United 
States, informed us last season, that it is entirely hardy in Philadel- 
phia; and our correspondent, Dr. Valk, of Flushing, who has in his 
garden a specimen three feet high, writes us that it has borne the 
past winter without protection, and apparently uninjured. 

We may therefore reasonably hope that this unique South 
American trée, of most singular foliage, striking symmetry; and gi- 
gatitic eatable fruit, will also take its place in our ornamental plan- 
tations, along with the cedar of Lebanon and the Deodar cedar, 
two of the grandest trees of the Asian world, 


Vil. 


& WORD IN FAVOR OF EVERGREENS. 


May, 1848. 

HAT is the reason,” said an intelligent. European horticul- 
turist to us lately, “that the Americans employ so few ever- 
greens in their ornamental plantations? Abroad, they’are the trees 
most sought after, most: highly prized, and most valued in landscape- 
gardening ; ‘and ‘that, too, in countries where the winters are com- 
paratively mild and short. Here, in the northern United States, 
where this season is both long ‘and severe, and where you have, in 
your forests, the finest evergreens, they are only sparingly introduced 
into lawns or, pleasure-grounds.” 

Our friend is right. There is a lamentable poverty of evergreens 
in the grounds of many country places in this country. : Our planta- 
-fions are. mostly: deciduous; and while there are thoussnds of per- 
sons who plant, in this country, such trashy trees (chiefly fit for 
towns) as the ailanthus, there is not one planter in a2 hundred but 
contents himself with a few fir trees, as the sole representatives of 
the grand and rich foliaged family of evergreens. 

They forget that, as summer dies, evergreens form the richest 
back-ground to the kaleidoscope coloring of the changing autumn 
leaves; that in winter, they rob the chilly frost-king of his sternest 
terrors; that in spring, they-give a southern and verdant character 
to the landscape in the first sunny day, when not even the earliest 
poplar or avillow has burst its buds. . 

More than this,—to look at. the useful aswell as the picturesque, 
they are the body guards—the grenadiers—the outworks and forti- 


328 TREES, 


fications—which properly defend the house and grounds from the 
cold winds, and the driving storms, that sweep pitilessly-over unpro- 


tected places in many parts of the country. Well grown belts of © 


evergreens—pines and firs, which 


“in conic form ms, arise, 
And with a poet Byer divide the skies,” 


have, in their congregated strength, a power of shelter and protic: 
tion that no inexperienced person‘can possibly understand, without 
actual : experience and the evidence of his own senses, Many a 
place, almost uninhabitable’ from the rude blasts of wind that sweep 
over it, has’ been rendered comparatively calm and sheltered; many 
a garden, so exposed that the cultivation of tender trees and plants 
was almost impossible, has been rendered mild and genial in ‘its cli- 
mate by the growth of a close aa compe of masses and 
groups of evergreen trees, _ 

Compared with England,—that country hee parks and pleas- 
ure grounds ‘are almost wholly evergreen, because her climate is so 
wonderfully congenial to their culture that dozens of species: grow 


with the greatest luxuriance there, which neither France, Germany; pe 


nor the northern United States will produce; we.say, compared 
with England, the variety of evergreens which it is. possible for us to 
cultivate is quite limited. Still, though the variety is less, the gen- 
eral effect that may be produced is the same; and there is no apo- 
logy for our neglecting, at least, the essares that lie at our ve 
gates, and by our road-sides—the fine indigenous trees of our coun- 
try. ' These are within every one’s reach ; and even these, if properly 
introduced, would give a perpetual richness and beauty to our orna- 
mental grounds, of which they are at this time, ah a exer 
tions, almost: destitute. . , 

As we are oe eteasines now,. chiefly to ene or 
those who have hitherto neglected this branch of arboriculture, we: 
may commence by mentioning, at the outset, four evergreen trees 
worthy of attention—indeed, of almost universal attention, in our 
ornamental plantations. Those are the Hemlock, the White em 
the Norway Spruce, and the Balsam Fir, + 

We place the hemlock (Abies canadensis) first, as we neuer 


A WORD IN FAVOR OF EVERGREENS. 329 


it, beyond all question, the.most. graceful and “beautiful evergreen 
tree commonly grown in this country. In its wild haunts, by the 
side: of some steep mountain, or on the dark wooded banks of some 
deep valley, it is most often a grand and picturesque tree ; when, as 
in some parts of the northern States, it covers countless acres of wild 
forest land, it becomes gloomy and mionotonous.. Hence, there are 
few of our readers,.unfamiliar as they are with it but in these 
phases, who have the least idea.of its striking beauty. when grown 
alone, in a smooth lawn, its branches extending freely on all sides, 
and sweeping the ground, its loose spray and full feathery foliage 
floating freely in the air, and. its proportions full of the finest sym- 
metry and harmony. For airy gracefulness, and the absence of that 
stiffness more or less prevalent in most evergreens, we must be al- 
lowed, therefore, to claim the. first place for the hemlock, as a tree 
for the lawn or park, 

Unfortunately, the hemlock has the reputation of Deine a diff 
cult tree to transplant; and though we have seen a thousand of 
them removed with scarcely the loss of half a dozen. plants, yet we 
are bound to confess, that, with the..ordinary rude handling of the 
common gardener, it is often impatient of removal. The truth is, 
all evergreens are, far more tender in their roots than deciduous 
trees. They will not bear that exposure to the sun and air, even for 
a short period, which seems to have little effect upon most deciduous 
trees. Once fairly dried and shrivelled, their roots are slow to re- 
gain their former vital power, and the plant in consequence dies. 

‘This point well understood and guarded against, the hemlock is 
by no means a difficult tree to remove from the nurseries.* . When 
taken from the woods, it is best. done with a frozen ball of earth in 
the winter; or,.if the soil is sufficiently tenacious, with a damp 
ball in the spring, as has lately been recommended by one of our 
ae 

Of all the well known pines, we avathe preference to our native 
Waite Prinz (Pinus strobus) for ornamental ‘purposes. The soft 


* In the nurseries this, and other evergreens, over four feet, should ‘be 
regularly root pruned: i. e., the longest roots shortened with a spade every 
” year. Treated thus, there is no difficulty whatever in removing. trees of ten 
or twelve feet high, ° ~ 


330 TREES. 


and agreeable hue of its pliant foliage, the excellent form of the tree, 
and its adaptation to a great variety of soils and sites, are all recom- 
mendations not easily overlooked. 

Besides, it bears transplanting . paroalanly well; and is, on this 
account also, more generally seén than any other species in our orna- 
mental plantations. But its.especial merit, as an ornamental tree, 
is the perpetually fine, rich, lively green of ,its foliage. In the 
northern States, many evergreens lose their bright color in mid- 
winter, owing to the severity of the cold; and though they regain 
it quickly in the first mild days of spring, yet this temporary dingi- 
ness, at the season when verdure is rarest.and most prized, is, unde- 
niably, a great defect. Both the hemlock and the white. pine are 
exceptions. Even in the greatest depression of the thermometer 
known to our neighbors on the “ disputed, houndary” line, we be- 
lieve the verdure of these trees is the same fine unchanging green. 
Again, this thin summer growth is of such a soft and.lively color, 
that they are (unlike some of the other pines, the red cedar; etc.) 
as pleasant to look upon, even in June, as any fresh and full foliaged 
deciduous tree, rejoicing in all its full breadth of new summer robes. 
We place the white pine, therefore, among the first in the regards 
of the ornamental planter. 

Perhaps the most popular foreign evergreen in this country is 
the Norway, Spruce (Abies excclsa.) In fact, it is so useful and. 
valuable a tree, that. it is destined to: become much more popular 
still. So hardy, that it is used as a nurse plant, to break off the 
wind in exposed sites, and, shelter more tender trees in young planta- 
tions ; 80 readily adapting itself to any site, that it thrives upon all 
soils, fom light ‘sand, or ‘dry gravel, to deep moist. loam or clay ;. 80 
accommodating in its habits, that it will’ grow under the shade.of 
other trees, or in the most exposed. positions ;. there is no planter of. 
new places, or improver of old ones, who will not find it necessary 
‘to call it in to his assistance, Then, again, the variety of purposed 
for which this tree may be used is so indefinite. _ Certainly, there are 
few trees more strikingly picturesque than a fine Norway spruce, 
40 or 50 years old, towering up from abase of thick branches which 
droop and fall to the very lawn, and hang off in those depending 
curves, which; make it such a favorite with artists. Any one who 


The Norway Spruce Fir. 


Full-grown tree at Studley, 182 ft, high; diam. of the trunk, 6}4 ft. ; and of the bead, 38 It 
, [Seale 1 in, ty 24 Jt.) - 


A WORD IN FAVOR OF EVERGREENS. 331 


wishes ocular demonstration of the truth of this, will do well to 
daguerreotype in his mind (for certainly, once seen, he can never 
forget them) the fine specimens on the lawn at the seat of Col. Per- 
kins, near Boston; or two or three; still larger, and almost equally 
well developed, in ‘hie old Linnzan Garden of Mr. Winter, at Flush- 
ing, Long Island. 

The Norway spruce, abroad, is thought to grow rapidly only on. 

soils somewhat damp. But this is not the case in America. Wé 
saw, lately, a young plantation of'them of 10 or’12 years growth, in 
the ground of Capt. Forbes, of Milton Hill, near Boston, on very high 
and-dry gravelly soil, many of which iat leading shoots, last, sea- , 
son, of three or four feet. Their growth may be greatly promoted, 
as indeed may that of all evergreens, by a liberal top-dressing of 
ashes, applied early every spring or autyimn. 

Little seems to be known in the United States, as yet, of the 
great value of the Norway spruce, for hedges, %* We have no doulit 
whatever that it will soon become the favorita plant for evergreen 
hedges, as thé buckthom and Osage orange are already for decidu- 
ous hedges in this.country. So hardy as to grow every where, so 
strong, and bearing the shears so well, as tq form an almost impene- 
trable wall of foliage, it is precisely adapted. to thousands of situa- 

- tions in’ the northern half of the Union, where an unfailing shelter, 
screen, and barrier, are wanted at all seasons. t a 


* This plant may be had from six inches to. two feet high at the English 
nurseries, at such extremely low prices per 1000, that our nurserymen ean 
well afford to import and grow it a year or two in their grounds, and sell it. 
wholesale for hedges, at rates that will place it in the reach of all planters. 
Autumn is the safest season to import it from England; as, if packed dry and 
shipped at that season, not ten plants.in a thousand will die on the passage. 
We hope in a couple of years it will be obtainable, i in large quantities, in 
every large nursery in America. ‘We also observe that Elwanger & Barry, 
at Rochester, advertise it at the present time as a hedge plant. 

_ + “No tree,” says the Arboretum Britannicum, “is better adapted than 

. this for planting i in narrow strips for shelter or seclusion: because, though 
the trees in the interior of the strip may become naked below, yet those from 
the outside will retain ‘their branches from the ground upwards, and effectu- 
ally prevent the eye from seeing through the sereen. The tendency of the 
tree to pe eserve its lower branches renders it an excellent protection to 


832 TREES. 


"The Batsam Fir (Picea balsamea), or, as it is often called, the 
Balm of Gilead Fir, is a neat, dark, green evergreen tree, perhaps 
more generally employed for small grounds and plantations than any . 
other by our gardeners. Tn truth, it is better adapted to small gar- 
‘dens, yards, or ‘narrow ‘lawns, than for landscape gardening on a 
large scale, as its beauty is of a formal kind; and though the’ tree 
often grows to thirty or forty feet, its appearance is never more 
pleasing than when it is from ten to fifteen or twenty feet high: 
The dark green hue of its foliage, which is pretty constant at all 
seasons, and the comparative ease with which it is transplanted, will 
always commend it to the ornamental improver. But, as a full 
grown tree, it isnot to be compared for a moment, to any one of the 
three species of evergreens that we have already noticed; since it 
becomes stiff and férmal'as ‘it grows old, instead of graceful or. pictu- , 
ré&que, like the hemlock, white pine, or Norway spruce. Its chief , 
value is for shrubberies, small gardens, or courtyards, in a formal ‘or 
regular style. The facility of obtaining it, added to the excellent 
color of its foliage, and the great hardiness of the plant?induce us to 
give it a place among’ the four evergreens worthy of the! universal 
attention of our’ ornamental planters. 

The Arbor Vite, so useful for hedges and screens, is, we find, so 


game; and for this purpose, and also for, the sake of its yerdure during win- 
ter, when planted among deciduous trees and cut down to within five or six 
feet of the ground, it affords a very good and very beautiful undergrowth. 
The Norway spruce beats the shears; and as it is of rapid growth, it makes 
excellent hedges for shelter in nursery gardens. Such hedges are not unfre- 
quent in Switzerland, and also in Carpathia, and some parts of Baden and 
Bavaria, In 1844, there were spruce hedges in some gentlemen's grounds 
in the neighborhood, of Moscow, between 30 feet and 40 feet high. At the 
Whim (near ‘Edinbur gh), a Norway spruce hedge was planted i in 1828 with 
- plants 10 feet high, ‘put i in 8 feet apart. The whole were cut down 6 feet, 
and afterwards trimmed in a regular conical shape. The hedge, thus formed, 
was first cut on Jan. 26; the year after planting; and as the plants were 
found to sustain no injury, about the end of that month has been chosen for 
cutting it every year since. - Every portion of this hedge is beautiful and 
green; and the annual growths: are very short, giving the surface of this 
hedge a fine, healthy appearance.” [This is an excellent’ illustration of the 
capacity of this tree for being sheared; but good hedges are more easily and - 
better formed by using plants about 18 inches or 2 feet high.] 


.A WORD IN FAVOR OF EVERGREENS, 333 


rapidly becoming popular among our planters, that it needs little 
further commendation. 
Among the foreign evergreens ae of attention, are the Chili 
‘ine (Araucaria), the Cedar of. Lebanon, and the Deodar cedar,— 
three very noble trees, already described in. previous pages, and 
worthy of attention in the highest degree, The two first have stood 
the past winter well, in our, own grounds, and are likely to prove 
quite hardy. here. 
' ‘For a rapid growing, bold, and picturesque Seerateony ‘the Aus- 
trian pine (Pinus Austriaca) is well deserving of attention. We 
find it remarkably hardy, adapting itself to all soils (though said. to 
grow naturally in Austria on the lightest sands).- A specimen here, 
grew nearly three feet last season ;@and its. bold, stiff foliage, is suffi- 
ciently marked to arggst the attention among all other evergreens. 
The Swiss stone pine (Pinus cembra) we find also perfectly 
hardy in this latitude. This tree produces an eatable kernel, and 
though of comparatively slow growth, is certainly one of the most 
interesting of the pine family. The Italian stone pine, and the pinas- 
ter, are also. beautiful trees for the climate of Philadelphia. The. 
grand and lofty pines of California, the largest and loftiest evergreen 
trees in: the world, are not yet'to be found, except as small specimens 
here and there in the gardens of curious collectors in the United 
States. But we hope, with, our continually increasing intercourse 
with western America, fresh seeds will be procured by our nursery- 
men, and grown abundantly for sale. The great Californian silver 
fir (Picea grandis) grows 200 feet high, with cones 6 inches long, 
and fine silvery foliage ; and the noble silver fir (P. nobilis) is 
seareely less striking. “I spent three weeks,” says Douglass, the 
botanical traveller, “in a forest composed of this ‘tree, and, day by 
day, could not cease to admire it.” Both these fine fir-trees grow in 
Northern California, where they cover vast tracts of land, and, along 
with other species’ of,pine, form grand and majestic features in the 


landscape of that country. The English have been before usin in-, ’ | 


troducing ‘these natives of our western shores; for we find ‘them, 
though at high pricés, now offered for sale in most of the large 
nurseries in Great Britain. 

The most beaytiful evergreen-tree i in America, and, perhaps, — 


334 7 TREES. 


when foliage, flowers, and perfumé are considered,—in the world, is 
the Magnolia grandiflora of. our southern States. There, where it . 
grows in the deep alluvial soil of some river valley, to-the height of, 
70 or 80 feet, clothed with its large, thick, deep green, glossy leaves, 
like those of a gigantic laurel, covered in the season of its bloom 
with large, pure white blossoms, that perfume the whole woods about 
it with their delicious odor ; certainly,.it presents a spectacle of un- 
Jivalled. sylvan , beauty. Much to be deplored is it, that north of 
New-York it will not bear the rigor of the winters, and that we are 
denied the pleasure of seeing it grow freely in the open air. At’ 
Philadelphia, it is quite hardy; and in the Bartram Garden, at 
Landreth’s, and in various private grounds near that city, there are 
fine specimens 20. or 30 feet hifh,, growing without’ protection and 
blooming every year. _ 6 
‘Wherever the climate will permit the culture of this superb 
_ evergreen, the ornamental planter would be unpardonable, in ‘our 
eyes, not to possess it in considerable abundance. There is a variety 
of it, originated from seed by the English, called the Exmouth Mag- 
nolia (M. g. exominsis), which is rather hardier, and a much more 
abundant bloomer than the original species.’ 


VIII. 
THE CHINESE MAGNOLIAS. 


ae January, 1850: 

ATURE has bestowed that superb genus of trees, the magnolia, 

on the eastern sides of the two great continents—N orth Amer- 
ica and Asia.. The United States gives us eight of all the known 
species, and China and Japan four or five. Neither Europe, Africa, 
‘nor South America afford a single indigenous species of magnolia. 

All the Chinese magnolias, excepting one (4M. fuscata), are 
hardy in this latitude, and are certainly among the most. striking - 
and ornamental objects in our pleasure- grounds and shrubberies in 
the spring. Indeed, during the month of April, and the early part 
of May, two of them, the white or consyicua, and Soulange’s purple 
or soulangiana, eclipse every other floral object, whether tree or 
shrub, that the garden contains. Their numerous branches, thickly 
studded with large flowers, most classically shaped, with thick kid- 
like petals, and rich spicy odor, wear an aspect of great novelty and 
beauty among the smaller blossoms of the more common trees and 
shrubs that blossom at that early time, and seally fill the- beholder 
‘with delight. 

The Chinese white magnolia (MZ. iioaae is, in the effect of 
its blossoms, the most charming of all magnolias. The flowers, in 
color a pure creamy white, are produced. in such abundance, that 
the tree, when pretty large, may be seen a great distance. The 
Chinese name, Guxay, literally lily-tree, is an‘ apt and expressive 
one, as the blossoms are not much unlike those of the white lily in 
size and shape, when fully expanded. Among the Chinese poets, 
.they are considered the emblem of candor and beauty. 


836 TREES. 


The engraving is a very correct portrait of a fine specimen of 

this tree, standing on the lawn in front of our house, as it.appears 

/ now, April 25th. Its usual period of blooming here is from the 5th 
to ithe 15th of this month. Last year there were three thousand 


Nise 
Wena ce 
oA he 
Nea ay 


nee Sie 
y Hie ‘ 


ay) 


eh ih 


Wi B 


\\. | J 


Portrait of the Chinese White Magnolia in Mr. Doyning s| Grounds. 


blossoms open’ upon it at once, The tree has been planted about 
fourteen years, and is now twenty feet high. The branches spread 
over a space of fifteen feet in diameter, and the stem, near the . 
ground, is eight inches in diameter. Its growth i is highly sym- 
metrical. For the last ten years it has never, in a single’ season, 
failed to produce a fine display of blossoms, which are usually. fol-. 
lowed by a few seeds. Last year, however, it gave us quite a crop 


THE OHINESE MAGNOLIAS. ‘337° 


‘of ‘large and fine seeds, ao which we hope to raise many 
\ plants.* * 

“This ‘tree js perfectly hardy j in this latitude, and we five never 
known one of its flower buds (which are quite large in autumn), or 
an inch of’ its wood, to be’killed by the most severe winter. It is, 
however, grafted . aboiit a foot from the groutid, on a stock of our 
western magnolia—sometimes called in Ohio the “ cucumber-tree” 
(Mf. acuminata). This perhaps renders it-a little more hardy, and 
rather more vigorous than when grown on its''éwn"root—as this 
native sort is the very’best. stock for all the Chinese sorts. It is 80 pro- 
pagated by budding in August; and no doubt the spring budding 
recommended by Mr. Nelson, would be a highly successful mode.” 

‘The next most ornimental -Chinese magnolia, is Soulange’s pur- 
ple (Mf. séulangiana). © This is a hybrid seedling, raised by the late 
Chevalier Soulange Bodin, the distinguished’ French horticulturist.. 
The habit of the tree’is closely ‘similar to that of the conspicua ; its 
blossoms, equally numerous, are rather larger, but the outside of the 
petals is finely tinged with purple. It :partakes of the character of 
both its parents—having the growth of magnolia conspicua, and 
_ the color of magnolia purpurea (ot indeed a lighter shade of purple). 
Its term of blooming is also midway between that of these two spe- 
cies, being about a week later: than that of the white or Gulan 
magnolia. It is also perfectly hardy in this latitude.’ ‘The purple 
Chinese magnolia (JZ. purpurea) is a much dwarfer tree than the 
two preceding spécies. Indeed, it is properly a shrub, some six or 
eight feet in its growth in this latitude. Grafted, on the “ cucumber-: 
tree,” it would no doubt be more vigorous, and perhaps more hardy, 
for it is occasionally liable to have the ends of its branches slightly" 
injured by severe winters here. Its flowers begin to open early in 
‘. May, and on an old plant they continue blooming for six weeks, and 
indeed in a shaded situation, often -for a considerable part of the 
summer. These blossoms are white within, of a fine dark lilac or 
"purple on the outside, and quite fragrant like the others. This is 
the oldest Chinese. magnolia known Hes having been brought from 


"# There is, we learn, a fine Tange specimen of this trée i in the gaiden of 
‘Mr. William Davidson, Brooklyn, N.Y.” f 


22 


, 


900 ADDL. 


China to: Europe it in 1790—and it is now quite frequently seen in 
our gardens, 

There is another’ species (mM. gracilis), the slender-growing mag- 
nolia, which very nearly resembles the purple flowering magnolia— 
and indeed only differs from: it in its more slender tila and nar- 
rower leaves and ‘petals. 

If these noble flowering trees have a defect, it is one which is 
inseparable from the early period at which they bloom, viz., that of 
having few or no leaves when the blossoms are in their full perfec- 
tion, To remedy this, a very obvious mode is to plant them with: 
evergreen trees, so that thé. latter may form a ‘dark green back- 
ground for the large and beautiful masses of magnolia flowers. 
The American arbor vite, and hemlock, seem to us best fitted for 
this purpose. To those’ of our readers who do not already possess 
the Chinese magnolia, and more especially. the two first named sorts, 
it is impossible to recommend two trees, that may now be had at 
most of our large nurseries, which: are in every respect so ornamen- 
tal in their symmetrical growth, rich blossoms, and fine summer 
foliage, as the Chinese magnolias. 


1x, 
_ , THE NEGLECTED AMERICAN PLANTS, 


May, 1861, 

[T-is an old and fanailiae saying that a prophet is not without 
honor, except i in his own country; and as we were. making our 
way this spring through a densa, forest in. the State of New Jersey, 
we were tempted to apply this saying to things as well as people. 
How many grand and stately trees there are in our woodlands, that 
are never heeded: by the arboriculturist in planting his lawns and 
pleasure- -grounds ; how many rich and beautiful shrubs, that might 
embellish our walks and add variety.to our shrubberies,that are 
left to wave on the mountain crag, or overhang the’ steep side of — 
some forest valley ; how many rare and curious flowers that bloom 
unseen amid the depths of silent woods, or along the margin ‘of 


-- wild water-courses. Yes, our hot-houses . are full of the heaths of ‘ 


- NeweHolland and the Cape, ‘our patterres : are gay with the ver- 
benas and fuchsias of South America, our pleasure-grounds are 
studded with the trees of Europe and Northem Asia, while the. 
* rarest spectacle i in an American country place, is to see above three 
or four native trees, rarer still to find any but foreign | shrubs, and: 
rarést of all, to find any of our native wild flowers. 

‘Nothing strikes foreign horticulturists and amateurs so much, 
as this apathy and indifference of Americans, to the beautiful sylvan 
and floral products of their own country. An enthusiastic collector: 
in Belgium first made us keenly sensible of. this condition of our 
countrymen, but, Summer, in describifig the difficulty he had in 
“> procuring from any of his correspondents, here, American seeds or 


340 TREES. 


plants—even of well-known and ‘olerably abundant it species, by tell; 
Ing us that amateurs and nurserymen who annually, import from: 
him every new and raré exotic that the richest collections’ of Europe ' 
possessed, could scarcely be prevailed upon to make a search for 
snative American ‘plants, far more beautiful, which grow in the woods, 
not ten miles from their own doors, Some of them were wholly 
ignorant of such plants, except so far as a familiarity ‘with their’ 
names ‘in the books may. be called an acquaintance. Others knew 
them, but considered them “wild plants,” and therefore, too little 
deserving of attention to be worth the trouble of collecting, even for 
curious foreigners. “ And 80,” he continued, “in a country of azaleas, 
kalmias, ° rhododendrons, | cypripediums, ’ magnolias and ‘nysas,— 
the loveliest flowers, shrubs, and, trees of temperate climates,—you 
never put them in your! gardens, ‘but ‘send over the water, every year 
for thotisands of dollars worth of English larches' and Dutch hya- 
cinths. Voila Te gotst Republicain ! py 
Tn truth, 1 we felt that we quite deserved. the sweeping sarcasm of ; 
our Belgian friend. We had always, indeed, excused ourselfes for 
the well known neglect of the riches of our native Flora, by saying 
that what we can see any day in the woods, i is not the thing by 
which to make a garden distinguished—and that since all:mankind. 
have a passion for noyelty, where, as in a fine foreign tree or shrub, 
both beauty and novelty. are combined, so much the greater is "the 
pleasure experienced, But,. indeed, « one has only to go to England, 
where “ American plants” are the fashion, (not undeservedly, too,) 
to learn that he knows very little about the beauty of American 
plants. The difference between a ‘grand oak or magnolia, or tulip- 
tree, grown with all its graceful and majestic development, of, head, 
ina park where it has nothing to interfere with. its expansion, but 
sky and air, and the same. tree shut up in a forest, a quarter of a 
mile high, with only a tall gigantic mast of a stem, and a tuft of 
foliage at the top, is the difference between the. best. bred. and highly 
cultivated man of the day, and the best buffalo hunter of the Rocky 
Mountains, with his sinewy body tattooed and tanned till you scarcely. 
know what is the natural color of the skin. A person accustomed 
to the wild Indian only, might. think he knew perfectly well what a 
man is—and sO indeed he does, if you mean a red man. But the 


THE NEGLECTED AMERICAN PLANTS. 341 


_ “civilize” is not more different from the aboriginal man of the 
~ forest, than the’ cultivated and perfect garden-tree or shrub. (grant- 
ing always ‘that’ it takes ‘to civilization—which some trees, like In- . 
dians, do not), than a tree of the pleasure-grounds differs from a 
trée of the woods. 

Perhaps the finest. revelation of this sort in England, is the 
clumps and maises of our mountain laurel, Kalmia latifolia, and 
our azaleas and thododendrons, which embellish the English plea- 
sure-grounds. In some of the _great country-seats, whole acres of 
lawn, kept like velvet, are niade the ground-work upon which these 
masses of the richest foliaged and the gayest flowering shrubs are 
embroidered. Each mass is planted i in'a round or oval ‘bed of deep, 
rich, sandy mould, in which it ‘attains a luxuriance and perfection 
of form and foliage, almost as new to an American as to a Sand- 
wich Islander. The Germans make avenues of our tulip-trees, and 
in the South of France, one finds more planted: magnolias in the 
gardens, than there are, out of the woods, in all the United States. 
_ It is thus, by seeing them away from home, where their merits are 
better appreciated, arid more highly developed, that one ‘learns for 
the first time what our ‘gardens have lost, by. our “having none of 
these “ American plants” in them. 

” The subjéct i is one which should be pursued to much greater 
length than we are able to follow it in the present article. Our 
woods and swamps are full of the. ‘most exquisite plants, some, of 
which’ would greatly embellish even the smallest garden. But iti is 
” rather to one single feature in the pleasure grounds, that we would 
at-this moment direct the attention, and that is, the introduction, of i. 7 
two broad- leaved evergreen shrubs, that are abundant in every part 7 
of the middle States, and that are, nevertheless, seldom to be seen 
in any of our gardens or nurseries, from one end of the country ‘to 
the other. The defect is the more to be deplored, because our orna- 
mental plantations, so far as they are evergreen, consist almost en- 
tirely of pines and firs—all narrow-leaved evergreens—far inferior 
in richness ‘of foliage, to those we have mentioned. 

The Native Holly grows, from Long Island to Florida, and is 
quite abundant in the’ woods of New Jersey, Maryland, and Vir- 
ginia. It forms a shrub or small tree, varying from four to forty 


‘ 


ane TREES. 


feet j in height—clothed with foliage and berries of the same orna- 
méntal ‘character as the European holly—except that the leaf isa 
shade lighter in its green. The plant too, is perfectly hardy, even 
in the climate of Boston—while the European holly is quite too. 
tender for open air culture in the middle States—notwithstanding 
that peaches ripen here in orchards, and in England only on walls. 
The American Laurel, or Kalmia, is too well known in all parts 
of the country to need any description. And what new shrub, we 
would ask, is there—whether from the Himmalayas or the Andes, 
whether hardy or ‘tender—which . surpasses the American laurel, 
when in perfection, as to the richness of its dark green foliage, or 
the exquisite delicacy and beauty of its gay masses of flowers? If. 
‘it came from the highlands of Chili, and were recently. introdoég, 
it would bring a guinea a plant, and no grumbling ! "a 
Granting. all this, let our readers who wish to decorate: their 
grounds with something new and beautiful, undertake now, én this 
month of May (for these plants are best transplanted after they ‘have 
commenced a new growth), to plant some Jaurels and hollies. If 
they would do this quite successfully, they must not stick them here 
and there among other shrubs in the common border—but prepare 
a bed or clamp, i in some cool, rather shaded aspect—a north slope 
is better than a southern one—where. the subsoil is rather damp 
than dry. The soil should be sandy or ‘gravelly, with a mixture of ' 
black earth well decomposed, or a cart-load or two of rotten leaves 
from an old wood, and it should. be at. least eighteen or twenty 
inches deep, to retain the moisture in a long drought, A bed of 
these fine evergreens, made in this way, will be a feature in the 
grounds, which, after it has been well established for a few years, will 
conyince you far .better than any words of ours, of the neglected 
beauty of ow American:plants. : 


xX 


THE ART OF TRANSPLANTING TREES. 
: We stibay 1848, 
E must have a little familiar conversation, this month, on the 
subject of TRANSPLANTING TREES. Our remarks will be in- 
tended, of course, for the uninitiated ; not for those who. have grown 
wise with experience. 
. That there is a difficulty in ee trees, the multitude 
of complaints and inquiries which beset ‘us, most. abundantly — 
prove. . That it is, on the other hand, a very ‘easy and. simple pro- 
" cess, the uniform success of skilful cultivators, as fully establishes, 
The difficulty then, lies, of course, in a want of knowledge, on 
the. part of the unsuccessful practitioner. This want of knowledge 
may be stated, broadly, under two heads, viz. ignorance of the, 
of organization of trees, and ignorance of the rrelooestty of feeding 
them. 

The first point. is directly the most sch aptaaie for*the very. pro- 
cess of transplanting i is founded upon it. Since this art virtually 
consists in removing, by violence, a tree from one spat to another, 

. it is absolutely necessary to know how much violence we miay use _ 
" without defeating the end€ in view. A common soldier will, with 
his sword, cut off a man’s limb, in such a manner that he takes his 
” Tife away with it. A’skilful surgeon, will do the same thing, in or-* 
der to preserve life. There are, also, manifestly two- ways of trans 
planting trees. 

That the vital principle i is a wonderful and inysterious . power, 
even in plants,-cannot be denied. But because certain trees, as 


344 TREES. 


poplars and willows, have enough of this power to enable pieces‘of 
them to grow, when stuck into the ground, like walking sticks, 
without roots, it does not follow that all other trees will do, the 
same. There are some animals which swallow’ prussic acid with 
“impunity ; but it is a dangerous experiment for all other animals, 
What we mean to suggest, therefore, is, that he who would be a 
successful transplanter, must have an almost religious. respect for the 
roots of trees, He must.look upon them as the collectors of rev- 
enue, the wardens of the ports, the great, viaducts of all solids and 
fluids that enter into the system of growth ‘and verdure, which con- 
stitute the tree proper. Oh, if one could: only teach hewers of 
ef tap-roots” and drawers of.“ laterals,” the value of the whole system 
of roots every thing, in short, that looks like, and i 18, a radicle— 
then would nine tenths of the difficulty of jrapiaplaniange be quite, 
overcome, andthe. branches might be left pretty much to them- 
selves I 

Now a tree, to be retuilly transplanted, ought to be taktn up 
with its whole system of roots entire. Thus removed. and. carefully 
replanted, at the proper « dormant, season, it need not suffer a ‘loss of 
the smallest bough, and if would scarcely feel: its removal. Such 
things are done every year, with this result, by really clever and ex-- 
perienced gardeners. We have seen apple-trees,’ large enough to» 
bear a couple: of bushels of fruit, which were removed a dozen miles, 
in the autumn, and made a luxuriant growth, and bore a fine crop 
the next season. But the workman who handled etn had gone 
to the root of ‘the business he undertook. 

The fact, however, cannot be denied, that i in. common practice’ 
there are very few such perfect workmen. Trees (especially in the 
nurseries) are often taken up in haste, at a loss of a third, or even 
sometimes half of their roots, and -when received by the transplanter, 

there is nothing to be done but to. make thetbest of i. 

In order to do, this, we must look a little in advance, isi order to: 
understand the phildsophy of growth, In a few words, then, it 
may be assumed that in a healthy tree, there is an exact“ balance 
of ‘power ” between the roots and the branches. -Thé first may be 
said to represent the. stomach, and the second the lungs and pet- 
spiratory’ system. The first collects food for the tree; the other 


. 


THE ART OF TRANSPLANTING TREES, 345 


elaborates and prepares this food. You can, therefore, no more 
make-a violent. attack upon the: roots, without the leaves and 
branches suffering harm by it, than,you can greatly injure the 
stomach.of an animal without disturbing the vital action of all the 
rest of its system. - « 

In trees and plants, perhaps, this proportional dependence is 
still greater. For.instance, the leaves, ‘and even the bark of a tree, 
continually act as.the.perspiratory system of that tree. . Every clear 
-. day, in a good sized tree, they give off many pounds weight of 
fluid matter,—being the. more watery portion of the element ab- 
sorbed by the roots. Now it is-plain, that if you: destroy, in trans- 
. planting, one-third of the roots of a tree, you have, as soon as: the 
leaves expand, a third more lungs than you can keep in action. The 
perspiration is vastly beyond what the roots can make good ; and 
unless the subject. is.one-of unusual vitality, or the weather is such 
as to keep down perspiration by constant dampness, the leaves must 
flag, and the tree partly or wholly perish. 

The remedy, in cases where you must plant a tree whose roots: 
have'been mutilated, is (after carefully paring off the ends of the 
wounded roots, to enable them to heal more speedily) to restore the 
“balance.of power” by bringing down the perspiratory.system—in 
other words, the branches, to a corresponding state; that is to say, 
in theory, if your ‘tree-has lost, a fourth of its roots, take off an 
equal amount of its branches. : 

This is the correct theory. The rales, however, differs with 
' the climate where the transplanting takes place. This is evident, if 
we remember that the.perspiration is governed by the amount of sun- 
shine and dry air. The more of these, the greater the demand 
made for moisture, on the roots. Hence, the reason why. delicate 
cuttings strike root readily under a. bell glass, and-why transplanting 
. is.as easy as sleeping in rainy weather. In England, therefore, it is 
much easier to transplant large trees than on the, continent, or in 
‘this country ; so easy, that Sir Henry Stewart made parks of fifty 
feet trees with his transplanting machine, almost ‘as easily and as 
: quickly as Capt. Bragg makes a park of artillery. But he who 
tries this sort of fancy work in the bright sunshine of the United 
Bist, will find that it is like undertaking to besiege Gibraltar with 


346 ‘TREES, 


cross-bows. The trees start into leaf, and all promises well; but. 
unless under very favorable circumstances, the. leaves beggar- the. . 


roots, by their demands for more sap, before August is half over. 


We mean to be understood, therefore, that we think it safest in . 


practice, in this part of the world, when you are about to ‘Plant a 


tree deprived of part of its roots, to reduce the branches a little. 


below this same proportion. To reduce them to precisely ; an equal 
‘proportion, would preserve the balance, if the ground about the 


roots could be kept uniformly moist, But, with the chances of its. 
becoming partially dry at times, you must guard against the Jeaves © 


“ flagging, by diminishing their number at the first. start. As every 
leaf and branch, made after growth fairly commences, will be accom- 


panied simaultaneously by new roots, the same will then be provided 


for as a matter of course, _ ' 
The neatest way of yeducing the top of a tree, in ‘order, not i 


destroy its natural symmetry,* i is to shorten-back the young growth: , 


of the previous season. We know a most successful planter who 
"always, under all circumstances, shortens-back the previous’ year’s 
wood, on transplanting, to one bud ; that is, he cuts off the whole 
summer's growth down to a good: plump bud, just- above the pre- 


vious year’ s wood. But this is not always’ necessary. A few inches - 


(where the growth has been a foot or more) will usually be all that 
is necessary. It is only necessary to watch the growth of a trans- 
planted tree, treated in this way, with: one of the same kind un- 
pruned; to compare the clean, vigorous new shoots, that will be 


made the first season by the former, with the slender and feeble. 


ones of the latter, to be perfectly convinced of the value of the 
practice of shortening-in, transplanted trees. , 

The necessity of a proper supply of food for. = is a-point 
that we should not have to insist. upon, if starving. trees had the 
power of crying out, like starving pigs. Unluckily, they’ have not; 
and,, therefore, inhuman and ignorant cultivators will feed hats 
cattle, and let their orchards :starve to death. .Now it is perfectly 
demonstrable, to a man who has the use of his éyes,'thatia tree can 


* Cutting off large branches ‘at random, often quite spoils the natural 
‘habit of a tree. Shortening-back, all over the head, does not affect it in the 
least, Co3 


THE ART OF TRANSPLANTING TREES. 847 


be fatted to repletion, that it may be made to grow thriftily and 
well, or that it may be absolutely starved to death, as. certainly as 
a Berkshire. It’ is. mot enough | ‘(unless a man has rich bottom 
lands) to plant.a treé in order to have a satisfactory growth, and a 
speedy gratification i in its fruit and foliage. You roust provide a 
supply of food for it“at the outset; and renew it as often as nedéssary 
during its lifetime. He who does this, will have ‘five times the 
profit and ten times the satisfaction of the careless and sluggish 
man, who grudges the labor and expense of a little extra feeding 
for the roots. The ‘cheapest and best food for fruit trees, with most 
farmers, is a mixture of. swamp muck and stable manure, which, has 

laid for some two or three months together. The best manure, | 
perhaps, is the same muck, or black peat, reduced to an active state 
with wood ashes. A wheelbarrow load of this compost, mixed with 
the soil, for each small transplanted tree, will give it a supply of 
food that’ will produce’a growth of leaf and young wood that will 
do one’s heart good to look upon. 

Any well decomposed animal manure may be freely used in 
planting trees ; always thoroughly. incorporating it with the whole 
of the soil that has been stirred, and not ‘throwing it difoctly. about, 
the roots’ 

' There are, however, some improvident men who will plant trees 
without having any food at hand, except manure in a criide state. 
“What shall we do,” the rk ask, “when we have only fresh stable . 
manure ?” Perhaps we ought to answer—* wait-till you have some- 
thing better.” But since they will do something at once, or not at 
all, we must give them a reply ; and this is, make your hele twice 
as large and twice as deep as you would if you had suitable com- 
post. Then bury part of the fresh manure ‘below the depth where 
the roots will at first be, mixing it with the soil, treading the whole 
down well to prevent settling, and covering the whole with three 
inches-of earth, upon which to plant the tree. Mix the rest with | 
the’ soil, and put. it at-the sides ofthe. hole, keeping the manure 
both at the sides and bottom, far enough away, that the roots of the 
tree shall not reach it for two months. Then plant the tree in some 
of the best good soil you, can procure. ? 

One of the safest and best general fertilizers that can be used in 


‘ 
t 


348 ; TREES. 


transplanting at all times, and in all soils, is Jeached wood ashes. A 
cotiple: of ‘shovelfuls of this may be used (intermixed. with’ soil) ; 
about the roots of every tree, while replanting it, with great advan- 
‘tage. Lime and potash, the two largest inorganic constituents of 
all trees, are most abundantly supplied by wood. ashes ; and ‘hence 
its utility in all our soils. 5 
| We have, previously, so largely. insisted on the importance of 

trenching and deepening the soil, in all cases where trees ‘are tobe 
planted, that we trust our readers know that that is our platform. 
If any man wishes to know how to improve the growth of any tree 
in the climate of the United States, the first word that we have to 
say to him, is to “trench your soil.” If your ‘soil is exhausted, if 
your soil is thin and poor, if it is dry, and you suffer from drought, 
the remedy is the same; deepen it. If you have much’ to do, and 
economy, must be eguttiored, use the subsoil plough; if a few trees 
only are to be planted in the lawn or garden, use the spade. Always 
remember that the roots of trees will rarely go’ deeper thansthe 
“ natural soil,” (say from 10 to 20 inches on the average,) and’ ‘that 

by trenching two or three, feet deep you make’ a double: soil, and 
therefore'énlarge your “ area of freedom ” for the roots, and give iter 
twice as much to feed upon. If you are a beginner, and are skepti: 
cal, make a trial of a few ‘square yards, plant : a tree in. it, and then 
Judge for yourself, oe a 


eae 


ON TRANSPLANTING LARGE TREES. 
' January, 1850. 
N a country where thousands of new rural homes are every year 
being made, how many times do the new proprietors sigh for 
LARGE tress, “Ah, if one could only have half a dozen,—two or 
three,—nay, even a single one of the beautiful elms that waste their 
beauty by the roadside of some unfrequented. lane, or stands unap- 
previated ih sore farmer’ s meadow, who. grudges it ground room!” 
- “And is there no ‘successful way of transplanting such trees ?” 
itiquires the inpatient owner of a new site, who feels that there 
should be some special process—some patent regenerator of that 
forest growth, which his predecessors have so cruelly despoiled,—his 
predecessors, to whom cord-wood was of more consequence than the 
charms of sylvan landscape. 

. Though there is great delight in raising a tree from a liliputian 
specimen no higher than, one’s knee,—nay, even from the seed 
itself,—in feeling, as it grows upward and heavenward, year by year, 
till the little thing that had te be sheltered with rods, stuck about it, 
to prevent its being overlooked and. trodden upon, has so far over- 
topped us that it now shelters and gratefully overshadows us; though, 
as we have said, there. is great delight in this, yet it mut be part 
and parcel of other delights. To'a person who has just “settled” 
upon a bare field, where he has only a new house and a “ view.” of 
his neighborhood to look at, we must not be too eloquent about the 
pleasure of raising oaks from the acorn. He is too much in the 
condition of the hungry man, who is told to be resigned, for there 


‘ 


350 _ TREES, 
will be no hunger in heaven.. It is the present ‘state of affairs that, 
at this moment, lies nearest to him. : How, in other words, shall a 
field, as bare as a desert, be. at once enlivened with a few large trees? . 

Some ten or. fifteen years ago, an ingenious Scotch . baronet—" 

Sir Henry ‘Stuart—published a goodly octavo: to the world, which 
apparently solved the whole mystery. And it was not all theory ; 
for the baronet’s own park was actually planted’ with forest: trees: of 
various kinds—oaks, ashes, elms, beeches, of ail sizes, from ‘twenty-" 
five to sixty feet, in height, and with fine heads. .The thing was not 
only done, but the park was, there, growing in the finest, luxuriance; 
and half a dozen years after: its création, arboriculturists of every 
degree, from Sir Walter Scott down. to humble ditchers, went to,” 
look at it, and. pronounced it good, and the thing itself altogether 
satisfactory. F 

Sir Henry Stuart’s process, though it fills a-volume, may. be com- . 

_pressed into-a paragraph. “ First, the greatest respect for the roots of 
a tree, and some, knowledge of the functions of the roots and branches ;. 
second, a pair of large. wheels,. with, a'strong axle and pole ; third, 
practical skill and, patience in executing the work. 

' -A great many disciples had. Sir Henry; -and ‘we, among. - the 
number, bore our. share in the purchasé of a pair. of wheels, and the 
cost of moving some large trees, that for the most part failed. And 
now, that Sir Henry’s mode has rather: fallen. into disrepute, and is, 

looked upon as an impracticable thing for this country, it: may be 
time well employed to look a little into the cause of its failure, and 

also to. inquire if it is wholly and entirely a failure for us.'. é 

Undeniably, then, the main causé‘of the failure, here, of the , 

Scotch mode of transplanting, lies in the difference of climate. He 
who knows how ‘imuch'the success of a newly planted tree, of small 
size, depends on the moist state of the atmosphere, when it begins 
to grow in its new position, can easily see that. its importance’ is ° 
vastly greater to a large tree than a small one. It is the thirst of a 
giant and the sufferings of a giant, accustomed to a, large supply of 
food, compared with that of a little child, which may be fed by the 
spoonful. - And when we compare thé moisture of that foggy.and 
weeping climate of Scotia, with the: hot, bright, dry atmosphere of’ 
the United States, we can easily see that: a tree at all stubborn, 


ON TRANSPLANTING LARGE TREES. B51 


meal Sir Henry himself, and inclined to grow, would actually 
peridigfrom the dryness of the air in mid-summer in our middle 
States.. And such we have found by experiment is actually the case 
with trees of many kinds, when planted of large size, =. 

We say of many kinds; for repeated.experiment, has proved that 
a few kinds of hardy esis trees may be transplanted, even in this 
climate, with entire success by the Stuart method, or any other-that 
will sufficiently preserve the entireness of the roots. 

Fortunately, the two ‘kinds of trees adapted for removal, when 
of large size, are the two most popular and most valuable for orna- 
mental purposes. We mean the rims andthe martes. Few forest 
trees have more dignity and grace; none have more beauty of out- 
line than our weeping elms and sugar maples, to say nothing of the 
other varieties of both these trees. And if the possessor of a new 
place can adorn it with a dozen or two fine specimens ‘of these, of a 
size to give immediate shelter and effect to the neighborhood of his 
house, he can then afford to. be patient, and enjoy the more gradual 
process of coaxing smaller specimens into luxuriant maturity. 

The reason why oaks, nut treks, chestnuts, tulip trees, and the 
like, when transplanted of large size, ‘do not, succeed here, where 
elms-and maples do, is that the former unluckily have a few strong, 
or tap-r cots; running downwards, while the latter have great masses 
of fibrous roots, running near the surface of the ground. 

Now a tap-rooted tree, even when small, has a much less amia- 
ble disposition when dug up, and asked to prow again, than a-fibrous 
rooted tree; because, indeed, having fewer small roots, ‘it has only 
one mouth to supply its hunger, and to’ gain. strength to go on 
again, where the other: has fifty. Hence, though it may, under very 
favorable circumstances, like the climate of Scotland, overcome all 
and succeed, yet it is nearly a death struggle to.do so in our dry 
midsummer air.* It is not worth while-to waste one’s time, there- 
fore, in transplanting large oaks, or hickories, in this hemisphere: 

_ And now, having reduced our class of available subjects to elms 


! 


* We have found that large oaks, when transplanted, frequently live 
through the first year, but die the second, from their inability to contend 
against the climate and make new roots, . \ 


‘ 


352 . TREES, 


and maples, let us inquire what is the best method of trans ating 
them. ~ 

The ‘first point regards the ‘selection of the trees themselves, . 
And here Sir Henry Stuart, or his, book, would teach many planters. 
a piece of real tree-craft which they are ignorant of; and that is, 
that there is.as much difference, in point of hardiness and power of: 
endurance, between a tree taken.out of the woods, where ‘it is shel- 
‘tered by other trees, and one taken from the-open field, where it 
stands alone, exposed to the fullest influences of wind and storm, 
light and sunshine, as there is between a languid drawing-room fop 
_and a robust Green Mountain boy. For this good and sufficient 
reason, always choose a tree that grows alone,:in an open: site, and 
in a =e that will allow you to retain a-considerable ball of roots 

~ entire.* 

“How large an elm or maple may we transplant?” Our 
answer to this question might be, as large’ as you can afford—but 
for the great difficulty of managing a very large tree when out of 
the ground. That it may-be done, is .now’a well-established*fact ; 
and hence, the only question is as to its expediency.} ‘Trees from 
20 to 30 feet in height, we conceive to be, on the‘whole, the most 
suitable size. 

There are two modes now in considerable use for moving. trees 
of this size; the first is the Stuart mode, to be performed in spring 
or autumn ; the second, the frozen-ball mode, to be peomned in 
winter. ‘ ‘a 

The Stuart mode js the best for trees of the largest size. - In 
this mode, the roots are laid bare with the greatest care; every Toot, 


_ # The best subjects, when they can be liad (ag they fr equently may in the 
neighborhood of towns), are trees planted some ten or fifteen years before, 
in some neighbor's gtounds, where they require ‘being taken out (if you can 
persuade him of it), beeause originally planted too thickly, : 

} One of the most suecessful instances of ‘this kind of transplanting, in. 
this country, is at the cottage residence of Thomas Perkins, Esq., at Brook: 
line, near Boston, ' An avenue of considerable extent may be seen there, 
composed of elms. thirty to forty feet high, beautifully shaped, and haying” 
the effect of fall-gr own trees, They were removed more than a fourth of a 
mile, from the. sia of Col. Perkins, with periges success, and we believe by 
the Stuart mode. . 


e 


4 
ON TRANSPLANTING LARGE TREES. 353 


as far as possible, being. preserved.’ The wheels are then brought 
up to the tree, the axle made fast to the body (with a stuffing be- 
tween to prevent injury to the bark), and the pole is tied securely 
to the trunk and branches higher up. A long rope, or ropes, being 
now fixed to the pole ‘and the branches, the pole serves as a lever, 
and the top is thus brought down, while the mass of roots is sup- 
ported:upon the axle. After the tree is properly balanced on the 
carriage, horses are attached, and it is ss asia to the hole pre- 
‘pated for it. 

' This mode is one which ee a good deal of practical skill 
in the management of foots, and in the whole art of transplanting, 
though great effects may be produced by it in the. hands of ‘abdlful 
workmen.* 

Transplanting with a frozen ball is a good deal ace in this 
country, and is much the cheapest and most. perfect mode for trees 
of moderately large size; that isto say, trees from 20 to 30 feet 
high, and whose trunks measure from 6 inches to a foot in diame- 
tet. Trees of this proportion are indeed the most suitable for the 
embellishment of new. places, since ‘they unite immediate beauty of 
effect with: comparative cheapness in removal, while it requires Tess 
mechanical skill to remove them. ; 

The process of removing a tree with a frozen ball is a simple 
one, especially if performed in the early part of winter, while there 
is yet But little frost in the ground. In the first place, the’ hole 
should be made ready,t and a pile. of suitable soil laid by the 
side of it and covered with straw, to prevent its being frozen when 

wanted. 

Then a trench is dug all round the tree, in order to leave a ball 

f d a ? 

Bi We cannot but express our surprise that some of our exceddingly j in- 
genious and clever Yankee teamsters have never taken up, as'a business, the 
art of transplanting large trees. To a person competent to the task, with 
his machine, his oxen, and his trained set of hands, an abundance of oceu- 
pation would be offered by wealthy improvers of new places, to whom the 
eost of a dozen elms, forty feet high, at a remunerating price, seal be» a 
niatter of trifling moment. ; : 

t Especially should the soil, in the bottom of the hole, be well touche 
and manur ed, 

23 


i 
354 TREES. 


of earth from six to eight feet in diameter. The trench should be’ 
wide enough to allow the operator gradually to undermine ' the: 
ball-of roots, so that at last the tree just stands, asit were, upon one 

leg. In ‘this condition let the ball be exposed to a sharp. frosty 

night, that it may freeze. quite firmly. The next day you approach 

the subject with a common low shed, or stone boat, drawn by'a pair 

or two of oxen; (or if the tree measures only six inches, a pair of 

horses will do.) The tree with its ball is now thrown to one side; 
the sled is then placed under the ball on the opposite side; then the 

tree is righted, the ball placed upon the middle of the sled, and the 

whole drawn out of the hole. A teamster of very little’ practice will 

now see at a glance how to balance his load upon the sled; and 

once on level ground, it is no difficult matter to drag the whole for 

half a mile or more to its final location. ' 

After the tree is placed: in the hole previously prepared. for it,: 
the good soil must be closely pressed around the ball, and the trunk: 
supported in its, place, till after the equinoctial rains, by stakgs or 
braces.* : 


There is no mode for. the removal of trees in which they will -° 


suffer so little as this; partly because the roots are maintained more. 
entire than in any other way, and partly . because the -soil is not: 
even loosened or disturbed about a large portion of the fibres. 
Hence, though a slight reduction of the top is advisable, even in 
this. case, to balance the loss of. some of the long roots, it is not ab- 
solutely needful, and in no case is the symmetry of the head de- 
stroyed ; and the possessor of the newly moved tree has the satis- 
faction of gazing upon a goodly, show of foliage and shade as soon 
as June comes round again. 7 
Those of our readers who are groaning for the want of trees, will 
see by these remarks that their case is by no means desperate 5 that, 
on the contrary, we think it a very hopeful one; and that, in short, if- 
they can afford to expend from two to ten dellats per tree, and can 
get at the right kind of subjects in their neighborhood, they may, 


* We may ‘there add, that besides elms and maples, this mode is equally 
successful with evergreens of all kinds. We have seen white pines and firs, 
of twonty feet high, moved so perfectly in this manner, that they never 
showed the least mark of the change of place. 


ON TRANSPLANTING LARGE TREES. 355 


if they choose, transform their . premises from a bleak meadow to a 
wood as thick.as “ Vallombrosa’s shade,” before the spring opens. 

And now, one word more to those who, havilg trees, are impa- 
tient for. luxuriant growth ; who desire to see annual shoots of six 
feet. instead of twenty inches; and who do not so much care what 
it costs to make a few-trees in a favorite site advance rapidly, pro- 
vided it’is possible. What they wish to know is, can the thing be 
done ? 

We answer, yes. To make a fasly: tree * grow three times as 
fast in a summer as it usually does (we speak now, of course, of 
trees in a common soil), it. is only necessary that it should have 
three times the depth for.the roots to grow in, and three times the 
amount of food for its consumption while growing. 

And, first of all, for very rapid and luxuriant growth in our cli- 
mate, the soil must be deep—deep—deep. Three feet of trenching 
or subsoiling is imperative; and we have seen astonishing results, 
where places for trees twelve feet broad and five feet deep have been 
.prepared for them. If any one of our readers will take the trouble 
to watch an‘elm-tree making its growth next season, he will notice 
that, if the season is moist and cool, the shoots will continue to 
lengthen till past midsummer ; but if, on the contrary, the season is 
a dry one, all. growth will’ be: over by.the middle of June. Why 
does the growth cease so early in the season? Simply because the - 
moment the moisture inthe soil fails, and the roots feel the effects 
of the sun, the terminal buds. form at the end of each shoot, and 
then all growth for’the season is over. Deepen the soil, so that-the 
roots go on growing in its cool, moist depths, and the tops will go 
on lengthening, despite the power of the sun; nay, so long as there 
is moisture, by the help of it, "And hence, the length of time which 
a tree will continue to grow, depends mainly upon the: depth of the 
soil in which it is planted. 

- If any skeptic wishes to be convinced of the effects of deep and 


* We say a hardy tree, because every arboriculturist knows that to pro- 
mote extra luxurianee, in a tree not perfectly hardy, increases its tenderness, 
because the wood will not ripen well, like short jointed growth; but there 
is no fear of this with elms, oaks, maplés, or any perfectly har ay native 
trees. ~ 


la 


356 TREES. 


rich soil upon the luxuriance of a plant, he. has only to step into a 

vinery, like that in Clinton Point, and see, with his own eyes, the 

same sorts of grape, which in common soil, even under glass, usu- 

ally grow but six or eight feet high in a season, and with stems like 

pipe-stems, growing twenty or thirty feet-in a single season, with 

stems of the thickness of a man’s thumb, and ripening delicious 

fruit in fourteen months after being planted. Now, exactly the 
same effect may be produced by deepening and enriching the soil, 

where the elm or any other hardy ornamental tree is to be planted ; 
and.we put it thus plainly to some of our readers, who are impa- 

tient of the growth of trees, that they may, if they choose, by a 

little extra pay, have more growth in three-years than their neigh- 

bors do inten. ° = 1 


XI 


A CHAPTER ON HEDGES. 


February, 1847. 

VHERE was a certain householder which planted a vineyard, 

’ and hedged-it round about.” What better proof can we give, 
than this sacred’ and familiar passage, of the antiquity, as well as 
the wisdom, of making hedges. But indeed the custom is older 
‘than the Christian era. Homer tells us that when Ulysses, after his 
great deeds, returned to seek : his father Laértes, he found the old 
king in his garden, preparing the ground for a hedge, while his ser- 
vants were absent, 


“To search the woods for sets of flowery thorn, 
Their orchard bounds to strengthen and adorn.” 
Porr’s Opyssey. 


The lapse of 3000 years has not taught the husbandman or the 
owners of orchards and gardens, in modern times, any fairer or bet- 
ter mode of enclosing their lands, than this most natural and simple 
one of hedging it round about. Fences of iron or wood, carefully 
fashioned by art, are fitting and appropriate in their proper places 
—that is, in the midst of houses and: great cities—but in the open, 
free expanse of country landscape, the most costly artificial barrier 
looks hard and incongruous beside the pleasant verdure of a live 
~ hedge. 

Necessity, it is often said, knows no law, and the emigrant set- 
tler on new lands, where stone and timber are so abundant as to be 


358 TREES. 


the chief obstacles to the progress of his labors on the soil, must 
needs employ for a long time, rail fences, board fences, and stone 
walls, But in most of the Atlantic States these materials are already 
becoming so scarce, that hedges will soon be the most economical 
mode of enclosing grounds. In the prairie lands of the west, hedges 
must also, from the original and prospective scarcity of. timber, soon 
be largely resorted to for all a y divided. grounds—such as 
gardens and orchards. 

Touching the charms which a sia tle has for the eye, they 
are so striking, and.so self-evident, that our readers hardly need any 
elaborate inventory from us. That clever and extraordinary man, 
William Cobbett, who wrote books on gardening, French grammar 
and. political ‘economy, with’ equal success, said, in his usual em- 
phatic manner, “as to the beauty of a fine hedge, it is impossible. 
for any one who has not seen it, to form an idea; contrasted with a 
wooden, or even a brick fence, ét is like the land of Canaan’ com- 
pared with the deseris of Arabia!” "9 

The advantages of a ‘hedge over the, common fence, besides its 
beauty, are its ‘durability, its perfect protection against man and 
beast, and the additional value iv confers upon the land which it 
encloses. A fence of wood, or stone, as commonly made, is, at the. 
best, but a miserable and tottering affair; soon needing repairs, 
which are a constant drain upon the purse; often liable to be broken. 
down by trespassing Philistines ; and, before many years, decaying, 
or so far falling down, as'to demand a complete renewal. Now a 
good hedge, made of two plants we ghall recommend, will last for 
ever ; it is an ‘ - everlasting: fence,” at least in any acceptation ‘of the 
worl known to our restless and changing countrymen. : “When once 
fully grown, the small trouble-of annual trimming costs nota whit 
more than the average expense of repairs ona wooden fence, while 
its freshness and verdure are renewed with a vernal return of the 
“ flower and the leaf.” er 

As a protection to the choicer products of the soil, which tempt 
the spoiler of the orchard and the garden, nothing is so efficient as 
a good hedge, It is like an impregnable fortress, neither to be 
scaled, broken through, nor climbed over. Fowls will not fly over 
it, because they fear to alight upon its top; and men ‘and beasts are 


A CHAPTER ON HEDGES, 359 


not likely to make.more than one attempt to force its green walls, 
It shows a fair and leafy shield to ‘its antagonist, but it has thou- 
sands of concealed arrows ready at-a moment of assault, and there 
are few creatures, however: bold, who care to “ come to the scratch” 
.. twice with such a foe, Indeed a well made and perfect thon 
Z ae is so thick that a a cannot: fy through it. 


“The hedigo was thick as is a éaitle wall, 
So that who list: without to stand or go, 
Though he would all the day pry to and fro, 
He could not see if there were any wight 
Within or no.”—Caavoer. 


“This is all true,” we hear some impatient reader say; “hedges 
are beautiful, excellent, good ; but what an age they require—five, 
six, seven, ‘years—to be cut down—the poor things—once or twice, 
to be kept back every year with shortening and shearing, and only 
to reach the height of one’s head, with such an outlay of time and 
trouble. Ah! it is too tedious, I must build a paling—I shall never 
have patience to wait fora hedge!” 

Build a.paling, friend; nature does not get up hasty job-work, 
like journeymen carpenters. But at least be consistent. Fill your 
-garden with anntals. Do not sow any thing more lasting, or asking 
longer leases of time than six weeks—beans and summer: sun-flow- 
ers: Breed no stock, plant no orthards, drain no meadows and— 
set no hedges! Leave all these to wiser men, or rather: be per- 
suaded of the wisdom of doing in the best way, what tillers of the 
earth have not learned to do better after a lapse of centuries ! 

But there are also persons, readers of ours, who must be treated 
with more respect. They will tell us that’ they have more reason 
in ‘their objections to hedges. They admire hedges—they have 
planted'and raised them. But they have not succeeded, and they 
have great doubts of the possibility of making good hedges in the 
‘United States. We know all the difficulties which ‘these cultivators 
shave experienced, for we have made the same trials, and seen the 
same obstacles ourselves. But we are confident we can answer 
their objections in a few words. The ‘Hawruorn (Crataegus) can- 
not be depended upon as a hedge plant in this country. 


360 TREES. 
Fi 


Hundreds ‘of emigrants from. Great’ Britain, familiar all their 
lives with hawthorn hedges and their treatment, and deploring the 
unsightliness of “ posts and rails” in America, have made hedges of 
their old favorite, the common English hawthorn, and given them 
every care’ and attention. Here and there we see an instance of 
success ; but it cannot be denied that, in the main, there is no suc: 
cess; The English hawthorn is not adapted to our. hot and bright 
summers, and can never be'successfully used for farm hedges.* 

Bnt thére are many species of native hawthorn scattered. 
through our woods. Will not these make good hedges? We 
answer, excellent: ones—nothing can be much better. Almost any 
of them are superior to the foreign sort for our climate. We have 
seen hedges of the two species known in the nurseries as the New- 
castle thorn (Crategus crus-gallt) and Washington thorn (C. cordata), 
that realized all we could.desire of a beautiful and effective verdant- 
less fence. 

A few years ago, therefore, we strongly. recommended these na- 
tive thorns—we hoped to see them planted in all parts of the eoun- 
_, try. But we are forced to admit now that there is a reason why 

we fear they will never make permanent hedges for the country at 
large, and for farm purposes. 

This is, their liability to be utterly destroyed by that insect, so 
multiplied in many parts of the country, the apple borer. Wher- 
ever there are old orchards, this insect sooner or later finds its way, . 
and sooner or later it will attack all the hawthorns, whether: native 
or foreign, for they all belong to the same family as the apple-tree, 
and are all its favorite food, Fifteen years ago, a person riding 
through the lower part of New. Jersey and Delaware, would have 
been struck with the numerous and beautiful hedges of Newcastle 
and Washington thorns. Whole districts, in some parts, were 


* We know there are exceptions. ° We have ourselves about 1000 feet of 
‘excellent hedge of this plant, And we saw, with great satisfaction, last 
summer, on the fine farm of Mr. Godfrey, near Geneva, N. Y., more ‘than a 
mile of promising young hedge of the English thorn, But the soil and climate 
there, are peculiarly favorable. ‘These are exceptions to thousahds of in- 
stances of total failure. 5 


A CHAPTER ON HEDGES. 361 


fenced with them, and nurserymen could scarcely supply the de- 
mand for young plants. Now we learn that whole farms have lost 
their hedges by the borer, which in some places attacked them so 
suddenly, perforating and girdling the stems near the ground, that 
in two seasons, sometimes indeed in one, the hedge would be half 
killed. Of course the planting of thorn hedges is almost abandoned 
there, and we ara assured by growers of the plant in those States, 
who frequently sold hundreds of thousands, that there i is now no de- 
mand whatever for them.* 

We do not doubt that there are many sections of the country 
where good hawthorn hedges of the best native species, may be 
grown. In some places this fatal foe ‘to it may never appear— 
though it follows closely in the steps of every careless orchardist, 
In gardens where insects are closely watched, it is not very difficult 
to prevent their ravages upon the thorn plants. But-what we mean 
now to point out as distinctly as possible, is this—that no species 
of hawthorn, or Crategus, is likely ever to become a Pee plant 
of general use and value to farmers in America, 

‘What we want in a hedge plant for this country is, ‘vigor, hardi- 
ness, longevity, and a sap and bark either. offensive, or offering no 
temptations to any destructive insects. Are there such plants? 
We think we may now, after the matter has been pretty thoroughly 
tested, answer yes; and name the Bucstnorn, and the Osacz 
Oranes ;. the former for the northern, and the latter for the south- 
ern portions of our country. These plants are both natives. As 
they may not be familiar to many of our readers, we shall, before 
entering upon the planting of hedges, briefly describe them, and 
give correct sketches of their leaves and growth, so that they may 
be identified by any person. 


* We recall to mind an instance on the Hudson, where three years ago 

we saw avery beautiful hedge of the Newcastle thorn—almost as handsome 

- in its glossy foliage as holly itself. During the past summer we again be- 
held it, nearly destroyed by the insidious attacks of the borer. 


me 


362 TREES, , 


THE BEST HEDGE PLANTS. 


I, THE BUCKTHORN. 


-Rhamnus eatharticus.—L. 
: : : 


The buckthorn is 
a deciduous shrub 
growing from ten to 
fifteen feet high, 
bushy, or with nu- 
‘ merous _ branches.’. 
The bark is grayish 
brown; the leaves 
are about an inch’ 
or an inch and a half 
long, dark green, 
smooth, ovate, anid 
notched. or serrated: 
on the edges, and 
are placed nearly 
opposite each other 
“on the branches. 
There are no. inde- 
pendent thorns, pro- 
perly speaking, but 
the. end of each 
year’s shoots termi- 
nates in a sharp 
point or thorn. (See 
fig. 1.) The blos- 
soms are small and 
yellowish green. 
They are succeeded 
‘by numerous round, 
black berries, which 
ripen- in autumn, 
Fig, 1. ‘Tho Buckthorn, and hang, till frost, 


A CHAPTER ON HEDGES. 363 


1 


and give the plant sornething of an ornamental appearance. The 
roots are unusually black in color, and are very numerous. 

The buckthorn is a native of the north of Europe, Asia, and 
North America. It is not a common shrub in the woods in this 
country, but we find it very frequently in this neighborhood and in 
various parts of Dutchess county, N. Y., as well as on the borders of 
woods in Massachusetts.* 

The bark and berries of the buckthorn are powerful cathartics. 
The sap of the berries, mixed with alum, makes the color known to 
painters as sap-green, and the bark yields a fine yellow dye. 

As a hedge plant, the buckthorn possesses three or four points 
of great merit. In the first place, its bark and leaf are offensive to 
insects, and the borer, the’ aphis, and others, which are so destructive 
to all hawthorns in many parts of our country, will not touch it. 

. In the second place, it is remarkable for its hardiness, its ro- 
ais and its power of adapting itself to any soil. It will bear 
any climate, however cold, for: it grows wild. in Siberia; hence it 
will never suffer, as the Englislythorn has been. known to do, with 
an occasional winter of unusual severity, We have seen it growing 
under the shade of trees, and in dry’ atid: poor soil,-as well as thriv- 
ing in moist, and springy soil; and in this respect, and in its 
natural rigid’ thicket-like habit, it, seems more. admirably fitted by 
nature for the northern hedge plant than almost any other. In the 
third place, it bears the earliest transplanting, has, great longevity, 
and is very thrifty in its growth. We have already remarked that it 
is well supplied with roots. -Indeed its fibres are unusually numer 
ous even in seedlings of one year’ s growth. ‘Hence it is transplant. 
ed with remarkable facility, and when treated with any thing. like 
proper care, not one in five thousand of the plants ‘will fail to grow. 
It is scarcely at all liable to diseases, and no plant bears the shears 
better, or gives a denser and thicker. hedge, or is longer lived in a 
hedge. Its growth i is at least one-third more rapid than that of the 
hawthorn, and the facility of raising it, at least half greater. 


-* Some botanists consider it a foreign plant, introduced and naturalized 
in this country. But we have found it in solitary and almost inaccessible 
“parts of the Hudson Highlands, which forbids such a belief on our part. 


864 TREES. 


‘Lastly, it is one of the easiest plants to propagate. It bears ber- 
ries in abundance. These, if planted in autumn as soon as they 
are ripe (or even in the ensuing spring), will germinate in the spring, 
and if the soil is good, give plants from a foot to twenty inches high 
the first year—which are large enough for transplanting. the next 
spring following. The seeds of the hawthorn do not vegetate till 
the second year, and the plants properly require to be transplanted 
once in the nurseries, and to be three years old, before they are fit 
for making hedges. Here is at once a most obvious and important 
saving of time and labor. 

_ It is but a simple matter to raise buckthorn plants. You begin - 
by gathering the seeds as soon as they ate ripe, say by the middle 
of October.* Each berry contains four seeds, covered with a thin 
black pulp. Place them in a box or tub; miash the pulp by beat- 
ing the berries moderately with a light wooden pounder. Then put 


them in a sieve, pour.some water over them, rub the seeds through, ” 


and throw away the skin and pulp. Two or three rubbings apd 
washings will give you clean seed. , Let it then be dried, and it is 
ready for sowing. va 

Next, choose a good se deep garden sail Dig it thoroughly, 
and give ita good dressing of manure. Open a drill with. the hoe, 
exactly as you would for planting peas, and scatter the seed of the 
buckthorn in it, at an average of two or three inches apart. Cover 
them about an inch and a half deep. The rows or drills may, if 
you are about to raise a large crop, be put three feet apart, so that 
the horse cultivator may be used to keep the ground in order. 

In the spring the young plants will make their appearance plen- 
tifully. All that they afterwards require is a thorough weeding, and 
a dressing with a hoe as soon as they are all a couple of inches high, 
and a little attention afterwards to keep the ground mellow and free 
from weeds. One year’s growth in strong land, or two in that of 
tolerable quality, will render them fit for being transplanted into the 
hedge-rows. 


* The buckthorn is pretty largely cultivated for its berries at the vari- 
ous Shaking Quaker settlements in this State and New England: and seeds 
may usually be procured from them in abundance, and at reasonable prices. 


A CHAPTER ON HEDGES, 865 


If the buckthorn has any defect as a hedge plant it is this; 
while young it is not provided with strong and stout roots like the 
hawthorn. Its thorns, as we have already said, stand at the point 
of each shoot of the qld wood. . Hence it is that a buckthorn hedge 
does not appear, and is not, really well armed with thorns till it has 
attained its full. shape, : and has had a couple of seasons’ shearing. 
After that, the hedge being well furnished with the ends of the 
shoots, it presents thorns on every face, and is a thorough defence. 
‘Besides this, it is a stronger and, stouter plant than the thorn, and 
offers more absolute resistance than the latter plant.’ Though it 
may be kept low, yet it makes a most efficient shelter if allowed to 
form a high edge. One of the largest and oldest specimens in 
New England is that at Roxbury, planted by the late Hon. John 
Lowell,-and still growing on the estate of his son. It is very strong, 
and if we remember right, twelve or fifteen feet high.* 


IL THE MACLURA, OR OSAGE ORANGE. 
Maclura aurantiaca. 


The osage orange, or maclura, grows wild in abundance in the 
State of Arkansas, and as far north as the Red River. 
It is one of the most striking and beautiful of American trees. . 
lig foliage is not unlike that of the orange, but more glossy, and 


_ * Mr. Derby, of Salem, was one of the first persons to employ the buck- 
thorn, and to urge its value upon the public. From the Transactions of the 
Essex Agricultural Society for 1842, we extract some of his remarks relating 
to it; “I do not hesitate to pronounce the buekthorn the most suitable plant 
for hedges I have ever met with. ‘It vegetates early in the spring, and re- 
tains its verdure late (autumn. Being » native plant, it is never injured 
by the mostintense cold, and its vitality is so gréat that the young plants 
may be kept out of ground -for a long time, or transported to a great dis- 
tance without injury. It never sends up any suckers, nor is disfigured by 
any dead wood. It can be clipped into any shape which the caprice or in- 
genuity of the gardener may devise, and it needs no plashing or interlacing, 
the natural growth of the plants being sufficiently interwoven. It is never 

_eankered by unskilful clipping, but will bear the knife to any degree.” 


366 TREES. 


polished ; ‘indeed it is of a bright varnished green. It, grows. lux- 
uriantly, about thirty or forty feet high, with a wide and spread- 
ing head. The flow-. 
ers are small . and es 
inconspicuous,. pale. . 
green in color, those .: 
preceding the fruit 
_ Yesembling. a little 
pall, (see Jigure.)* 
_ ‘The fruit itself is 
very near the size, 
and “shape of an 
orange; yellow at: 
full maturity, and 
rough on the out- 
side, not unlike the 
< seed of the button- 
wood or sycamore. 
It hangs till Octo- 
ber, is not ‘eatable, 
but is striking and 
ornamental on a 
large tree. This 
tree was first intro- 
duced into our gar- 
dens, where it is 
now well known, 
from a ‘village of 
the Osage Indians, 
' i which, coupled with 
@. general appear- 
cance, gave rise to 
its ‘popular name, ‘The wood is full of milky sap,.and we have 
never seen it attacked by any insects. 
A oad many trials have been made within the last ten yon 


‘ 


Fig. 2, The Osage Orange 


= The male and female flowers are borne on dean trees, 


Aes 


A CHAPTER.ON HEDGES. 367 


in various parts of the buritey, with the Osage orange, as a hedge 
plant. The general result, south ofthis, has been in the highest de- 
gree favorable: Many who have failed with all species of hawthorn, 
have entire faith in the.value of this plant, and we have no longer 
a doubt that it is destined to become the favorite hedge-plant of all 
that part of the Union lying south and west of the State of New- 
York.* * 


att y Uf Wy, ‘ Y 
= Ak at ae ‘ a a ; 
i fee 


ne 
Fo ue iM ihe 


Ai) a i Ag 


a il 


SS 2 


ye 


ih 


ey 


eS 


Fig..8. Fruit of the Osage Orange Tree, 
® Beoeey tie 
The Osage orange, when treated as a hedge plant, has many ex- 


* The Osage orange is hardy in our own grounds, where we have culti- 
vated it for many years. In New England it will probably be found. too 
tender in winter, though there is an excellent young hedge of it at, Belmont 
Place, the residence of J. P. Cushing, Esq’, near Boston, which we were told 
the past season, has proved quite hardy, Pruning in hedge form, by eheek- 
ing its luxuriance, will render any partially tender shrubs more hardy. It 
may be safely laid down asa rule, judging from our own observations, that 
the Osage orange will aneceed perfectly as a hedge, wherever thé Isabella 
grape will ripen in the open air without shelter or protection. ‘This is a 
better and safer guide than a reference to parallels of latitude. 


“368 TREES. 


cellent’ characteristics. It is robust, vigorous, and long- ee It, 
‘sends out a great abundance of branches, bears trimming perfectly 
well, is most amply provided at all times with stout thorns, and its 
bright and glossy foliage gives it a very rich and beautiful appear- 
ance. It grows well on almost any soil, and makes a powerful and 
impenetrable fence in a very short time. Though it will bear rough | 
and severe ‘pruning,.and is therefore well adapted for farm fences, 
yet it must be regularly trimmed -twice every year, and requires 
it even more imperatively than other hedge plants, to prevent its 
sending out strong shoots to disfigure the symmetry of the hedge. 

The Osage orange is not yet sufficiéntly well known to be a 
cheap plant i in the nurseries.* But this is because it is not yet sufli- 
ciently in demand. It is easily propagated, and will, no doubt, soon 
be offered at very moderate rates. 

This propagation is done in two ways; by the seed, and by the 
cuttings of the roots. 

The seed is produced plentifully by the female trees. There are 
large bearing trees in the. old Landreth and McMahon gardens, near 
Philadelphia. But it is not difficult now to have resort. to those of 
native growth. We learn that this tree is so common in the neigh- 
borhood of Columbus, Hempstead Co., Arkansas, that the seeds may 
be had there for the expense of gathering ‘them. Théy should be 
gathered at the latter part of September, and the clean seed, packed 
in an equal quantity of dry sand, may be sent to any part'of the. 
Union before planting time. A quart will produce at least 5000 
plants. The séed.may be planted in broad drills, and treated just’ 
as we have already recommended for that of - the buckthortt But 
the plants are seldom fit for hedge planting til] the second year. 

_ The other mode of eestor is by the roots. Pieces-of the 
roots, of the thickness of one’s little finger, made into cuttings three 
or four inches long, and plarited in lines, in mellow soil, with the top 
of the root just below the surface, will soon push out shoots, and 
become plants. The trimmings of a hundred young plants, when 


* Messrs. Landreth and Fulton, of Philadélphia, have a stock of it for 
sale at $12 per 1000. . The usual price of hawthorns and buckthorns is $6 
per 1000; but the latter may be raised at a-cost of not-more than $3. 


A CHAPTER ON HEDGES. 369 


taken up from the nursery for transplanting, will thus give nearly a 
thousand new plants. 


PLANTING AND REARING THE HEDGE. 


Having secured the plants, the next step necessary is to prepare 
the ground where the future hedge is to be formed. 

For this purpose a strip must be marked out, three or four feet 
in width, along the whole line where the hedge isto grow. This 
must be thoroughly trenched with a spade, eighteen inches deep, if 
it is to be a garden hedge; or sub-soil ploughed to that depth, if it 
is to be a farm hedge. We know many persons content themselves 
with simply digging the ground in the common way, one spade 
deep ; but we take it for granted no readers of ours will ‘hesitate 
about the little additional trouble of: properly trenching or deepen- 
ing the goil,* when they may be assured that they will gain just 
one-half in the future growth and luxuriance of the hedge. 

It is the custom in England to plant hedges on a bank with a 
ditch at one side, to carry off ‘the water—and some persons have, 
from mere imitation, attempted the same thing here. It is worse than 
useless in our hot and dry climate. The hedge thrives better when 
planted on the level strip, simply because it is more naturally placed 
and has more moisture. If the bank and ditch ‘is used; they are con- 
tinually liable to be torn away by the violence of our winter frosts. 

* As regards the season, the spring is the best time for the north- 
ern States—the autumn for the southern. Autumn planting at the 
north often succeeds perfectly well, but the plants must be examined 
in the spring; such as are thrown out of place by the frosts require 
to be fixed again, and this often involves a good deal of trouble in 
strong soil. Early spring planting, therefore, for. this latitude, is. 
much preferable on the whole. 

A good dressing of any convenient manute that is not so coarse 
as to be unmanageable in planting, should be put upon the soil and ' 


* Those who may be fortunate enough to possess rich deep bottom or 
alluvial lands, are the only persons who need not beat the trouble of trench 
ing their soil. 


24 


870 TREES. 


turned under while the trenching is going on. The soil must be 
thoroughly pulverized and freed from stones, lumps, and rubbish; 
before the planting begins. , 

» The plants are now to be made ready... This is done in the first 
place; by assorting them into.two parcels—those of large and those 
of small size. Lay aside the smaller ones for the richest: part of 
~ your grotind, aid plant the larger ones on the. poorest of. the soil. 
This will prevent that’ inequality which there would be in the hedge 
if strong and weak plants were mixed together, and it will equalize 
the growth of the whole plantation by dividing the advantages. 

The plants should then be trimmed. This is speedily done by 
cutting down the top or stem to within about an inch of. what was 
the ground line, (so that it will, when planted again, have but an 
inch of stem above the soil,) and by correspondingly shortening all 
the larger roots about one-third. 

If. you. have a good deal of’ planting to da, it is better to bay 
the plants in a trench close at hand, or lay-them-~in-by-the-heels, as it 
is technically called, to keep them in good order till the moment 
they are wanted. 

' The hedge should be planted i in a double row, with the tite 


placed, not opposite to each other, but alternate—thus : 
* 


* * * * * * 
* * * * 


The TOws should be six inches apart, and the plants. one foot 
‘apart in the rows. 
This will require 
about 32 plants toa 
rod, or 2000 3 plants 
to’ 1000 feet. 
‘Having, well pul- 
verized the soil, set 
down the line firmly . 
. for the first row, and 
with a spade throw 
out a trench about 
-eight or ten inches 
‘deep, keeping its up- 
right or firm bank next to the line. Drop the plants along the line 


Fig. 4. Manner of Planting Hedges, 


A CHAPTER ON HEDGES. 871 


at about the distance they will be needed, iand then plant them 
twelve inches apart, keeping them as nearly as possible in a per- 
fectly straight line; for it is worth bearing in mind, that you are 
performing an act, ihe unimpeachable straightforwardness of which 
will no doubt be criticized for a great many years afterwards. Press 
the earth moderately round -the stem of the plant with the foot, when 
the filling-in of the pulverized soil is nearly completed. And, finally, 
level ‘the whole nicely with the hoe. 

Having finished, this row, take up the line and fix it again, six 
inches distant; open the trench i in the opposite direction, and set 
the plants i in the same manner. This completes the planting. - The. 
next point, and.it is one of great-importance, is the cultivation which 
the young plants require until they. become a hedge. It is indeed 
quite useless to plant a hedge, as some persons do, and leave it 
afterwards to be smothered by the evil genius of docks and thistles. 

A young hedge requires about the same amount of cultivation as’a 
row of Indian corn. The whole of the prepared strip of ground 
must be kept loose with the hoe, and free from weeds. Then light 
dressings for the first two or three summers will be required to effect 
this, and the thrifty and luxuriant state in which the plants are 
thereby kept, will well repay it, to the eye alone. After that, the 
branches of the hedge will hae extended so, as in a good degree to 
shade and éccupy the ground, and little more than a slight occa- 
sional attention to the soil will be required. 

A few words must be given to the trimming and. clipping, of our 
now established hedge. 

The plants having, before ney were planted, been cut off nearly 
even with the surface of the ground, it follows, that, in the ensuing 
spring, or one year from the time of planting, they have made many 
shoots from each stem. Let the whole of this growth then be cut 
down to within six inches of the ground. 

The following spring, which will be two years of oe, cut. back 
the last season’s shoots, leaving only one foot of the current season’s 
growth. This will leave our hedge, altogether, eighteen inches high. 

The third yom shorten back the tops ‘so as to leave again one 
foot of. the year’s growth. ane hedge will now be two and a half 
feet high. 


372 TREES. 


This course must be pursued every spring until the hedge is of 
the desired height and form, which will take’ place in five or six 
years. The latter time is usually required to make a perfect hedge— 
though the buckthorn will make a pretty good hedge in five yeats, 

This severe process of cutting off all the top at first, and annu- 
ally shortening back half the thrifty growth of a young hedge, seenis 
to the novice like an unnecessary cruelty to the plant, and trial of 
one’s own patience. We well remember as a boy, how all our in- 
dignation was roused at the idea of thus seeing a favorite hedge 

“put back” so barbarously every year. But it is. the “inexorable 
must,” i in hedge growing. ’ Raising a hedge i is like raising a / good. - 
name; if there is no base or ‘foundation for the structure, it is very 
likely to betray dreadful gaps at the bottom before it is well estab- 
lished. In a hedge, the great and all important point is to make a 
broad and thick base. Once this is. accomplished, the task is, more 
‘than half over. The top will speedily grow into any shape we dé- 
sire, and the sides are pliant enough to the will of him who holds 
the shears.. But no necromancy, short of cutting the whole down 
again, will fill up the base of a hedge that is lean and open at the 
bottom:* Hence the imperative necessity of cutting back the shoots 
till the base becomes a perfect thicket. 

The hedge. of the buckthorn, or Qsage orange, that has been 
treated in'this way, and has arrived at its sixth year, should be about 
‘six feet high, tapering to the top, and three feet wide at the base. 
This is high enough for all common purposes ;, but when shelter, or 
extra protection is needed, it may be allowed to grow eight or ten 
feet high; and four feet wide at the base. 

In trimming the hedge, a pair of largé shears, called, hedge 
shears, are commonly used. But we have found that English. labor- 
ers in our service, will trim with double the rapidity with the instru- 
ment they call a “hook.” It may be had at our agricultural ware- 
houses, and is precisely like a sickle, except that it has a. sharp edge. 

When the hedge has attained the size and shape which is ay 


ad Plashing is a mode of interlacing the branches of hedges that are thin’ 
and badly grown, so’ as to obviate the defect as far as possible. It need 
never be resorted to with the buckthorn, when a nese is properly trim- 
med from the first. 


A CHAPTER ON HEDGES, 873 


desired, it is not allowed to grow any larger. Two shearings or 
clippings are necessary, every season, to keep it in neat order—one 
in June, and the other at the end of September. 

Counting the value of the plants at the commencement at five 
dollars per thousand, the entire cost of the hedge, at the end of the 
sixth year, —including planting, cultivating, and shearing in the best 
manner,—would here be about, seventy-five cents a rod ; which, for 
an everlasting fence, and one of so much beauty, we shik a very 
moderate sum.’ 

We have said nothing. about the temporary fencing which our 
hedge will need, till it is at least five years old—that is, if it isa 
boundary hedge, or is bordered on one or both sides’ ‘by fields where 
animals run. It is evident enough that for this purpose, in most 
cases, ‘the cheaper the fence the better. A very indifferent wooden 
fence will last. five years, and a light barrier of posts and rails will 
best suit the taste of most farmers. A much more convenient, and very 
excellent one for the purpose, is the movable hurdle fence, made of 
Jight chestnut: rails, which costs but little, and may be readily re- 
“moved from one place or field to another, as the case requires.’ 

"No better tail piece can be given to this long article, than’ the 
following sketch, representing the remarkably fine specimen of the 
buckthorn hedge in the grounds of John C. Lee, Esq. of Salem, Mass, 


LAA AANAAD Nia 


T] 
Waa | 


“Fig. 5. 5. Mr, Lee's Hedge. 


XI. 


ON THE EMPLOYMENT OF ORNAMENTAL TREES AND 
‘SHRUBS IN NORTH AMERICA. . 
[Fxom Hovey’s Mag. of Horticulture.] 
‘December, 1835. 

T is remarkable, that notwithstanding the rapid progress which 
horticulture is making in the United States, so little attention 
is paid to the planting of ornamental trees, with a view to the embe}- 
lishment of our country residences. The magnificent parks of Eng- 
land have been long and justly admired, as constituting. one of the 
most beautiful features of that highly cultivated country; and al- 
though the horticultural creations of our more limited means, may: 
never equal in extent and grandeur some of those of the aristocracy 
of Europe, yet every person of cultivated mind, is aware how beau- 
tiful the hand of taste can tender even very limited scenes, by the 
proper’ application of the’ principles and materials necessary to men-: 

tal pleasure and gratification. 

‘Considered in a single point of view, what an infinite ies, of 
beauty there is in a tree itself! Every part is admirable; from the 
individual beauty of its leaves, to its grand effect as a whole. Who 
has not witnessed in some favorite landscape the indescribable charm 
thrown over the whole scene by a single tree? Perhaps a huge 
giant, whose massy trunk and wide outstretched arms have been. 
thé production of ages; or the more graceful form of another whose 
delicate foliage reflects the sunbéam, and trembles with the slightest 
“breeze that passes over it. There is no monotony in nature—even 
in trees, every season has its own charms. Spring, the season of 
renewed life, witnesses the rush of the newly imbibed sap—the 


ORNAMENTAL TREES AND SHRUBS IN NORTH AMERICA. 375 


buds swell—the terider leaves unfold, and the admirer of nature is 
delighted by the freshness and vividness of the young foliage. Sum- 
mer comes—he is’ refreshed by the fragrance of their blossoms— 
their shade is a welcome luxury in the noontide sun—perchance 
their fruit may be an acceptable offering to the palate—and who in 
this country has not witnessed the autumnal glories of an American 
forest ? 

There is no country of the globe which produces a greater va- 
riety of fine forest trees, whether considered for the purposes of orna- 
ment or timber, than North America. Yet it is a fact that for both 
these purposes, more particularly the first, they are horticulturally 
better known in many parts of Europe, than they: are:now at home. 
Those governments have imported the seeds of all our most valua- 
ble: forest: trees, annually, for more than a century. Instead of 
‘planting, our agriculturists have hitherto been engaged in destr: oy- | 
ing. In the Atlantic States, this period is now past; and we 
would, therefore, first direct the Bitenition of the arboriculturist’ to 
our own trees. 

There is not in the whole en scarcely 2 a more interesting 
object than an immense oak tree, when. placed so as to be consid- 
ered in relation to the large mansion of a wealthy proprietor. Its 
broad ample limbs and aged form, give a very impressive air of 
dignity to the whole scene. It is a very common inhabitant of our 
woods, there being forty-four species of indigenous growth between 
the 20th and 48th degrees of, north Jatitude.* The pendulous 
branches of the American elm—the light foliage of the birch—the 
cheerful vernal appearance of some of the species of maple—the de- 
licate leaf-of the locust; and the heavy masses of verdure produced 
by the beech, are ‘sufficient to render them all ornamental in park 
scenery, and they should ever find a proper situation in an extensive 
lawn. Our American poplars should be recollected, when a rapid 
growth and immediate effect is required. Gleditschia triacdnthos, 
-or the sweet locust, is’ interesting from its long masses of thorns. 
The plane or sycamore, (Plétanus occidentalis) i is too much neglect- 
ed because it is so common; but in favorable situations, in deep 


* Michaux, 


376 : TREES. 


soils,.and where ample room is. afforded, it produces a noble tree. of 
immense size. Several have been measured on the banks of the 
Ohio from forty to fifty feet in circumference. . oo 
A native tree, but little known in our ornamental plantations, is - 
the Kentucky coffee (Gymnécladus canadénsis). It is a native of 
Kentucky and Tennessee, grows to the height of forty feet, and its 
doubly compound foliage, and very singular appearance when de- 
foliated in the winter months, are well calculated to render it an 
interesting feature in the landscape. Cupréssus distichum (Taxd- 
dium Rich.), the deciduous cypress, flourishing in vast quantities.in . 
the southern parts of the Union, is, though perfectly hardy, and of . 
easy cultivation, but little known in the northern States.* Its beau- 
tiful light green foliage contrasts elegantly with the denser hue of 
other deciduous trees, and we are hardly aware of an upright grow- 
ing tree, better calculated to give variety of color to groups and 
masses, than this. Catdlpa syringzefdlia is a most striking orna- 
ment to a lawn, when in the summer months it -is loaded with its 
large clusters of parti-colored flowers. 
But the most splendid, most fragrant, ‘and nee calcbratad orna- 
eas -mental production of the woods and forests of our country, is yet to 
be mentioned. It is the unrivalled Magndlia grandiflora: the most 
magnificent of the genus, a beautiful tree of seventy. feet: in its na- 
tive soil, only attains the size of a large shrub in the middle States, 
and will scarcely withstand the winters of the northern. - But M. 
acuminata, though not so beautiful, is a fine large tree; sometimes 
attaining the height of ninety feet. It is abundant in western New- 
York and Ohio. M. macrophylla is not only remarkable for the 
beauty of its flowers, but also for the extraordinary size of its leaves; 
they haying been measured so long as three feet. M. tripétela, the 
umbtella tree, is also a.fine species prowing in districts from Georgia 
to New-York ; its large, cream-colored flowers measuring seven or 
eight inches in diameter. Still more rare, though highly ornamen- 
tal, are M. cordata and M. auriculata; small trees which ought to 
be indispensable to every collection. The species of smallest stature 


* We have, seen a celebrated specimen in Col. Carr’s garden, Philadel- 
phia,’ 180 feet high, 25 feet in cireumference, and 91 years old. 


ORNAMENTAL TREES AND SHRUBS IN NORTH AMERICA. 877 


and most frequent occurrence in the middle States, is M. glatica, the | 
flowers of which are highly odoriferous. It succeeds best in damp 

soils, and is found very plentifully in situations of this kind in New. 
Jersey. 

' Ornamental trees from other countries. should find a prominent 
place in the plantations of our horticulturists. They not only have _ 
an intrinsic value in themselves, but, to a refined taste, they offer 
gratifications from the associations connected with them., Thus the. 
proprietor may view, in the walks over his grounds, not only: pro- 
ductions of his own country, but their fellows from many other 
climes. We may. witness flourishing upon the same soil, many of 
the productions of southern Europe and Asia; individuals from the 
frigid regions of Siberia, and the almost unknown forests of Pata- 
gonia; vegetables which perseverance has abstracted from the jea- 
lous Chinese, and which the botanical traveller has discovered 
among the haunts of the-savage Indian. 

Among the foreign trees which are most generally cultivated 
for ornament in this country, we may mention the two genera of 
Tilia and Asculus. The European lime or linden-tree, with its fine 
stately form and fragrant blossoms, is a most pleasing object as an, 
ornamental tree: The horse chestnut (42. -hippocdstanum) is per- 
haps better known than any foreign tree in the country; its com- 
pact growth, fine digitate leaves, and above all, its superb, showy 
flowers, distributed in huge bouquets over the foliage, have rendered 
it here, as in Europe, an object of universal admiration. We would 
here: beg leave to direct the attention of planters to the less known, 
but no less interesting species of this tree, natives of our own soil. 
A. paira, producing red, and At. flava, yellow flowers, form very 
beautiful trees of moderate size. . The other species are rather large 
shrubs than trees, and are very pretty ornaments to the garden. 

The brilliant appearance of the European mountain ash (Sor- 
~ bus: aucuparia), when in autumn it is dénsely clad with its rich 
crimson fruit, is a circumstance sufficient to give it strong claims to 
the care of the arboriculturist, ee of the beauty of its 
foliage. 

We must not forget, ‘in this brief notice; the larches both of Eu- 
rope and our country. Pinus tarix has long been considered among 


878 TREES, 


the first timber trees of the other continent. The singularity, of its 
foliage, as a deciduous ‘tree, its long declining branches and droop- 
ing spray, are well calculated to give variety to the landscape, and 
we are happy to see, that both this and our two American species, 
P. microcdrpa and P. péndula, are becoming more generally ae 
of attention and cultivation. 

Among the interesting trees of more recent introduction, dua 
which are yet tare in this country, we may mention Salisbiria adi- 
antifolia, the Japanese maiden-hajr tree. The foliage is strikingly 
singular and beautiful, resembling that well known fern, Adiantum 
pedatum, and the tree appears to be véry hardy. The purple 
beech, a variety of Fagus sylvatica, is a very unique object, with its 
strangely colored leaves, and a splendid tree lately introduced from - 
the banks of the Missouri and Arkansas, is the Osage orange (Ma 
clira aurantiaca). Its vivid green leaves and rapid growth are 
already known to us; but it is described to us as being a-tree, in 
its native soil, of thirty or forty feet in height, and bearing abun- 
dance of beautiful fruit, of the size and appearance of an orange. 
The weeping ash is also a, very. unique and desirable object, and its: 
long, seemingly inverted shoots may be introduced. in some situa-__ 
tions with an excellent effect. 

We have often regretted that, in decorating the grounds -of 
country residences, so little attention is paid by the proprietors, to 
hardy evergreen trees, Ornamental at any season, they are eminently 
so in winter—a period, in this latitude, when every other portion of 
vegetable matter yields to the severity of our northern climate, and 
‘when those retaining their coats of verdure uninjured are beautiful 
and cheerful memorials of the unceasing vitality of the vegetable 
world. Deciduous trees at this season present but a bleak and deso- 
late aspect—a few evergreens, therefore, interspersed singly over the 
lawn, or tastefully disposed: in .a few groups, so as to ‘be seen from 

the windows of the mansion, will give.a pleasing liveliness. to the 
scene, which cannot fail to charm every person. We would earn- 
estly-advise every person engaged in ornamental planting, to transfer 
some of our fine native evergreen trees to their lawn, park, or terrace. « 
We are aware that many think that there is great difficulty ‘in trans- 
planting them with success, but experience has taught us that, with 


ORNAMENTAL TREES AND SHRUBS IN NORTH AMERICA. 379 


the following precautions, no more difficulty is found than with deci- 
duous trees. In transplanting, choose the spring of.the year, at the 
time the buds are swelling: cut as few of the roots as possible, and 
do not suffer them to become dry before you replace them in the soil, 
' Among our most ornamental evergreen trees may be mentioned the 
different species of pine, natives of North America. Several of them 
are fine stately trees, and one which is. particularly ornamental as a 
park tree, is the white or Weymouth pine, Pinus strdbus. Pinus 
rigida, when ‘old and large, is a very picturesque tree; and Pinus 
alba, ribra et fraséri, the white, red, and double spruce firs, are trees 


_,. of moderate size, very generally diffused in the middle States, and 


easily obtained. The well known balsam fir, Pinus balsdmea, is such 
a beautiful evergreen, and succeeds so well in this climate, that it 
Should find a place in the smallest plantations. We-have observed 
it thriving well even in confined spaces in cities. Thija occidentilis, 
the arborvitez, is a very interesting tree, and, as well as the exotic 
T. orientalis, will be considered very ornamental in districts where 
it is not common. 

Among the most ornamental foreign coniferous trees we will no- 
tice the Norway spruce, the drooping branches of which, in a large 
specimen, are so highly admired; the well known Scoteh fir, the 
finest timber tree of Europe, celebrated for growing on thin soils; 
and the beautiful silver fir, Pinus. picea; all of them are’ noble 
trees, and as they can be readily procured at the nurseries, should 
be found in the grounds of every country residence. 

Several other species of this genus which are thought the most 
beautiful trees of Europe, unfortunately are yet scarce in this country. 
The stone pine, whose seeds.are a delicious fruit, and whose “ vast 
canopy, supported on a naked column of immense height, forms 
one of: the chief and peculiar beauties in Italian scenery and in the 
living landscapes of Claude,” and the not less interesting Pinus Pi- 
ndster and P. Cémbra of the mountains of Switzerland. But the 
most desirable evergreen tree which flourishes in temperate climates, 
is the classic cedar of Lebanon, Pinus cédrus. Its singular ramose 
branches and wild picturesque appearance in a large specimen, give 
amore majestic and decided character to a fine building and its 
adjacent scenery, than any-other'tree whatever. It is a native of 


380 TREES, 


the coldest parts of Mt. Libanus, but according to Professor Martyn, 
more trees are to be found in England at the present time than on 
its original site. As it is scarcely yet known as an ornamental ‘tree 
in this country, we certainly do not know of an object better worth 
the attention of the arboriculturist. 

_ We observe in foreign periodicals that several magnificent har dy 
individuals belonging to this section of trees, have been lately intro-. 
duced into Europe, and: we, hope before long they will find their 
way to the hands of our cultivators. Among the most remarkable, 
we may mention a splendid new genus of pine (Pinus. Lambertiana) 
lately found in northern California. The discoverer, Mr. D. Doug- 
las, botanical collector to the London Horticultural Society, de- 
scribes it as growing from one hundred and ‘fifty to two hundred 
feet in height, producing-cones sixteen inches in length. He mea- 
sured a specimen two hundred and fifteen feet long and fifty-seven 
in circumference.* Several other specimens of this genus, of much 
grandeur and beauty, are but lately introduced into cultivation, and — 
which our present limits will barely permit us to enumerate. Pinus st 
Douglasii, P. monticola, P. grandis, are immense trees from the 
northwest coast of America; Pinus deodara [Cédrus deoddra, Rox.], 
from Himalaya, P. see, from Asiatic Turkey, and P. Laricio, 
from the mountains of Corsica, are spoken of as being highly orna-- 
mental; Araucaria imbricata, a beautiful evergreen tree of South 
America, and Cupréssus péndula, the weeping cypress ‘of ‘the Chi- | 
nese, are extremely elegant—are found to withstand the climate of 
Britain, and would probably also endure-that of this country. 

We cannot close-these remarks without again adverting to the 
infinite beauty which may be produced by a proper use of this fine 
material of nature. .Many a dreary and barren prospect may be 
rendered interesting—many a natural or artificial deformity hidden, 
and the effect of almost every landscape may be improved, simply by 
the judicious employment of trees. The most fertile countries would” 
appear but a desert without them, and the most picturesque scenery 
in every part of the globe has owed to them its highest charms, ° 
Added to this, by recent improvements in the art of inp 


* Mewar, Linnean Soe., vol. 15, p. 497. 
+ Vide Sir Henry Stuart on Planting. 


ORNAMENTAL TREES AND SHRUBS IN NORTH AMERICA. 381 


the ornamental planter of the présent day may réalize almost imme- 
diately what was formerly the slow and regular production. of 
years. , 

"Additional Note—The beauty of our autumnal foliage is well 
known to the whole world : it has long been the theme of admira- 
tion with the poet and the painter, and, to a foreigner, it appears to 
be one of the most’ superb features of this fresh “ green forest land.” 
Yet, every year, the axe of thé woodsman erases wide masses of the 
rich coloring from the panorama. ‘Will it not be worth the consid- ° 
eration of persons who are now making, or who, in many parts of 
the country, before much time has élapsed, will make extensive plan- 
tations of forest trees for ornament, shelter and profit, to consider 
how splendid an effect may be produced, by a disposition of the 
most brilliantly colored of our indigenous trees in separate groups 
and masses, on the’ parks and lawns of extensive country residences? 
It is true, that autumn’s gay colors remain with us but for a short . 
time, -but is this not also true with respect to the vivid greenness of’ 
vernal foliage, and the still more fugitive beauty of blossom which 
constitutes one of the chief points of attraction in ornamental trees ? 
We feel confident that, when landscape-gardening shall arrive at that 
perfection which it is yet destined to attain in this country, this will 
be a subject of important consideration. The high beauty with which 
the richness of our autumnal tints may invest even the tamest scene, 
we were ‘never more deeply impressed with, than in travelling 
through New Jersey, during the months of September and October 
of the present year. Every one is aware of the tame, monotonous 
appearance of a great portion of the interior of that State; but only 
those who have seen the same landscapes in autumn, can imagine 
with what a magic glow even they are enshrined in that season. 
The following are some of the trees we noticed, as assuming the 
richest hues in their foliage. Scarlet oak (Quércus coccinea) bright 
scarlet, dogwood (Cérnus flérida), and the tupelo and sour gum 
(Nyssa villosa, etc.) deep crimson, different. species of Acer or ma- 
ple, various shades of yellow and deep orange ; the sweet-gum (Li- 
quiddmber) reddish purple, and our American ash, a distinct sombre 
purple. These are but a few of the most striking colors ; and all 


Pa 


382 TREES. 


the intermediate shades were filled up by the birches, sycamores, 
‘elms, chesnuts, and ‘beeches, of which we have so many numerous 
species-in our forests, and the whole was thrown into lively contrast 
by a rich intermingling of the deep green in the thick foliage of the 
pines, spruces, and hemlocks. 7 


AGRICULTURE: 


AGRICULTURE. 


CULTIVATORS,—_THE GREAT INDUSTRIAL CLASS 
OF AMERICA. 


June, 1948. 
T this moment, when, the old world’s monarchical institutions 
are fast falling to pieces, it is interesting to look at home, at 

the prosperous and happy condition of our new-world republic. 


Abroad, the sovereign springs from a privileged class, and holds. 


his position by the force of the army. His state ‘and. government 
are supported by heavy taxes, wrung from the laboring classes, often 
entirely without their consent. At home, the people are the sover- 
eign power. The safety of their government lies in their own intel- 
ligence; and the taxes paid for the maintenance of public order, or 
to create public works, fall with no heavy or unequal pressure, but 
are wisely and justly distributed throughout all classes of society. 

In the United States, the industrial classes are the true sover- 
eigns. Jdleness is a condition so unrecognized and unrespected 
‘ with us, that the few professing “it find themselves immediately 
thrown out of the great machine of active life which constitutes 
American society. Hence, an idle man is a cipher. Work he 
must, either with his head, his hands, or his capital; work in some 
mode or other, or he is a dethroned sovereign. The practical and 
busy spirit of our people repudiates him, and he is of no more abso- 

25 


386 ; ' AGRICULTURE. 
Ite consequence than the poor fugitive king,—denied and driyen: 
out by his subjects. 

The CULTIVATORS oF THE sort. constitute the great sudleaeeal ’ 
class in this country. They. may well be called its “ bone and 
sinew” for, at this moment they do not only feed all other classes, 
but also no insignificant portion of needy Europe, furnish the. raw 
material for manufactures, and’. raise the great staples which figure . 
so largely in the accounts of the merchant, the ship owner and man- 
ufacturer, in every village, town, and sea-port in the Union. } 

The sovereign ‘people has a better right to look over its “rent 
roll”—to examine’ the annual sum total of the products of its indus- 
try, than any other sovereign whatever; and it has accordingly em- 
ployed Mr. Burke; the excellent commissioner of patents, to- collect . 
statistical facts, and publish them in the annual report of his office. 

An examination of the-condition of this country, as exhibited in 
Mr. Burke’s report of its industrial resources, will, we think, afford 
the best proof ever exhibited of the-value of the American Union, 
and the extraordinary wealth of our territory. The total valtie of 
the products of the soil, alone, for the past year, he estimates at 
more than one thousand five hundred millions of dollars.* 

The value of the grain crops and great agricultural staples of the 
eountry, for 1847, amounts to $815,863,688. 

The value of all horticultural products (gardens,’ orchards, and 
nurseries), is estimated at $459,577,538. 

’ The value of the live ‘stock, wool, and dairy products, amounts 
te $246,054,579. 

The value. of the products off ile woods and forests, amounts to 
$59,099,628. ; 

It is also estimated that there were produced last year 224,384,502 
bushels of surplus grains of various kinds, over and above what was 
amply sufficient for home consumption. This is much more. than 
enough to meet the ordinary demand of all the corn-buying coun- 
tries of Europe. 

Over one thousand five hundred : millions of dollars, i in the pro- 
duets of the soil, for a single year! Does not this fully justify us in 


* $1,57 9,595,428, “ 


CULTIVATORS—THE GREAT INDUSTRIAL CLASS. ° 887 


holding up the cultivators of ‘the American soil as the great. indus- 
trial class? But let us compare them a little, by Mr. Burke’s aid, 
with the other industrial classes, 

The annual product of all the manufactures in the Union, for 
1847, is estimated at $500,000,000. The profits.of trade and com- 
merce at $23,458,345. The profits of. fisheries $17,069,262 ; and 
of banks, money institutions, rents, and professions, $145,000,000. 
Total, $809,697,407. 

Here we have the facts, or something, at least, like an approxi- 

. mation to the facts, of the results of the yearly industrial labor of 
the republic. The average amount is the enormous sum of over two 
thousand three hundred and eighty-nine millions of dollars. 

Of this, the agricultural class produces nearly double that of all 
other classes, or over one thousand five hundred and seventy-nine 
millions; while all other classes, merchants, manufacturers, profes- 
sional men, ete., produce but little more than eight hundred and 
nine millions. 

There are a few, among the great traders and “merchant 

princes,” who do-not sufficiently estimate the dignity or importance 
of any class but their own. To them we commend a study of Mr. 
Burke’s statistical tables. There are some few farmers who think 
their occupation one of narrow compass and resources; we beg them 
to look over the aggregate annual products of their‘ country, and 
take shame to themselves. 

elt is-‘no less our duty to call the attention of our own readers to 
the great importance of the’ horticultural interest of the country. 
“Why, its products ($459,000,000) are more than half as great in 
value as those strictly agricultural; they are almost as large as the 
whole manufacturing products of the country; and half as large as 
the manufacturing and all other interests, excepting the agricultural, 
combined. 

In truth, the profits of the gardens and orchards of the country, 
are destined to be enormous. Mr. Burke’s estimate appears to us 
very moderate; and from the unparalleled increase in this interest 
very recently, and the peculiar adaptation of our soil and climate to 
the finest fruits and vegetables, the next ten years must exhibit an 
amount of horticultural products which wil] almost challenge belief. 


388 AGRICULTURE. 


The markets of this country will not only be supplied with fruit in 
great abundance and excellence, but thousands of orchards. will be | 
cultivated solely for foreign consumption. > 

‘The system of railroads and cheap transportation ee = 
to. supply the seaboard cities with some of the fair and beautiful 
fruits of the fertile west. When the orchards of Massachusetts fail, 
the orchards of western New-York will, supply the Boston market 
with apples; and thus, wherever the finest transportable products 
of the soil are in demand, there they will find their way. 

There are, however, many of the finer and more perishable: pro- 
ducts of the garden and orchard which will not bear a long journey. 
"These, it should'be the peculiar business of the cultivator of the older 
and less fertile soil in the seaboard States to grow. He may not, 
as an agriculturist, be able to compete with the fertile soils of the 
west ;, but he may still, do so as a horticulturist, by devoting his at- 
tention and. his land to orchards and gardens. If it is too difficult 
and expensive to renovate an old soil that is worn.out, or bring up 
a new one naturally poor, for farm crops, in the teeth of western 
grain’ prices, he may well afford to do so for the larger profit derived 
from orchard and garden culture, where- those products are raised 
for which a market must be found without long transportation. He 
who will do.this most successfully must not waste his time, labor, 
and capital, by working in the dark, He must learn gardening and ' 
orcharding as a practical art, and a science. He must collect the 
lost elements of the soil from the animal and mineral kingdoms, and 
bring them back again to their starting point. He must seek out 
the food of plants in.towns and villages, where it is wasted and 
thrown away. He must plant and prune so as to aid and -direct’ 
nature, that neither.time nor space are idly squandered. _ 

Certainly, we have just pride and pleasure in looking ‘upon the 
great agricultural class of America, Landholders and proprietors 
of the soil, as they are, governing themselves, and developing the 
resources of a great nation—how different is their position from that 
of the farmers of England, —hundreds of thousands'of-men, work- 
ing, generation after.generation, upon lands leased by a small privi- 
leged ‘body, which alone owns and entails the soil; or.even from 
that. of France, where there are millions of proprietors, but proprie- 


CULTIVATORS—-THE GREAT INDUSTRIAL CLASS. 889 


tors of a soil so subdivided that the majority have half a dozen acres, 
or perhaps, evén a half or fourth of an acre in éxtent,—often scarcely 
sufficient to raise a supply of a single crop for a small family. 

If we have said any thing calculited to inspire self-respect in the 
agricultural class of this country, it is not with a view to lessen that 
for any other of its industrial classes. Far from it. Indeed, with the 
versatility of power and pursuits which characterize our people, no 
class can be said to be fixed. The farming class is the great nursery 
of all the professions, and the industrial arts of the country. From. 
its bosom go out the shrewdest lawyers' and the most successful 
merchants of the towns; and back to the country return these 
classes again, however successful, to be regenerated in the primitive 
life and occupation of the race. 

But the agricultural class perhaps is still wantirig in a just ap- 
preciation of its importance, its rights, and its duties. It has so long 
listened’to sermons, lectures and orations, from those who live in 
cities and look upon country life as “something for dull wits,” that 
it still needs apostles who draw their daily breath in green fields, 
and are untrammelled ‘by the schools of politics and trade. 

The agricultural journals, over the whole country, have’ done 
much to raise the dignity of the calling. They have much still to 
do, The importance of agricultural schools, of a high grade, should 
be continually insisted upon, until every State Legislature in the 
Union comes forward-with liberal endowments; and if ‘pledges 
ought ever to be demanded of politicians, then farmers should not 
be slow to require them of their representatives, for legislation favor- 
able to every sound means of increasing the intelligence of this 
great bulwark of the country’s safety and prosperity—the cultivators 
of the soil. 


IL. 


THE NATIONAL IGNORANCE OF THE AGRICULTURAL 
‘INTEREST. 


September, 1851. 


0 seeeel observers, the ' prosperity of the United States in the- 
"great interests of trade, commerce, manufactures, and agricul- 

thre, is a matter of every-day remark and. general assent. The 
country extends itself from one zone to another, and from one . 
océan‘ to another. New States are settled, our own population in- 
creases, emigration pours its vast tide upon our shores, new soils, 
give abundant harvests, new settlements create a demand for the 
necessaries and luxuries of life provided by. the older cities, and the 
nation exhibits at every census, so unparalleled a growth, and such 
magnificent resources, that common sense is:startled, and only the 
‘jmagination’ can keep pace: with the probable destinies of the one 
hundred millions of Americans that will speak one language, and, 
we trust, be governed by one constitution, half a century hence. 

As a wise man, who finds his family increasing after the manner 
‘of the ancient patriarchs, looks about him somewhat anxiously; to 
find out if there is likely to be bread enough for their subsistence, 
so a wise statesman, looking at this extraordinary growth of popula- 
tion, and. this prospective wealth of the country, will inquire, nar- 
rowly, into its productive powers. He will desire to know ‘whether 
the national domain is so managed that it will be likely.to support ' 
the great people that will be ready to live upon it in the next century. - 
He will seek to look into the present and the futuré sufficiently: to 
ascertain whether our sapid growth and material abundance do not 


NATIONAL IGNORANCE OF THE AGRICULTURAL INTEREST. 391 


arise almost as much from the migratory habits of our people, and 
the constant taking-up of rich prairies, yielding their virgin harvests 
of breadstuffs, as from the institutions peculiar to our favored 
country. : 
-We regret to say, that it does not require much scrutiny on the 
part of a serious inquirer, to discover that we are in some respects 
ike a large and increasing family, running over ‘and devouring a 
great estate to which they have-fallen heirs, with little or no care to 
preserve or maintain it, rather than a wise and prudent one, seeking 
to maintain that estate in its best and most productive condition. 

.. To be sure, our trade and commerce are pursued with a thrift 
' and sagacity likely to add largely to our substantial wealth, and to 
develope the collateral resources of the country. But, after all, trade 
and commerce are not the great interests of the country. That in- 
terest is, as every one admits, agrigulture. By the latter, the great 
bulk of the people live,.and by it all are fed. It is clear,-therefore, 
if that interest is neglected or misunderstood, the population of the 
couuitry may steadily increase, but. the means of supporting that 
population (which can never be largely a manufacturing population) 
maust necessarily lessen, proportionately, every year. 

Now, there are two undeniable facts at present, staring us Amer- 
icans in the face—amid all-this prosperity : the first is, that the pro- 
ductive power of nearly all the land in the United States, which haa 
been ten years in cultivation, is fearfully lessening every season, from 
therdesolating effects of a ruinous system of husbandry; and the 
second is, that in consequence of this, the. rural population of the 
older States is either at a stand-still, or it is falling off, or it increasea 
very slowly in proportion to the population of those cities and towns 
largely engaged in commercial pursuits. 

Qur census returns show, for instance, that in some of the States 
(such as Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, and Maryland), the 
only increase of population is in the towns—tor in the rural popu- 
lation there is no growth at all. In the great. agricultural State of 
New-York, the gain in. the fourteen largest towns is sixty-four per 
cent., while in the rest of the State it is but nineteen per cent. In 
Pennsylvania, thirty-nine and a quarter per cent. in the large towns, 
and but twenty-one per cent. in the rural diséricts. .The politicians in 


392 AGRICULTURE. 


this State, finding themselves’ losing a representative in the new 
ratio, while Pennsylvania gains two, have, in alarm, actually deigned: 
to inquire into the growth of the agricultural class, with some little 
attention. They haye not generally arrived at the truth, however, 
which is, that Pennsylvania is, as a State, much better farmed than 
New-York, and hence, the agricultural population increases much 
faster. 

It is a painful truth, that both the press and the more active 
minds of the country at large are strikingly ignorant of the condition 
of agriculture in all the older States, and one no less painful, that the 
farmers, who are not ignorant of it, are, as a bouyy not intelligent 

_enough to know how to remedy the evil. : 

“ And what is that evil?” many of our readers will doubtless 
inquire. We answer, the miserable system of farming steadily:pur- 
sued by eight-tenths of all the faymers of this country, since its first 
settlement; a system which proceeds upon the principle of taking 
as many crops from the land with as little manure as possikle— 
until its productive powers are exhausted,-and then —— emigrating 
to some part of the country where they can apply the same practice 
to a new soil. It requires far less knowledge and ¢apital to wear 
out one good ‘soil and abandon it for another, than to cultivate a 
good soil so as to maintain its productive powers from year to year, 
unimpaired, Accordingly, the emigration is always “to THE WEsT.” 
There, is ever the Arcadia of the American farmer; there are’ the 
acres which need but to be broken up by the plouels, to yield their 
thirty or forty bushels of wheat to the acre. Hence, the ever full 
tide of farmers or farmers’ sons, always sets westward, and: the lands 
at home are left in a comparatively exhausted and barren state, and 

hence, too, the slow progress of farming as an honest art, where 
-every body.practises it like a highway robber. 

There are, doubtless, many superficial thinkers, who consider 
these. western soils exhaustless—* prairies where crop after crop can 
be taken, by generation after generation.” There’ was never a 
greater fallacy. There are acres and acres of land in the counties 
bordering: the Hudson—such counties as Dutchess and Albany— 
from which the early settlers reaped their thirty to forty ‘bushels of 
wheat to the acre, as easily as their great-grandchildren do now in 


NATIONAL IGNORANCE OF THE AGRICULTURAL INTEREST. 393 


‘the most fertile fields of the valley of the Mississippi. Yet these 
very acres now yield only twelve or fourteen bushels each, and the 
average yield of the county of Dutchess—one of the most fertile 
and best managed on the Hudson, is at the present moment only 
six bushels’ of wheat to the acre! One of our cleverest agricultural 
writers has made the estimate, that of the twelve millions of acres 
of cultivated land in the State of New-York, eight millions are in 
the hands of the “skinners,” who take away every thing from the 
‘soil, and put nothing back; three millions in the hand -of farmers 
who manage them so as to make the lands barely-hold their own, 
while one million of acres are well farmed, so as to maintain a high 
and productive state of fertility. And as New-York is confessedly 
one of the-most substantial of all the older States, in point of agri- 
culture, this estimate is too flattering to be applied to the older 
States. Even Ohio—newly settled as she is, begins to fall off per 
acre, in her annual wheat crop, and before fifty years will, if the 
present system continues, be considered a worn out soil. 

The evil at the bottom of all this false system of husbandry, is 
no mystery. _ A rich soil, contains only a given quantity of vegeta- 
ble and mineral food for plants. Every crop grown upon a fertile 
- soil, takes from it a certain amount of these substances, so essential 
to the growth of another crop.’ If these’ crops, like most of our 
grain crops, are sent away and consumed in other counties, or other 
-parts of the counties—as in the great cities, and none of their essen- 
tial elements in the way of vegetable matter, lime, potash, etc., 
restored to the soil, it follows as a matter of course, that eventually 
the soil must become barren or miserably unprofitable. And such 
is, unfortunately, the fact. Instead of maintaining as many animals 
as possible upon the farm, and carefully restoring to the soil in the 
shape of animal and mineral manure, all those elements needful. to 
the.growth of future vegetables, our farmers send nearly all their 
‘crops for sale in cities—and allow all the valuable animal and 
mineral products of these crops to go to waste in those cities.* 

“ Oh! but,” the farmer upon worn out land will say,“ we cannot 


* In Belgium—the most productive country in the world,—the urinary 
excrements of each cow are sold for $10 a year, and are regularly applied 
to the land, and poudrette is valued as gold itself. 


394 AGRICULTURE. 


afford to pay for all the labor necessary for the high farming you ad: 
vocate.” Are you quite suré of that assertion? We suspect if you 

were to enter carefully into the calculation, as your neighbor, the 
merchant, enters into the calculation of his profit and loss in ‘his’ 
system of trade, you would find that the difference in value betweéen 

one crop of 12 bushels and another of 30 bushels of wheat to the 

acre, would leave a handsome profit to that farmer who would pursue. 
with method and energy, the practice of never taking an atom of 

food for plants from the soil in the shape of a crop, without, in some 

natural way, replacing it again. For, it must be remembered, that 
needful as the soil is, every plant gathers a large part of its food 

from the air, and the excrement of animals fed upon crops, will 

restore to the soil all the needful elements taken: from it by those 

crops. 

The principle has been demonstrated over and over again, but 
the difficulty is to get the farmers to believe it. Because they can 
get crops, such as they are, from a given soil, year after year, with- 5 
out manure, they think it-is only necessaty for them to plant—Pro- 
vidence will take care of the harvest. But it is in the pursuit of 
this very system, that vast plains of the old world, once as fertile 
as Michigan. or Ohio, have become desert wastes, and it is perfectly 
certain, that when we reach the goal of a hundred millions of peo- 
ple, we shall reath a famine soon afterwards, if some new and more 
enlightened system of agriculture than our national.“ skinning ” sys- 
tem, does not beforehand spring up and extend itself over the 
country. . 

And such a “system can only be extensively disseminated and 
put in practice by ‘raising the ¢ntelligence of farmers generally. We | 
have, in common with the Agricultural Journals, again and again 
pointed out that this is mainly to be hoped for through a practical 
agricultural education. And yet the legislatures of our great agri- 
cultural States vote down, year after year, every bill reported by the 
friends of agriculture to establish schools. Not one such school, 
efficient and useful as it might be, if started with sufficient aid from 
the State, exists in a uation of more than twenty millions of farmers, 
“ What matters it,” say the wise men of our State legislatures, “ if 
the lands of the Atlantic States are worn out by bad farming? Is not 


NATIONAL. IGNORANCE OF THE AGRICULTURAL INTEREST. 395 


the crear west the granary of the world?” And so they build 
canals and railroads, and bring from the west millions of bushels of 
grain, and send not one fertilizing atom back to restore the land. 
And in this way we shall by-and-by make ‘the fertile prairies as 
barren as some-of the worn out farms of Virginia. ‘And thus “ the 
sins of the fathers are visited upon. the- children, even to the fourth — 
generation !” 


Ii. 
THE HOME EDUCATION OF THE RURAL DISTRICTS. 


' January, 1852. 
Wu the great shies of Agricultural Schools is continually 
urged upon’ our legislatures, and, as yet, continually put off ’ 
with fair words, let us see if there’ is not room for great improvement 
in another way—for the accoinplishment of which the farming com- 
munity need ask no assistance. ' 

Our thoughts are timed to the subject of home education. It 
is, perhaps, the peculiar misfortune of the United States, that the 
idea of “education is always affixed to something away from home. 
The boarding-school, the academy, the college—it is there alone we 
suppose it possible to educate the young man or the young woman. 
Home is only a place to eat, drink, and sleep. The parents, for the most: 
part, gladly shuffle off the whole duties and responsibilities of training 
the heart, and the social nature of their children—believing thatedf 
‘the intellect is properly developed in the schools, the whole man is 
educated. Hence the miserably one-sided and incomplete character 
of so many even of our most able and talented men—their heads 
have been edicated, but their social nature almost utterly neglected, 
Awkward manners and a rude address, are not the only evidences - 
that many a clever lawyer, professional man, or merchant, offers to 
us continually, that his education -has been whélly picked up away. 
from home, or that home was never raised to a level calculated to 
give instruction. A want of taste for all the more genial and kindly” 
topics of conversation, and a want of relish for refined and innocent 
social pldasures, mark such % man as an ill-balanced or one-sided 
man in his inner growth and culture. Such a man is often success- 


THE HOME EDUCATION OF THE RURAL DISTRICTS. 397 - 


‘ful at the bar or in trade, but be is uneasy and out of his element in 
the social circle, because he misunderstands it and despises it. His 
only idea of society is display, and he loses more than three-fourths 
of the delights of life by never having been educated to use 
his best social qualities—the qualities which teach a man how to love 
his neighbor as himself, and to throw the sunshine of a cultivated 
understanding and heart upon the litile trifling events and énjoy- 
ments of everyday life. 

If this is true of what may be called the wealthier classes of the 
community, it is, we are sorry to say, still more true of the agricul- 
tural class. The agricultural class is continually complimented by 
the -press and public debaters,—nay, it even compliments itself 
with being the “ bone and sinew of the country "—the “ substantial \ 
yeomanry ”—the followers of the most natural and “noblest occupa- 
tion,” &c. &e. But the truth is, that in a country like this, know- 
ledge is not only power; it is also influence and position ; and the 
farmers, as a class, are the least educated, and therefore the least 
‘powerful, the least influential, the least respected class in the com- 
munity. , 

This state of things is all wrong, and we deplore it——but the way 
‘to mend it is not: by feeding farmers with compliments, but with 
plain truths. As a natural consequence of belonging to the least 
powerful and least influential class, the sons and daughters of far- 
mers—we mean the smartest sons and daughters—those who might 
raise up and elevate the condition of the whole class, if they would 
recognize the dignity and value of their calling, and put their talents 
into it—are no sooner able fo look around and choose for themselves, 
than they bid good bye to farming. It is too slow for the hase 
and not genteel ‘ enough for the girls. 

All the education of the schools they go-to, has nothing to do 
with making a farmer of a talented boy, or a farmer’s wife of a bright 
and clever girl—but a great deal to do with unmaking them, by 
pointing out the guperior advantages of mer chandise, and the 
“ honorable” professions. At home, it is the same thing. The 
farmer’s son and daughter find less of the agreeable and attractive, 
and more of the hard and sordid at their fireside, than in the houses 
of any other class of equal means. This helps to decide: them to 


398 AGRICULTURE. 


leave “ dull care” to dull spirits, and choose some field of life which 
has more attractions, as well as more risks, than their own. 

We have stated all this frankly, because we believe it. to be a 
false and bad state of things which cannot last. The farming. class 
of America is not a rich. class—but neither is it a poor one— 
while it is an independent class. ‘It may and should wield the 
largest influence in the state, and it might and should. enjoy the 
most happiness—the happiness belonging to intelligent minds, peace- , 
ful homes, a natural and independent position, and high social. and 
moral virtues. We have said much, already, of the special. schools 
which the farmer should have to teach him agriculture as a practi- 
cal art, so that he might make it compare in profit, and in the daily 

, application of knowledge which it demands, with any other pursuit. 
But we have said little or nothing of the farmer’s home education 
and social influences—though these palape ue at the very root of 
the whole matter. 

We are not ignorant of the powerial infin of woman, in any 
question touching the improvement of our social.and home éluca- 

‘tion. In fact, it is she who holds all the power in this sphere’; it is 
she, who really, but silently, directs, controls, leads and governs the 
‘whole social machine—whether among farmers or others, in this 

t country. To the wonien of the rural districts—the more intelligent 
and sensible of the farmers’ wives and daughters, we appeal then, for 
a better understanding and a more correct appreciation of their tre 
position. If they will but study t to raise the character of the farmer's 
social life, the whole maitter is accomplished: But this must be done 
truthfully and earnestly, and with a profound faith in the true, no- 
bility and dignity of the farmer's calling. . It must not be done by 
taking for social growth the finery and gloss of mere city customs 
and observances. It is an improvement that can never come from 
the atmosphere of boarding-schools and colleges as they are now 
constituted, for boarding-schools and colleges pity: the farmer's igno- 
rance, and despise him for it. I¢ must, on the gontrary, come from 
an intelligent conviction of the honesty and dignity of rural life; a 

- conviction that as agriculture embraces the sphere of God’s most 
natural and beautiful operations, it is the best calculated, when rightly 
understood, to levate and engage man’s, faculties ; that, as it. feeds 


THE HOME EDUCATION OF THE RURAL DISTRICTS. 399 


and sustains the ntion, it is the basis of all material wealth ; and as 
it supports all other professions and callings, it is intrinsically the 
parent and superior of them all. Let the American farmer’s wife 
never cease to teach her ‘sons, that though other callings may be 
more lucrative, yet there is none so true and so safe as that of the 
farmer,—let her teach her daughters that, fascinating and brilliant as 
many other positions appear outwardly, there is none with so mucl? 
intrinsic’ satisfaction as the life of a really intelligent proprietor of 
the soil, and above all, let her show by the spirit of intelligence, order, 
neatness, taste, and that beauty of propriety, which is the highest 
beauty in her home, that she really knows, understands, and enjoys 
her position as a wife and mother of a farmer’s family—let us have 
but a few earnest apostles of this kind, and the condition and pros- 
petity of the agricultural class, intellectually and socially, will 
brighten, as the day brightens after the first few bars of golden light 
tinge the eastern horizon. 

Weare glad to see and record such signs of daybreak—in the 
shape of a recognition of the low social state which we deplore, and 
a ery-for reform—which now and then make themselves heard, 
here and there in the ecountry.. Major Patrick—a gentleman aioe 
we -have not the pleasure of knowing, though we most cordially 
shake hands with him mentally, has delivered an address before the 
Jefferson County Agricultural Society in the State of New-York, in 
which he has ‘touched with no ordinary skill upon this very topic. 
The two pictures which follow are as faithful as those of a Dutch 
master, and we’ hang them up here, conspicuously, in our columns, 
as being more worthy of study by our farmers’ families, than any 
pictures that the Art-Union will distribute this year, among all those 
that will be scattered from Maine to Missouri. 

“ An industrious pair, some twenty or thirty years ago, commericed 
the world with strong hands, stout hearts,.robust health, and steady 
habits.. By the blessing of Heaven their industry has been rewarded 
with plenty, and their labors have been crowned with success. . The 
dense-forest has given place to stately orchards of fruits, and fertile 
fields, and waving meadows, and verdant pastures, covered with eviden- 
cesof worldly prosperity. The log cabin is gone, and in its stead a fair 


400 AGRICULTURE. 


ahs house, two stories, and a wing with kitchen inghe saat flanked by 
barns, and cribs, and granaries, and dairy houses. | . 

“But take a nearer view. Ha! what means this waiahity crop of ; 
unmown thistles bordering the road ?: For what, market is that still 
mightier crop of pipweed, dock and nettles destined, that fills up the 
space they call the ‘garden ?? And look at those wide, unsightly 

thickets ofelm, and sumac, and briers, and choke-cherry, that mark the 
fines of every fence! : 

“ Approach the house, built in the road to be convenient, and save 
land! Two stories and a wing, | and every blind shut close as a miser’s 
fist, without a tree, or. shrub, or flower to break the air of barrenness 
and desolation around it.. There it stands, w white, glaring and ghastly 
as a pyramid of bones in the desert. Mount the unfrequented door stone, . 
grown over with vile weeds, and knock till, your knuckles are sore. It 
-is a beautiful moonlight October evening ; and .as you stand upon that~. 
stone, a ringing laugh comes from the rear, and satisfies you that some- 
body lives there. Pass now around to the rear: but hold your nose 
when you come within range of the piggery, and have a care that you 
don’t get swamped in .the neighborhood of the sink-spout. Enter the 
kitchen. Ha! here they are all alive, and here they dive all together. 
The kitchen is the kitchen, the dining-rdom, the sitting-room, the room 
of.all work. , Here father sits with his hat on and in his ‘shirt-sleeves. 
Around him are his boys and his hired men, some with hats and some 
with coats, and some with neither. The boys are busy shelling corn for 
samp; the hired.men are scraping whip-stocks and whittling bow-pins, : 
throwing every now and then a sheep’s eye and a jest at the girls, who, 
with their mother, are doing-wp the house-work. The younger fry are. 
building ‘eob- -houses, parching corn, and burning their fingers. Nota 
book is to be seen, though the winter, school has commenced, and the 
master is going to board there. Privacy is a word of unknown meaning 
in’ that family; and if a son or daughter should borrow a book, it 
would be almost impossible to.read it in that room, and on no occasion 

_ is the front house opened, except when ‘company come to spend the 
afternoon,’ or when things are brushed and dusted, and ‘ set to rights.’ 

“Yet these are as honest, as worthy, and kind- hearted people as you 
will find anywhere, and are studying out some way of getting their 
younger children into a better position than they themselves occupy. 
They are in easy circumstances, owe nothing, and have money loaned 
on bond and mortgage. After much consultation, a son is placed at 
school that he may be fitted to go into a store, or possibly an office, to 
study a profession ; and a daughter is sent away to learn books, and 


THE HOME EDUCATION OF THE RURAL DISTRICTS. 401 © 


manners, and gentility. On this son or daughter, or both, the hard 
earnings of years are lavished; and they are reared up in the belief that 
whatever smacks of the country is vylgar—that the farmer is neces- 
sarily ill-bred and his calling ignoble. 

“Now, will any one say that this picture is overdrawn? I think 
not. But let us see if there is not a ready way to change the whole ex- 
pression and character of the picture, almost without cost or trouble. I 
would point out an easier, happier, and more economical way of educat- 
ing those children, far more thoroughly, while at. the same time the 
minds of the parents are expanded, and they are prepared to enjoy, in 
the society of their educated children, the fruits of their own early i in- 
dustry. 

“ And first, let the front part of that house be thrown open, and the 
most convenient, agreeable, and pleasant room in it, be sélected as the 
family room. Let its doors be ever open, and when the work of the 
kitchen is completed, let mothers and daughters be found there, with 
their appropriate work, Let it be the room where the family altar is 
erected, on-which the father offers the morning and the evening sacrifice. 
Let it be consecrated to Neatness, and Purity, and Truth. Let no hat 
ever be seen in that room on the head of its owner [unless he be a 
Quaker friend]; let no coatless individual be permitted to enter it. If 
father’s head is bald (and some there are in that predicament), his 
daughter will be proud to see his temples covered by the neat and grace- 
fal silken cap that her own hands have fashioned for him. If the coat 
he wears ‘by day is too heavy for the evening, calicoes are cheap, and.so 
is cotton wadding. .A few shillings placed in that daughter’s hand, in- 
sures him the most comfortable wrapper in the world; and if his boots | 
are hard, and the nails cut mother’s carpet, a bushel of wheat once in 
three years, will keep him in slippers of the easiest kind. Let the table, 
which has always stood under the looking-glass, against the wall, be 
wheeled into the room, and plenty of useful (not ornamental) books and 
periodicals be laid upon it. When evening comes, bring on the lights— 
and plenty of them-—for sons and daughters—all who can—will be most 
willing students. They will read; they will learn, they will discuss the 
subjects of their studies with each other; and parents will often be quite 
as much instructed as their children. The well conducted agricultural 
journals of our day throw a flood of light upon the science and practice 
of agriculture ; while such a work as Downing’s Landscape Gardening 
[or the Horticulturist], laid one year upon that centre-table, will show 
its effects to every passer-by, for with books and studies like these, a 
purer taste is born, and grows more vigorously. 

26 


402 AGRICULTURE. 


“Pass along that road after five years working of this. system in the. 
family, and what a change! The thistles by the roadside enriched the 
manure heap for a year or two, and then they died. These beautiful 
maples and those graceful elms, that beautify the grounds around that 
renovated home, were grubbed from the wide hedge-rows of five years 
ago; and so were those prolific rows of blackberries and raspberries, and 
bush cranberries that show so richly in that neat garden, yielding 
abundance of small fruit in their season. The unsightly out-houses are 
screened from observation by dense masses of foliage; and the many 
climbing plants that now hang in graceful festoons from tree, and porgh, 
and column, once clambered along that same hedge-row. From the 
meadow, from the wood, and fromthe gurgling stream, many a native 
wild flower has been transplanted to a genial soil, beneath.the home- 
stead’s sheltering wing, and yields a daily offering to the household. gods, 
by the hands of those fair priestesses who haye now ‘become their minis- 
ters.. By the planting of a few trees, and shrubs, and flowers, and 
climbing plants, around that once bare and uninviting house, it has be: 
come a tasteful residence, and its money value is more than doubled. A 
cultivated taste displays itself in 4 thousand forms, and at every tdéuch 
of its hand gives beauty and value to property. A judicious taste, so 
far from plunging its possessor into expense, makes money for him. The: 
land on which that hedge-row grew five years ago, for instance, has . 
produced enough since to doubly pay the expense of grubbing it, and: 
of transferring its fruit briers to the garden, where they have not only 
supplied the family with berries in their season, but have yielded many’ 
a surplus quart, to purchase that long row of red and yellow ‘Antwerps, 
and English gooseberries; to say nothing of the scions bought with. 
their money, to form new heads for the trees in the old orchard. 

“These sons and daughters sigh no more for city life, but love with 
intense affection every foot of ground they tread upon, every tree; and 
every vine, and every shrub their hands have planted, or their taste has 
trained, But stronger still. do their affections cling to that t family room, 
where their minds first began to be developed, and to, that centre-table 
around which they still gather with the shades of evening, to drink in 

; knowledge, and wisdom, and understanding. 

“The stout farmer, who once looked upon his acres only as a labo- 
ratory for transmuting labor into gold, now takes @ widely different 
view of his possessions. His eyes are opened to the beautiful in nature, 
and he looks with-reverence upon every giant remnant of the forest, that . 
‘by. good luck escaped his murderous axe in former days. No leafy mon- 
arch is now laid low without a stern necessity demands it; but many @ 


THE HOME EDUCATION OF THE RURAL DisTRicts. 408 


vigorous tree is planted ir the hope that the children of his children may 
gather beneath the spreading branches, and talk with pious gratitude of 
him who planted them. No longer feeling the need of taxing his phy- 
sical powers to the utmost, his eye takes the place of his hand, when 
latter grows weary, and mind directs the operations of labor. See him 
stand and ‘look with delighted admiration at his sons, his educated sons, 
as they take hold of every kind of work, and roll it off with easy mo- 
tion, but with the power of mind in every stroke. 

“ But it is the proud mother who takes the solid comfort, and won- 
ders that it is so easy after all, when one knows how, to live at ease, 
énjoy the society of happy daughters and contented sons, to whom the 
city folks make most respectful bows, and treat with special deference, 
as truly well-bred ladies and gentlemen. ‘ 

“Now, this is no more a fancy picture than the other. It is a pro- 
cess that I have watched in many families, and in different States. The 
results are everywhere alike, because they are natural. The same 

‘ causes will always:produce the same effects, varying circumstances only 
modifying the intensity.” 


IV.- 


HOW TO ENRICH THE SOIL. 


Mec November, 1849, 

OOD. cultivation depends on nothing so much as the supply of: 

A an abundance of food. ‘And yet there are hundreds and thou- 
sands of cultivators who do not recognize this fact in their practige.. 
They feed their horses and cows regularly, because it is undeniable 
that they have mouths and stomachs ; and experience ‘has: demon-\ 

strated, that not to keep. these sufficiently supplied amounts at last. 
' to starvation, But, because a plant has a thousand little concealed 
mouths, instead of one wide, gaping one,—because it finds enough 
even in poor soils to keep it from actually starving to death, igno- 
rant cultivators appear to consider that they deserve well of their 
trees and plants, if they barely keep their roots covered with earth. 
‘They make plantations in thin soil, or upon lands exhausted of all 
inorganic food by numberless croppings, and'then wonder why they 
succeed so poorly in obtaining heavy products. 

Too much, therefore, can never be written about manures. After 
all that has been said about them, they are yet but little under- 
stood ; and there is not one person in ten thousand, among all those 
owning gardens in this country, who does not annually throw away, 
or neglect to make use of, some of the most valuable manures for 
trees and /plants;—manures constantly within his reach, and yet 
entirely neglected. 

‘We must therefore throw out a few seasonable hints, on the 
preparation and use of manures, which we hope may aid such of 


y 


HOW TO ENRICH THE SOIL. 405 


our readers as are anxious to feed their trees and plants in such a 
generous manner as to deserve a grateful return. - . 

Among the first and’ best of wasted manures, constantly before 
our eyes in the autumn, are the falling leaves of all deciduous trees. 
- When we remember that these leaves’ contain’ not only adi the sub- 
stances necessary to the growth of the plants from which they fall; 
but those substances in the proportions actually needed for new 
growth, it is surprising that we can ever allow a barrowful to be lost. 
The whole riddle of the wonderful growth of giant forests, on land 
not naturally rich, and to which nature scarce allows a particle of 
‘what is commonly called manure, lies hidden in the deep beds of 
fallen leaves which accumulate over the roots, and, by their gradual 
decay, furnish a plentiful supply of the most suitable food for the 
trees above them. Gather and take away from the trees in a wood. 
this annual coat of leaves, and in a few seasons (unléss manure is 
artificially given), the wood will begin to decline and go to decay. 
Hence, we must beseech all our good orchardists and fruit-growers 
not to forget that dead leaves are worth lookingafter. They should 
‘be held fast in some way, either by burying them about the roots 
of the trees from which they fall, or by gathering them into the 
‘compost heap, to be applied when duly decomposed in the spring. 

_And this leads us to say that an excellent, and perhaps the best 
mode of using leaves for the orchard, fruit-garden, or any planta- 
tations of trees or shrubs, is the following: Take fresh lime and 
slake it with brine (or water saturated with salt), ; till it falls to a 
powder. This powder i is not common lime, but muriate of lime. 
Gather, the leaves and lay them up in heaps, sprinkling over - every 
layer with this new compound of lime, at the rate of about four 
bushels to a cord of leaves. This will be ready for use in about a 
month if the weather is mild, or it may lie all winter, to be used in 
the spring ; but in either case, the heap should be turned over once 
or twice. The lime decomposes the leaves thoroughly; and the 

- manure thus formed is one of the most perfect composts known for 
trees of all kinds. We need not add: that its value to any given 
kind of tree, as, for example, the pear, the apple, or the oak, is in- 
creased by using the ‘Jeaves of that tree only ; though a mass of 
mixed leaves gives a compost of great value for trees and shrubs 


P », 23 
406 AGRICULTURE. 


generally, The practice in the best vineyards, of burying the leaves 
of each vine at its root, every autumn, is not only one of the most 
successful modes of manuring that plant,, but one founded in the 
latest discoveries in science. 

The most economical mode of making manure, in most parts of 
the country, is that of using muck or peat from swamps. Though 
worth little or nothing i in its crude state, it contains large quantities 
of the best food for trees and plants. No ‘cultivator, who has it at com- 
mand, should complain of the difficulty of getting manure, since he can 
so easily turn it into a compost, ‘equal i in bulk to farm-yard manure. 

The cheapest mode of doing® this, is, undoubtedly; to place it in 
the stalls underneath the cattle for a few days, and then lay it up 
with the barn-yard manure, in the proportion of one part muck to 
six or eight parts manure. The whole will then ferment, arid be® 
come equal i in value to the ordinary product of the bar n-yard. But. 
a much more practicable: mode for horticulturists—who are not all 
farmers with cattle yards—is that of reducing it by means of ashes, 
or lime slaked with brine. . 

As we have already pointed out how to use ashes, and as we 
think, after what we havé observed the past season, the latter mode 
gives a compost still more valuable for many trees than ashes and 
muck, we recommend it to the trial of all those forming’ composts 
for their orchards and gardens. The better mode i is to throw ‘out 
the péat from the s swamps now, or in winter, expose it’ td-the action 
of the frost, and, early in the spring, to mix it with the brine-slaked 
lime, at the rate of four bushels to the cord. It should be allowed 
to lie about six weeks. , The good effects of this compost, when ap- 
plied as a manure to the kitchen garden, or mixed with the soil in 
planting trees, are equally striking’ and permanent. 

We cannot let the opportunity pass by without saying a word | 

" or two about that much lauded and much abused substance—guano. 
Nothing is more certain than that, in Peru and England, this is the 
‘best of all manures ; or that in the United States, as it has hitherto 
been used, it is one ‘of the worst. Now, asa substance cannot thus 
wholly change its nature-in these different countries without some 


good reason, we are naturally led to inquire, what is the secret of 
its success ? 


HOW TO ENRICH THE SOIL. 407 


If we recall to mind the facts, that in Peru, guano is no sooner 
applied than the land is irrigated, and that in England no sooner is 
it spread over the land than a shower commences; and that this 
shower, or something very near akin to it, keeps itself up all sum- 
mer long, in the latter country; and if we then recollect, that in the 
middle States, five summers out of six, any substance applied near 
the surface of the ground is as dry as a snuff-box, for the most part 
of the time, from June to September, we shall not be greatly at a 
loss to know why so many persons, in this country, believe guano to 
be nothing more or less than a “humbug.” 

If any very good proof of this were wanted, we need go tio fur- 
ther than to the exotic florists in our cities, who cultivate their plants 
in pots, for their experience. They are nearly the only~class of 
cultivators among us who are sturdy champions for the use of guano. 
The reason is plain. ‘They use it only in the liquid state, and apply 
it so as to give the plants under their care every now and then a 
good. wholesome drink,—a thorough soaking of a sort of soup more 
relishing to them than any in M. Soyer’s new cookery book, to an 
epicure in a London club-house. 

Now it is quite impossible for an American cultivator to a any 
thing- worth mentioning, in the way of watering his trees or crops 
with liquid guano; partly. because labor is too dear, but mainly be- 
cause the air is so dry and hot, that in a few hours the earth is drier 
than before ; and so all good effects are at an end. What then is 
to be, done, to enable us to use guano with success ? 

We answer in a few words. Use it in the autumn. 

We know this is quite contrary to the advice of previous writers, 
and that it will be considered by many:a great waste of riches. But 
our advice is founded on experience,—an ounce of which, in such a 
matter as this, isworth a ton of theory drawn from observation in 
other climates. 

After having tried guano in various ordinary modes, at the usual 
season, and with so little satisfaction as to find ourselves among the 
skeptics as to its merits for this country, we at last made trial of it in 
the autumn. ‘We spread it over the soil of the kitchen garden, be- 
fore digging it up at the approach of winter, and, to our astonish- 
ment, found our soil so treated more productive, even in very dry 


408 AGRICULTURE. 


seasons, than we had ever known it pefore.. We have also recom- 
mended it as an autumnal manure for enfeebled fruit trees (turning 
it under the surface at once with, a spade), and find it wonderfully 
improved in luxuriance and. vigor. In short, our observations for 


the past two years have firmly . convinced us, that in all parts of the’ 
country, where the climate is-hot’ and dry from June to October, : 


guano should be used in the autumn. Applied: at that season, and 
‘tured under the surface by the plough or spade, so as not to waste 
its virtues in the air, or by surface rains, its active qualities are gra- 
dually absorbed by the soil, and, so far from being lost, are only 


-rendered more completely soluble, and ready for feeding the pine _ 


when the spring opens. 


Guano, applied as a top-dressing, or near ie surface, in the 
spring, is undoubtedly a manure of little permanence, generally, 


lasting only one season ; for it always loses much of its virtue in the 
atmosphere. But lio buried beneath’ the surface, it becomes in- 
- corporated with the soil, and its good effects last several seasons. 

The common rate of manuring farm lands is three hundxed 
pounds of guano to the acre. But when old’ gardens are to be ma- 
nured, or worn-out orchards or fruit-yards renovated, we find six 
hundred pounds a better dressing. We would recommend its use 
at any time between the present moment and the frosts of winter. 


It should be spread evenly over the surface, and immediately turned 


at least three inches below it. 

At the present price of guano, it is certainly the cheapest of all 
manures to be bought in the market; and as.it is undeniably richer 
in all the elements necessary for moet crops than any other single 
substance, it deserves to have a more thorough trial at the hands of 


the American public. We commend it anew to all those who have 


once failed, and beg them to try it once more,* using” it,in the 
autumn. 

The large proportion of phosphate of lime which exists in Peru 
vian guano, makes it very valuable for fruit-growers and a good 
dressing of guano—so that it visibly covers the surface under each 
tree—dug under during the month of November, will certainly give 
a most thrifty and healthy start to the next season’s growth, as wéll 
as prepare the tree’ forthe highest state of productiveness, Thé 


= 
HOW TO ENRICH THE SOIL. 409 


* 


concentrated form of guano, saving, as it does, so much labor in 
carriage and spreading over the soil, is no small recommendation in 
its favor to those whose finances admonish them to practise economy 
of means and time. 

We might’ enlarge upon manures, so as to occupy volumes. 
But it will suffice for the’ present, if we have drawn the attention of 
our readers to the fact, that food must be supplied, ‘and that the 
present is the time to set about it. 


v. 


t 


A CHAPTER ON AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS. 


Diesation 1849. 


OVABLE ee or capital, may procure a man all the 
advantages -of wealth; but PROPERTY IN LAND gives him 
much more than this. It gives him a place in the domain of the 
world; it unites his. life to the life which animates all creation. 
Money is an instrument by which man can procure the satisfaction 
of his wants and his wishes. Landed property is the establishment 
of man as.sovereign in the midst of nature. It satisfies not only his” 
wants and his desires, but tastes deeply implanted in his nature. For 
his family, it creates that domestic country called home, with all the. 
loving sympathies and all the future hopes and projects which peo- 
ple it, And whilst property in land is more consonant than any 
other to the nature of man, it also affords a field of activity the most 
favorable to his moral development, the most suited to inspire a just 
sentiment of his nature and his powers. In almost all the-other 
trades and professions, whether commercial or scientific, success ap- 
pears to depend sdlely on himself—on his talents, address, prudence 
and vigilance. In agricultural life, man is constantly i in the pre- 
sence of God, and of his power. Activity, talents, prudence and 
vigilance, are as necessary here as elsewhere to the success of his 
labors ; but they are evidently no less insufficient than they are ne- 
cessary. It is God who rules the seasons and the temperature, the 
sun and the rain, and all those phenomena. of nature which deter- 
mine the success or the failure of the labors of man on the soil 
which he cultivates. There is no pride.which can resist this de- 
pendence, no address which can. escape it. Nor is it only a senti- 


A CHAPTER ON AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS. 411 


ment of humanity, as to his power over his own destiny, which is 
thus inculcated upon man; he learns also tranquillity and patience. 
He cannot flatter himself that the most ingenious inventions, or the 
most restless activity, will secure his success ; when he has done all 
that depends upon himself for the cultivation and fertilization of the 
soil, he must wait with resignation. The more profoundly we ex- 
amine the situation in which man is placed, by the possession and 
cultivation of the gpil, the moré do we discover how rich it is in 
‘salutary lessons to his’ reason, and. benign influences on his charac- 
ter. Men do not analyze these facts; but they have an instinctive 
sentiment of them, which powerfully contributes to the peculiar re- 
spect in which they hold property in land, and to the preponder- 
ance which that kind of property enjoys over every other. This 
preponderance is a natural, legitimate, and salutary fact, which, espe- 
cially in a+great country, Boley at large has a strong interest in 
recognizing: and respecting.” 

We have quoted this sound and excellent exposé, of the import- 
ance and dignity of the landed interest, from a late pamphlet by a 
great continental statesman, only to draw the attention of our agri- 
cultural class to their position in all countries—whether monarchical 
or republican—and ¢specially to the fact, that upon the intelligence 
and prosperity of the owners of the soil, here, depend largely the 
strength and security of our government, and the well working of 
most of its best institutions. 

. Where, then, must we look for the explanation of the fact, that 
in every country the cultivators of the soil are the last to avail them- 
selves of the advantages of skill and science? That every where 
they are the last to demand'of government a share of those benefits 
which are continually heaped upon less important, but more saga- 
cious and more clamorous branches of the body politic 2” 

Is it because, obliged to trust largely to nature and Providence, 
they are less active in seizing the advantages of education than 
those whose intellect, or whose inventive powers, are daily tasked 
for their support, and who cultivate their powers of mind in order 
to live by their exercise ? 

These are pertinent questions at this moment; for it is evident 
that we are on the. eve of a great change in the future position and 


412 AGRICULTURE. 


influence of the agricultural class in this country. The giant that 
tills the soil is gradually wakening into conscious , activity ; ; he per- 
ceives his own resources; he begins to feel that upon his shoulders 
rests the state ; that from his labor come the material forces that 
feed the sanonal strength ; that’ from his loins are largely. drawn | 
the.strong men that give force and stability to great aol and 
sound institutions in republican America. 

Is it to be supposed that with this newly Mrakening conscious- 
ness of the meaning and value of his life, the farmer—the owner of 
the soil i in America—is not to seize any advantages to develope his 
best faculties? Does any thinking man believe that. such a class 
will continue to plough and delve in an ignorant routine, in an age 
when men force steam to almost annihilate space and lightning to 
outrun time # 

And this brings us at once to the great topic of the day, with. 
the farmer—AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS. 

Now, that it is confidently believed that we.are to have # great 
agricultural school in the State of New-York—a school which will 
probably be the prototype of many in the other States—some diver 
sity of opinion exists as to the character of that school. 

“Let it be a school for practical farming—a school in which 
farmers’ sons shall be taught how to plough and mow, and ‘ make 
both ends meet,’ and show farmers how, , they can make money,” 
says one. 

« Give us a school in sahieh the science of shrceattice shall be 
taught, where the farmer’s son shall be made a good chemist, a 
good mathematician, a good naturalist—yes, and even ‘taught 
Greek and Latin, etc, so that he shall be as well educated as any 
gentleman’s son,” says the second. 

“A farm school ought to be able to support itself, or it is worth 
nothing,” says a third. 

“Tt should be liberally endowed by the State, so as to secure 
the best talent in the country, or it will be the nest of charlatans,” 
aye a fourth. 

“Tt should be a model farm; where only the best practice and’ 
the most profitable modes of cultivation should be seen,” ve a 
fifth, ie 


\ 


A CHAPTER ON AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS. 413 


“Tt should be an experimental farm, where all the new theories 
could be. tested, in order to find out what As of real value,” says 
a sixth. 

And thus, there is no end to the variety of projects for an agri- 
cultural school,—each man building on a different platform. 

Yet there mist be some real and solid foundation on which to 
erect the edifice of a great educational institution for farmers. And 
we imagine these supposed differences of opinion may all be recon- 
ciled, if we examine a little the sources from whence they originate. 

Agriculture is both a science and an art. Jt may be studied in 
the closet, the laboratory, the lecture-room ; so that a man may. 
have a perfect knowledge of*it in his head, and not know how to 
perform well a single one of its labors in the field; or it may be 
gained by rote in the fields, by: one who cannot give you the reason 
for the operation of a single law of nature which it involves. The 
first is mere theory—the second, miere practice. 

' It is easy to see, that he who is only a theorist i is no more likely 
to raise good crops profitably, than a theoretical swimmer is to cross 
the Hellespont liké Leander; and that the mere practical farmer is 
as little likely to improve on what he has learned by imitation, as 
oe horse is to invent a new mode of locomotion. 

' The difference of opinion, regarding the nature-or the province 
of an agricultural. school, seems mainly to grow out of the different 
sides from which the matter is viewed—whether the advocate favors 
scien¢e or practice most, forgetting that the well-educated, agri- 
oulturist should-combine in himself both the science and the art 
which he professes, 

The difference between knowledge and wisdom is nowhere better 
illustrated than in a mixed study, like agriculture. Knowledge 
may be either theoretical or practical; but wisdom is “ knowledge 
put in action. » What the agricultural school, which this age and 
country now demands, must do to satisfy us, is to teach—not: alone 
the knowledge of the books—not alone the practice of the fields, but 
that agricultural wisdom which involves both, and which can never 
be attained without a large development of the powers of the pupil 
in both directions. His head and hands must work together. He 
must try all things that promise well, and know the reason of his 


414, AGRICULTURE: 


faihire as well ‘as his success. To this end, he must not be in the 
hands of quack chemists and quack’ physiologists in the lecture 
halls, or those of chimerical farmers or dull teamsters in the fields,’ 
Hence,.the State must insist upon having, for teachers, only the 
ablest men; men who will teach wisely, whether it be chemistry or 
ploughing,—teach it in the best and.most thorough manner, so 
that it may become wisdom for the pupil. Such men are always 
successful in their own sphere and calling, and’can no more be had 
for the asking than one can have the sun and stars. They must be- 
sought for and carried off by violence, and made to understand that 
the State has a noble work for them, which she means to have 
rightly and well done. 

To achieve this, an agricultural school must be planned; neithet 
, with a lavish nor a niggardly spirit. As. agriculture is especially 
an industrial art, the manual labor ‘practice of that art should’ be an 
inevitable part of the education and discipline of the pupils. But 
to base the operation of the’ school upon. the plan of immediate 
“profit, in all its branches, solely, would, we conceive, cut off in’a 
great degree the largest source of profit to the country at’ latge. 
The pupils would leave the school either as practical farmers after a 
single model, or they would leave it with their heads full of unsatié: 
_ fied lenin after theories which they ‘had not been permitted to 
work out, They: would be destitute of that wisdom which ‘comes. 
only from knowledge and experience combined, and would go home 
only to fail in applying a practice suited to a different soil from 
their own, or to indulge (at a large personal loss) theoties which 
might have been for ever settled in company with a hundred others, ' 
at the smallest possible cost to the State. ; 

We rejoice to see the awakened zeal of the farmers of the State 
of New-York, in this subject of agricultural education. We rejoice 
to find a large majority of our legislature warmly seconding and - . 
supporting their wishes; and most of all, we rejoice to see a gov- 
ernor who unceasingly urges upon our law-makers the value and 
necessity of a great agricultural, school. One of our contemporaries 
—the editor of the Working Farmer—has aptly remarked ‘that — 
Wasuineron was our only great statesman who had “the moral 
courage to advocate the rights of farmets. Statesmen mistake the 


A CHAPTER ON AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS, ~415 


more apparent praise of other classes for the praise of the majority.” 
If, however, the views of Hamilton Fish, regarding this subject, are 
carried out by the legislature of this State, the people will owe him 
a great debt of gratitude, for urging the formation of an educational 
institution, which will, both directly and’ indirectly, do more to ele- 
vate the character of the great industrial class of the nation, and 
develope the agricultural wealth of the country at large, than any 
step which has been taken since the foundation of the republic. 

An agricultural college, for the complete education of farmers, 
where the wisest general economy of farming, involving all its main 
scientific and practical details, successfully established in the State 
df New-York, will be the model and type of a similar institution in 
every State in the Union. Its influence will be speedily felt in all 
parts of the country ; and it is therefore of no little importance that 
the plan adopted by the legislature should be one worthy of the ob- 
ject in view, and the ripeness of the times. 

Above all, when a good: plan is adopted, let it not be rendered’ 
tof little value by. being: intrusted for execution to the hands of those 
who stand ready to devour the loaves and fishes of State patronage. 
It is easy to devise, but it is hard to execttte wisely ; and we warn 
the farmers in our legislature, the State Agricultural Society 
(which has already done such earnest service in this good cause), . 
and the Executive, to guard against a failure in a great and wise 
scheme, by intrusting its execution to any but those whose compe- 
tence to the task is beyond the shadow of a doubt. 


VI 


A FEW WORDS ON THE KITCHEN GARDEN. 


: April, 1848. 

HE Kitchen Garden is at once the most humble and the most 

useful department of horticulture. It can no more be allowed 

to stand still than the sun himself. Luckily (or unluckily), man 

must eat; and; omnivorous as he is, he must gather food from bath 
the marten and the vegetablé kingdom. 

Now there are, we trust, few of our readers who need an argu- 
ment to prove what a wide difference is very often found between 
vegetables grown.in different gardens; how truly the products of one » 
shall be small, tough, and fibrous, and those of. another, large, ten-” 
der, and succulent. Sometimes the former defects are owing to bad 
culture, but more frequently to wnsuztable soil. It is to this latter. 
condition of things that we turn, with the hope of saying something 
which, if*ot new, eal at ledst be somewhat useful, and to the 

’ point. 

Nothing, i in any, temperate climate, i is easier than the general culti- 
vation of vegetables in most parts of the United States. With our. 
summer sun, equal in heat and brilliancy to that of the equator, we can 
grow the beans of Lima, the melons of the Mediterranean, the toma- 
toes and egg-plants ‘0 South America, without hot-beds ; and with 
such ease and profusion that it fills anewly arrived Bnglish or French: 
gardener with the most unqualified astonishment. - Hence, in all good 
soils, with a smaller amount of labor than is elsewhere bestowed in 


the same latitudes, our vegetables are pieineeds in the most prodigal | 
abundance. 


A FEW WORDS ON THE KITCHEN GARDEN, 417 


But now for the exceptions. Every man cannot “ locate” him- 
self in precisely that position where the best soil is to be found. Cir- 
cumstances, on the contrary, often force us to build houses, and make 
kitchen gardens, where Dame Nature evidently. never contemplated 
such a thing; ; where, in fact, instead of the rich, deep accumulations. 
of fertile soil, that she frequently offers us in this country, she has 
only given us the “short.commons” allowance of sand or clay. 

The two kinds of kitchen gardens among us, which most demand 
skill and intelligent labor, are those which are naturally teo sandy 
or too clayey. ‘Tt is not difficult, at a glance, to see how these might 
be, and ought to be treated to.improve them greatly. But we have 
observed—such is the foree of habit—that nine-tenths of those who 
‘have gardens of this description, goon in the same manner as their 
neighbors who have the best soil—manuring and cultivating pre- 
cisely in the ordinary way, and then grumbling’in quite a different 
mode about short, crops, and poor vegetables, instead of setting, about 
remedying the evil in good earnest. : 

The natural remedy for a heavy clay soil in a kitchen garden, is 

“to mix sand with it. This acts like a charm upon the stubborn 
alumina, and, allowing the atmospheric influences to penetrate where 
they were formerly shut out, gives a stimulus, or rather an opportu- 
nity, to vegetable growth, which quickly produces its result in the 
quantity and quality of the crops. 

But it not unfrequently happens that sand is not to be had 
abundantly and cheaply enough to enable the proprietor of mode- 
rate means, to effect this beneficial change. In this case, we propose 
to the kitchen gardener to achieve his object by another mode, 
equally efficient, and so easy and cheap as to be within the reach of 
almost every one. é 

This is, to alter the texture of too heavy soil, by burning a por- 
tion of the clay. 

Very few of our practical gardeners seem to be aware of two 
important facts. First, that clay, when once burnt, never regains. 
its power of cohesion, but always remains in a pulverized state; and 
therefore is just as useful, mechanically, in making a leary soil 
light, as sand itself. Second, that burnt clay, by its power of attract- 
ing from the i al those gases which are the food of vege- 


418 AGRICULTURE. 


tables, is really a most excellent manure itself. Hence, in any clayey 
kitchen garden, where brush, faggots, or refuse fuel of any deserip- 
tion can be had, there is no reason why its cold compact soil should 
not be turned at once, by this process of burning the clay; into one 
comparatively light, warm, and productive.* 

The difficulty which stands in the way of the kitchen gardener, 
who has to contend with a very light and too sandy soil, is its want. 
of capacity for retaining moisture, and the conisgnant failure of the 
summer crops. 

In some instances, this is very easily remedied. We mean in 
those cases where a loam or heavier subsoil lies below the- surface. 
Trenching, or subsoil-ploughing, by bringing up a part: of the alu- 
tina from below, and mixing it with the sand of the surface soil, 
remedies the defect very speedily. But, where the subsoil is no bet- 
ter than the top, or perhaps' even worse, there are but two modes.of 
overcoming this bad constitution of the soil. One of those, is to 
grasp the difficulty at once, ty applying. a'coat of clay to the irises 


*¥A simple mode of iuaeniag clay i in the kitchen garden i is the following! ; 
Make a circle of eight or ten feet in diameter, by raising » wall of soda a 
couple of feet high. Place a few large sticks loosely crosswise in the bottom, 
and upon those pile faggots or brush, and set.fire to the whole. As soon as 
it is. well lighted, commence throwing on lumps of clay, putting on as much 
ata time as may be without quite smothering the fire, As, soon as the fire 
breaks through a little, add more brush, and then cover with more clay; till 
the heap is raised as high as it can be conveniently managed, After lying 
till the whole is cold, or nearly so, the heap should be broken’ down, and 
any remaining lumps pulverized, and the whole spread over the surface ane 
well dug in. 

“ As an example,” says iendon “of the strong clayey soil of a garden 
having been improved by burning, we may refer to that of Willersly Castle, 
near Mattock, which the gardener there, Mr. Stafford, has rendered equal 
in friability and fertility to any garden soil in the country. “When I first 
came to this.place,” says Mr. Stafford, “the garden was for the most part a 
strong clay, and that within nine inches of the surface; even the most com- 
mon article would not live on it; no weather: . appeared ' to suitit; at one 
time being’ covered by water, at another time rendered impenetrable by 
being too dry, Having previously witnessed the good effects of burning 
eloda, I commenced the process, and produced, ina few days, a composition 
three feet deep, and equal, if not superior, to any soil in the country. ”"— 
Suburban Horticulturist. : 


\ 


A FEW WORDS ON THE KITCHEN GARDEN. 419 


of the soil, and mixing it with the soil as you would manure; the 
other (a less expensive and more gradual process), i is to siaiees ‘the 
kitchen garden every year with compost, in which clay or strong 
loam forms a large proportion. 

It may seem, to ‘many persons, quite o out of the” question to at- 
tempt to ameliorate sandy soils by adding clay. But it is surprising 
how small 4 quantity of clay, thoroughly’ intermingled with the 
loosest sandy soil, will give it a different texture, and convéertvitdnto 
a good loam. And even in sandy districts, there are often valleys 
and low places, quite near the kitchen garden, where a good stock 
of clay ‘lies (perhaps quite unsuspected), ready for uses of this kind. 

In the Journal of the Agricultural Society of England, a case 
is quoted (vol ii., p. 67), where the soil was a white sand, varying 
in depth from one to four feet; it was so sterile that no crops could 
ever be grown upon it to profit. By giving ita top-dressing of clay, 
at the rate of 150 cubic yards to the acre, the whole surface of the, 
farm so treated was improved to the depth of ten or twelve inches, 
so as to give excellent crops. 

Since a soil, once rendéred more tenacious in this way, never 
loses this tenacity, the improvement of the kitchen garden, where 
economy is necessary, might ‘be carried on gradually, by taking one 
or two compartments in hand every year; thus, in a gradual man- 
ner, bringing the whole surface to the desired condition. 

A great deal may also be done, as we have just suggested, bya: 
judicious system of manuring very sandy soils. It is the common 
practice to enrich these soils precisely like all others; that is, with 
the lighter and more heating kinds of manures; stable-dung for’ 
example. Nothing could be more injudicious. Every particle of 
animal manure used in too light a soil ought, for the kitchen garden, 
to be composted, for some time previously, with eight or ten times 
its bulk of strong loam or clay. In this way, that change in the 
soil, so much to be desired, is brought about; and the whole mass 
of clay-compost, made in this way, is really equal i in value, for such 
sandy soils, to the same bulk of common stable manure. 

Whatever the soil, of a kitchen garden, our experience has 
taught us that it should be deep. It is impossible that the steady 
and uniform moisture at the roots, indispensable to the continuous 


420 AGRICULTURE. 


growth of many crops, during the summer months, can be main- 
tained in a soil which is only one spade deep. Hence, we would 
.trench or subsoil-plough all kitchen-gardens (taking care, first, that 
they are well drained), whether sandy or clayey in texture. We 
know that many persons, judging from theory rather than practice, 
cannot see the value of.deepening soils already too porous. But we 
have seen its advantages strongly marked in more than one instance, 
and therefore recommend it with confidence. It is only necessary 
to examine light soils, trenched and untrenched, to be convinced of 
this. The roots in the. former penetrate and gather nourishment 
from twice the cubic area that they do in the former; and they are 
not half so easily affected “by the atmospherio changes of Nemipetie 
ture. ' 1 

Old gardens, that have been long cultivated, are rently im- 
proved by trenching and reversing the strata of soil. The inorganic 
elements, or mineral food of plants, often become so much exhausted 
in long cultivated kitchen gardens, that only inferior crops gan be 
raised, even with abundant supplies of animal manure. By turning 
up the virgin loam of the subsoil, and exposing it to the action of 

. the atmosphere, its gradual decomposition takes Place, and fresh. : 
supplies of lime, potash, etc., are afforded for. the vigorous growth 
of plants. 

We have only room for a single hint more, touching the Idtchen 

_ garden. This,is, to recommend the annual use of sald, in moderate 
quantities, sown broadcast over the whole garden early in the spring, 
and more especially on those quarters of it where vegetables. are to 
be planted which are most liable to the attacks of insects that har- 

bor in the earth, We are satisfied’ that salt, spread in this way, 
before vegetation has commenced, or the’ earth is broken up for 
sowing seeds, at the rate of ten bushels per acre, is one of. the best 
possible applications to the soil. : ; 

It destroys insects, acts specifically on the strength of the stems, 
and healthy color of the foliage of plants, assists porous soils in 
collecting and retaining moisture, and is an admirable stimulant to 
the growth of many vegetables. In all the Atlantic States, where 
it is easily’ and cheaply procured, it ought, therefore, to. form an 
annual. top-dressing for the whole kitchen garden. 


VIL 
A CHAT IN THE KITCHEN GARDEN. 


“ October, 1849. 

DITOR. We find you, as usual, in your kitchen garden. 

‘Admirable as all the rest of your place’ is, your own fancy 
seems to centre here. Do you find the esculents the most satisfac: 
tory of your various departments of culture ? 

Subscriber. Not exactly that; but I find while the shrubbery, 
the lawn, the flowers, and even the fruit-trees, are well cared -for 
and made much of by my family and my gardener, the kitchen 
garden is treated merely as a necessity. Now, as I estimate very 
highly the value of variety and. excellence in our ‘culinary vegeta- 
bles, I take no little interest in my kitchen garden, so that at last it , 
has’ become a sort of hobby with me. 

Ed. We see evidences of that all around us. Indeed, we 

. searcely remember any, place where so large a variety of excellent 
vegetables are ‘grown as here. Artichokes, endjve, sea-kale, cele- 
riac, winter melons and mushrooms, and many other good and rare 
things, in addition to what we usually find in country gardens. 

Sub. “And what a climate ours is for growing fine vegetables. 
From common cabbages, that will thrive in the coldest climate, to 
egg-plants; melons and tomatoes, that need’ a tropical sun,——all may 
be so easily had for the trouble of easy culture in the open air; 
and yet, strange to say, three-fourths of all country folks, Blessed 
with land in fee simple, are actually ignorant of the luxury of good 
vegetables, and content’ themselves with potatoes, peas, beans and 


‘ 


422 + ‘AGRICULTURE, 


' 


corn; and those, perhaps, of the poorest and least: improved va- 
rieties. 
Ed. Still, you cannot say we stand still in these matters. “Al- 
most every year, onthe ‘contrary; some new species or variety is 
brought forward, and, if it prove good, is gradually introduced: into 
‘general cultivation. Look at the tomato, for instance. Twenty 
years ago, .a few curious amateurs cultivated a specimen or two of 
this plant in their gardens, as a vegetable curiosity ; and, the visitor 
was shown the “love apples” as an extraordinary proof of the odd 
taste of “French people,” who outraged all natural appetites’ by 
eating such odious and repulsive smelling berries. . And yet, at the 


present moment, the plant is grown in’ almost every garden from: 


Boston to New Orleans ; may be found in constant use for three 
months of the year in all parts of the country ; and is cultivated 
by the acre by all our market gardeners. In fact, it is so popular, 


. that it would be missed next to bread and potatoes.: 


Sub. Quite right; ‘and a-most excellent and wholesome vageta- 
ble it is. It is almost unknown in England, even now; and, in- 
deed, could only be raised’ by the aid‘ of glass in that country,—~a 
proof of how-much better the sun shines for us than-for the sub- 
jects of her majesty, across the Channel. But there is another 
vegetable which you see here, really quite as deserving as the to- 
mato, and which is very little known yet to the cultivators in the 
country generally. I mean the okra. . 

Ed. Yes. It is truly a delicious vegetable. Whoever has 
once tasted the “ gumbo soup,” of the South, of which the okra is 
the indispensable material, has a recollection of a good thing, which 
will not éasily slip from his memory. All over the southern States 
okra is cultivated, and. lield in the highest esteem. 

Sub. And there is no reason why it should not be equally so 


‘here. Except to the north of Albany, it will thrive perfectly well, 


and mature an abundance of its ‘pods, with no trouble but that of 
planting it in a warm rich soil. See what a handsome sight.is this 
plat, filled with it, though only ten’ yards square,—rich, luxuriant 
leaves, blossoms nearly as pretty as an African hibiscus, and pods 
almost as delicate and delicions as an East India bird’s nest. It-has 
kept my family in materials for soups and stews all the season, to 


~ 


A CHAT IN, THE KITCHEN GARDEN, 423 


pay nothing of our stock for winter use. And besides being so ex- 
cellent, it is, do you know, the most wholesome of all vegetables in 
summer. ) , 

Ed. We know its mucilaginous qualities seem ‘diene by na- 
ture to guard the stomach against all ill effects of summer tempe- 
rature in a hot climate. How do you account for its being so little 

“known, though it has’ been in partial cultivation nearly as long as 

e tomato ? 

Sub. From the fact that inexperienced cooks always blunder 
about .the proper, time to use it. They pluck it when the pod is 
two-thirds grown and quite firm, so that it colors the soup dark, and 

all its peculiat excellence is lost. Whoever gathers okra should 
know that, like sweet-corn, it must be in its tender, “ milky state, ” or 
_it is not fit for use. A day too old, and jit is worthless, 

, Ed, You spoke just now of okra for winter use. As your 
ménage is rather famous for winter vegetables, we. must beg you to 
make a clean breast of it to-day, since you are fairly i in the talking 
mood, and tell us something about them, Begin with okra, if you 

please. 

Sub. Nothing so simple. To prepare most vegetables is, by 
the.aid of our plentiful hot, dry: weather, as easy as making raising 
in Calabria, You have, for instance, only to cut the okra pods into 
slices or cross cuts, half an inch thick, spread them out on a board, 
or string them, and hang them up in an airy place to dry, and in a 
few days they will be ready to put away in clean paper bags for 

_-winter use; when, for soups, they are as good as when fresh in 
summer. - 

Hd, At what age do you take the pods for drying? 

Sub. Exactly in the same tender state as for use when fresh. 

Ed. And the delicious Lima beans which you gave us—when 
we dined with you last Christmas Day—as green, plump, fresh and 
excellent as if just taken from the vines ? 

_ Sub. That is still easier. You have' only to take the green 
beans and spread them thinly on the floor of the garret, or an airy 
‘loft; they will dry without farther trouble, than turning them over 
_once or twice. To have them i in ‘the best condition, they should be 
gathered a little younger than they are sid for boiling in sum- 


424 AGRICULTURE. 


mer. : Lima beans are'so easily grown’ and prepared for winter use, 
and are so truly excellent, that my family usually dry enough for’ 
use every other day all winter; and they are so fresh and’ tender 
(being soaked in warm water for twelve hours before cooking), that 
I have frequently some little difficulty in persuading my guests at a 
dinner in the holidays, that I have not a forcing house for beans, 
with the temperature of Lima all winter. 

Eid, That is an easy and simple process, and its excellence we 
well know from experience. But, best of all, and most rare of ‘all, 
is the tomato, as we have eaten it here, in mid-winter. Aswe have 
seen Yhany trials in preserving. this capital vegetable for winter use, 
nearly all of which were partly or wholly faihires, pray let us into the 
secret of your tomato formula, which we promise not to repeat to 
more than eight or ‘ten. thousand of our ' particdlar friends: and 


readers, = vos 7 
Sub. You are ‘heartily. welcome to tell it to twenty thousand. 


It is a' real discovery for the gourmand. in winter, who loves» the 
pure, genuine, unalloyed and delicious acid flavor of the Solanum 
Lycopersicum, and knows how greatly it adds to the piquancy of a. 
beef-steak, done to a second, and reposing, as Curistorser Norra 
would say, in the mellow richness of its own brown j juices. 

Ed. Don’t grow so eloquent over the remembrance as to forget - 
the modus operandi of drying. ' Remémber we must stake our repu- 
tation on its being equal to the genuine natural berry, when it is of 
the color of cornelian, and plucked: in the dew of a July morning. : 

. Sub. I remember. First, gather the tomatoes. 

Ed. When? ‘ 

Sub. ‘When they. are quite ripe, least full.of water, aa most 
fall of the tomato principle; that’ is to say, in sunny weather in 
July or August. If: you wait till September, or, rather, till the 
weather is so cold that the fruit is watery, you yal fail in ie pro- 
cess for want of’ flavor. 

id. Go on. v ” 

Sub. Choose tématoes of small or only-moderaté: size. Scald, 
them in boiling water. Next,—peel them, and squeeze them 
slightly. Spread them on earthen dishes, and place the dishes in a 
brick oven, after taking the bread out. Let them remain there till: 


A CHAT IN THE KITCHEN GARDEN, 425 


the next ‘morning. Then put them in -bags, and ‘hang them in a 
dry place. 

Hd. That is eataiuly not a difficult process, and may be put 

“in-practice every baking day by the most time-saving farmer's wife 
in the country. And the cooking? 

‘Sub. Is. precisely like that'of the fresh tomato, except that the 
dried tomato is soaked in warm water a few hours beforehand. 
For soups, it may be used without preparation ; and a dish of this 
Vegetable, dried in this way and stewed, is so exactly 1 like thé fresh 
tomatoes in appearance and flavor, that he must be a nice connois- 
seur in such matters who could tell in what the difference consists. 

Ed, We can vouch most entirely‘ for that; and after thanking . 
you for the detail, have, only to regret that we could not: have pub- 
lished it in midsumnier, so that all our readers could have had a 
fine dish of tomatoes whén the thermometer is down below zero. 

Sub. By steadily pursuing the tomato-drying every baking 
day in July and August, we get enough to enable us to use it freely, 
and even profusely, as a winter vegetable; not.as an occasional va- 
riety, but a good heaping dishful very often. 

Ed. What is to he done with these small green melons which 
I see your man gathering in his basket? It is so late now that 
they will not, ripen, and i are the perquisites of the Pigs, doubt- 

- less. 

Sub. You never made a lee mistake. For tke pigs ! Not 
if” they were Westphalia all over. Why, that is the most delicious 
vegetable we have, at this season of the year. “ Butter would not 
melt in your mouth” more quickly than that vegetable, as you 
shall have it served up on my table to-day. — : 

Ed. Pray, what do you mean ? 

Sub. That these tardy after-crop musk-melons, trampled under 
foot and fed to the pigs, are the greatest delicacy of the season. 

Ed, Fricaseed,I suppose; or “cut and dried,” for winter 
use ! ¢ 

‘Sub... By no means; but simply cut in slices, about the fourth 
of am inch thick, and fried exactly in the same manner as egg 
plants.. Whoever tastes them 80 prepared, will immediately make 
‘a memotandum that egg plants are thenceforward tabooed, and that 


426 AGRICULTURE, 


melons, “ rightly understood,” are as melting and savory in their 
tender infancy, as they are luscious and sugary in their ripe ma- 
turity. 

Ed. We shall be aad to put it to the immediate proof. But 
we must bring this talk to a close, or we shall be suspected of hav- 
ing lost all taste but the taste for the flesh-pots of Egypt. 

Sub, But not till I have shown you my plat of “German 
greens,” all growing for use next March, and, my fine Walcheren 

: cauliflowers, planted late, and which I shall.“ lift ” at the first smart 
frost, and carry them into the cellar'of my outbuildings, where they 
will flower and give me the finest and most succulent of vegetables 

‘all winter long, when my neighbors have only turnips and Irish Po: 
tatoes. But you have taught the public how to manage all this in 
the previous number of your journal, so that I find every one 
begins to understand that it is as easy to have fine cauliflowers at. 
Easter as Newtown Pippins. And now lét us end this gossip and - 
take a turn in the orchard, where J must show you my Beurrés and 
-Bergamots. 


VIL 


WASHINGTON, THE FARMER. 
A REVIEW. 


Lerrers on Acricorturr, from His Kecellency Groran Wasutvator, to Ar- 
trurR Youne and Sir Joan Sincxarr, ete. Edited by Franxun Kniaut. 
Washington, 1847. Pablished by the Editor. New-York, Baker & 
Scribner. 1 vol, quarto, with plates, 198 PP. 


OR a long time, the halo of Washington's civil and military 

glory has kept: out of view his extraordinary talent in other di- 
rections. Mankind, too, are so reluctant to allow great men the 
meed of greatness in more than one sphere of action, that there has, 
we think, always been a national want of faith regarding the pre- 
eminence as an agriculturist, to which Washington is'most unde- 
niably entitled. 

We are inclined to think that, considering the great disadvan- 
tages of the time in which he lived, he was one of the wisest, most 
successful, and most scientific farmers that America has ever yet 
produced. 

Washington, as it is well known, was a.very large landed pro- 
prietor. Before the -Revolution, he was one of the most extensive 
tobacco planters in Virginia, His crops of this staple, he shipped 
in his own name, to Liverpool or Bristol, loading the vessels that 
came up the Potomac, either at Mount Vernon, or some other con- 
venient point. In return, he: imported from his agents abroad, im- 
proved agricultural implements, and all the better kinds of clothing, 
implements, and stores, needed in the domestic economy of his es- 


428 AGRICULTURE. 


tate. During the Revolution, although necessarily absent from 
Mount Vernon, he endeavored to carry out his plans-by feqnent 
and minute directions to his manager there.. 

‘No sooner had the war closed, than Washington immediately 
retired to his beloved Mount Vernon,, and was soon deeply immersed 
‘in the cares and pleasures of the life of an extensive landed propri- 
.étor. But it was by no means a life of indolent repose, ‘though 
upon an estate large enough to secure him in the possession of _ 
every comfort. The very f first year after the war, he directed his - 
attention and his energiés to the improvement of the mode of farm- 
ing then in vogue in the whole of that | paxt of the country. ’ 

He quickly remarked, that the system'of the tobacco. Planters 
was fast exhausting the lands, and rendering them of little or no 
value. He entered into correspondence with the most distinguished 
scientific agriculturists-in Great Britain, studied the ablest. ‘treatises’ : 
‘then extant abroad’on that subject, and. ‘immediately carried into 
practice the most valuable’ principles which he could draw from he 
soundest theory and practice then .‘kmown.- At a time when the ~ 
planters were thinking of abandoning their worn-out lands, ‘Wash- 
ington began a new and most excellent system of rotation of crops, 
based on a careful exarhination’ of the qualities of the soils, on his 
estate, and by substituting grains, grass, and root crops, for tobacco, 
he soon restored the soil to: good condition, and found: his. income ° 
materially increasing, while his neighbors, who pursued the old sys- 
see were daily growing poorer. | 

penser was more remarkable, among the trials’ of this great 
man’s character, and nothing contributed. more to his success in‘all 
he undertook, than the complete manner in which he first mastered 
"his subject,. and the exact method i in which he afterwards marked 
out and pursued his plans. 

In farming, this was evinced in the thoroughly systematic course 
of culture which he adopted ' on his Mount Vernon ‘estate. This 
estate consisted of about 8000 acres, of, which over 2000 acres, di- 
vided into five farms, were under cultivation.. On his map of this 
estate, every field was numbered, and ‘in his accompanying agricul- 
tural fidld-book, the crops were assigned to each field for several 
years in advance. So well had he studied the nature of the soils, 


WASHINGTON, THE FARMER. 429 


that with slight subdivisions and experimental deviations, this sci- 
entific system of rotation was pursued with great success, from about 
1785 to the close of his life. 

After about four years—the most agreeable, doubtless, of his 
whole life—passed at Mount Vernon, in its improved condition, he 
was again called, by the. spontaneous voice of one people. to. the 
Presidency. Much has been said and, written about the reluctance 
‘of Cincinnatus to leave his farm, and return .to the service of the 
Roman Republic ; ; but the sources for regret in his position must 
have been small, compared to those which, Washington felt, when 
he left Mount Vernon on this occasion. The farm of. Cincinnatus, 
which has been rendered famous in classical history, was. an_heredi- 
tary allotment of four acres, and its cultivation was part of the 
daily toil of his own hands. Mount Vernon, on the other hand, 
was one of the largest and loveliest estates in America; it stood 
amid the tich landscape beauty of the Potomac, its beautiful lawns 
running down to the river, its serpentine walks of shrubbery, its 
fruit and flower-garden, planted by its master’s own hands,* and its 
broad acres rendered productive by an intelligent and comprehen- 
sive system of agriculture of his own construction—think, oh ye 
who have never thus taken root in the soil, how hard it must have 
been for Washington the Farmer, to surrender again, even to the 
flattering wish of a whole nation, the life that he so much loved, for 
the hard yoke of what he felt to be the most difficult public 
service. 

It is the best proof of how thoroughly devoted by natural taste 
was Washington to agriculture, that instead of leaving Mount Ver- 
non to the charge of the excellent agent whom he had well 
grounded in his own’system of practice, and who eould no doubt 
have continued that practice with success, he never lost sight for a 


* Washington’s residence exhibited every mark of the cultivated and 
refined country gentleman. He appears to have-had considerable taste in 
ornamental gardening; he decorated his pleasure-grounds with much effect : 
and his diary shows that he collected and planted a variety of rare tirees 
and shrubs with his own hands, and watched their growth with the greatest 
interest. He employed skilful gardeners, and pruning was one of his favor- 
ite exercises. 


430 AGRICULTURE: 


moment, amid. all the pressing cares of public life, of his rural home, , 

_ or his favorite occupation. ‘We can searcely give a better. idea of . 
the man and his .system, than by 1 the: following extract, touching’: 
this very portion of his life, from Sparks’ admirable biography : 

“ With his.chief manager at Mount Vernon, he left full and mi- . 
nute'directions in writing, and exacted from him a weekly report, 
in which: were registered the transactions of: each ‘day on- all the. 
farms, such as the number of laborers employed, their health or ' 
sickness, the kind and quantity of work, executed, the progress in 
planting, sowing or harvesting the fields, the appearanceof the 
crops at various stages of their growth, the effects of the: weather 
on them, andthe condition of the horses, cattle and other live stock. 
By. these details, he was. made perfectly acquainted with all that 
was done, and could give his orders with almost as much precision 
as if he had been on the, spot. Once a week, regularly, and some-: 
times twice, he wrote to the manager, remarking on his report. of -: 
the preceding week, and giving new directions. These letters’ fye- 
quently extended to two or three sheets, and were always writtett ‘ 
with his own hand. Such was his laborious exactness, that the let-” 

. ter he sent away was usually transcribed from a rough draft, and a 
press copy was taken of the transcript, which was carefully filed 
away with the manager’s report, for his future inspection. In this 
habit, he persevered with unabated diligence, through the whole 
eight ‘years of his Presidency, except during the short visits he oc- 
-casionally made to Mount Vernon, at the close of the sessions of 
Congress, when his presence could be dispensed with at, the seat of 
government. He, moreover, maintained a large correspondence‘ on 
Agriculture with gentlemen in Europe and America. His letters to 
Sir John Sinclair, Arthur Young and Dr. Anderson, have been 
published, and are well known. Indeed his thoughts never ‘seemed 
to flow more freely, nor his pen move more easily, than when he was 
writing on Agriculture, extolling it as a most attractive pursuit, and 
describing the pleasure derived from it, and. its superior claims, not 
‘only on the practical economist, but on the statesman and philan- 

thropist.” - 

The volume before us, sich Mr. Roh has. erat to the pub- 
lic, in a very pene quarto form, consists mainly of the corres- 


WASHINGTON, THE FARMER. 4381 


pondence referred to in the preceding quotation. The letters to Sir 

John Sinclair are rendered more interesting by their being facsimiles, 

showing the fine bold handwriting of their illustrious author. Be-, 
sides, there is some very interesting collateral correspondence by 

Jefferson, Peters, and others, throwing additional light on the hus- 

bandry of that period: Engraved portraits of General. and Mrs. 

Washington, views of the mansion at Mount Vernon, a map.of the ° 
farms, etc., render the volume more complete and elegant. . , 

It is not as conveying instruction to the intelligent“ agriculturist 
of the present day, that we commend this work; for the art and 
science of farming have made extraordinary progress since this early 
era in the history of our country. But it'is as revealing a most 
interesting and little known portion of Washington’s life and char- 
acter, in which his own tastes were more peculiarly gratified, and in 
which he’ was no less successful, than in any other phase of his won- 
derfully great and pure life. 


28 


FRUIT. 


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 eyen 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 abundanily 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 in London and 
Paris than in New-York—if you can afford to pay for it—you know 


ae 


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: hiss 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 
Jarge 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 ie experience of the jn five 
years has led most cultivators—particularly those not in‘a region 
naturally favorable in its soil—to.Jook 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. ~ a 
If we except the asitibethood of Rochester and a part of cen- 
tral New-York (probably the future Belgium of America, as re- 
gards the production of pears), the best fruit of this kind. yet pro- 
duéed 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 
béen 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 geirerally. 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, isin 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- 
-eulturists 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-calléd 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 covering 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. 489 


. 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 ccuaats be- 
gins to show the effects of a careless system of eulture. 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 Rochester 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. Me alagatunes 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 prows and blossoms 
well enough in all parts of the countiy, 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 elay, the curculio finds guch 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 éasy to keep the latter under 
control, But nobody can afford to catch the curculios and other 
beetles at the price of a dellar 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 mainly from the absence of laws against that vaga- 
bond race of unfledged sportsmen who shoot sparrows when they 
ought to be planting com—-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 
’ beax 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 have 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 i in 


A FEW WORDS ON FRUIT CULTURE. 441 


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 naRbee 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. 


II. 


aL 


THE FRUITS IN CONVENTION. 


February, 1850. 
HAT an extraordinary age is this for conventions! Now-a- 
days, if people only imagine something is thé matter, they 
directly hold a convention, ‘and resolve that the world shall be . 
amended. We should not be. surprised to hear next, of a conyen- 
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 — building, 
where we enteted 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 ‘:oneyed 
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 ee 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 blink), we found to be a fine 
large specimen of the Boston Russet, witha 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 Lé Clerc Pear and an Honest Jobin 
. Peach were the secretaries; and a pair of very astr ‘ingent 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 blackamioors, 
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 mathbens 

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 membérs were all aware that 
no ordinary motives had calléd 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 tying 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 ERUITS. 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 Olnsian ” or 
whether he should forever be doomed to be misrepresented and 
misunderstood as a “ Bon Chrétien.” For his own part, 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, as he 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 bo 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 him, 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. (Great 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,— 
ran 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 Fon- 
dante d’ Automne, a very. tender creature, was so. overcome that she 
melted into tears at such a monstrous proposition. The Belle de 
Brucelles 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 Clere. 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 i in their 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 nagnes, 
at least such a8 had any worth retaining, even if they did become 
rooted to the soil'of this country. Especially when thosé names 
were in the most polite: language in the world—a langyage 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 
Lhope'to find Ja liberté—la pain ; 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 sojaw?” Bah! 
Me no like to be so, Moi, who belong to de grand Lea aaiten 
garde Napoléon ! 

Here a pleasant and amiable lady rose, evidently a little embar- 
ivassed, 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 @’ 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, asin 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 adtiolies would be taught that Jan- 
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 Mee ler, 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-cider ; 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. Ariy 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 bihoys,—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,” (laughter ;) 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 “aainy 
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 es 
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 Minister 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 examplé, 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 Gaping his uae 
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, 
qjd 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 bruilé, 
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 spdiled 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 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 Apr’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 gver 

to younger America, 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, aside, 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 Poire Guil- 
lame, while here, where the climate agreed so much better with his 
constitution, he was a favorite with high and low. The Duchesse 
d@’ 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 Peay 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 cher 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 ovft his astonishment that any one 
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 Ruategro warty at its meet- 
ing next fall in Cincinnati. 


Ii. 
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 a mean 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 thei birth. It is the mother of all 
the arts, all the commerce, and all the industrial 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- 
eite 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 
seience, 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 treé 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. 

Tt-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 shé has made many things, formerly doubtful and 
hidden, as clear as noonday. And itis 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 upon a variety of preliminaty knowledge, only to be gathered 
slowly and patiently, by those who are saniecaxing in their devotion 
to her teachings. 

There are no means of, Gaistlating how much: sea 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 success—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’ call. 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 six 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 Jess 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 i inorganic 
parts of vegetableg, and more especially of some of the fruit-trees 
‘whose culture i is becoming an object of so much importance to this 
country. a 

We think no one at all familiar with modern chemistry or sci- 

entific agriculture, can for a moment deny the value of specific ma- 
hures. 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 ‘eavetal inquirer, that but 

‘little is yet practically known, of the proper mode of manuring 


‘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. Z 7 


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 gid. . 

. We are glad to be able to. say, this aid is forthcoming. Many 
valuable analyses of the ashes of trees and planjs, 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, well 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. or 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 aud 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 elepents which make up the wood and bark of the 


apple, the pear, and. the grape-vine. 

According to Dr. Emmons’s - analysis, i 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, 2'7 parts phosphate. of lime, and 12 parts lime; the 
bark giving 6 parts potash, 6 parts phosphate, and 30 parts Finds 

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, Emmong’s exact analyses: 


ASH OF THE PEAR. 


Sap-wood, Bark, 
Potash; : . é < «22°25 6°20 
Soda, ‘ A 4 5 . 1:84 " 
Chlorine, e re . » O81 170 
‘Sulphuric acid, . : . . 0°50 1:80 


‘Phosphate of lime, . P é . 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 


5 Sap-wood. Bark, * 
~ Phosphate of peroxide of iron, . : O81 
Carbonic. acid, ‘ ; » >. 2169 87-29 
-Lime, ,. . r ‘ 12°64 | 80°36 
r Magnesia, , ‘ Se abi 43h - 8°00 9°40 
Silex, . ; P Bs ‘ 0°30 0-40 
“Coal, . . ; . : - O17 065 
Organic matter, . ‘ E 4:02 * 4:20 
: 100-25 98:30. 
" “ASH OF THE APPLE, : i 
: Sap-wood, Bark, 

‘. Potash, ‘i - . a . 1619 ' 4'980 
Soda, c P F e311 3°285. 
Chloride of sodium, % , ‘ - 042 | 0540... 
Sulphate of lime. . ‘ i 005 © 0637 
Phosphate of peroxide of iron, —. , - 0°80 0-375. : 
Phosphate of lime, F a EO 2425 ¢ 
Phosphate of a : : - 0°20 ; 
Carbonic acid, . . ‘ Z ai 29°10 44°830 - 

Lime, . : : : ; . 18°68 51578 
Magneéiia, . ‘ . s 3 8-40 Q-150 . . 
Silica, . F , j a «0°85 0-200 
Soluble silica, . 5‘ 2 0-80 0-400 | 
Organic matter, : : : - 4°60 2100 

; 10065 =» 109-450 
COMMON WILD GRAPE-VINE. 
" Wood: Bark, . 
Potash, . 3 . ‘ F 20°84. 177 

» Soda, .: ‘i ‘: ‘ ‘ - 2°06 0°27 
Chlorine, .: Z = : ‘ 002, | 0-40 
Sulphuric acid, , : 5 » 0°23, trace, 
Phosphate of lime; rs , ; 15°40 6-04 | 
Phosphate of peroxide of iron, ‘ - 1:20 5-04 
“Carbonic acid, 3 “9 ‘i 84:83 82°22 
Lime. | Sar ee ‘ » 17°38 , 89°82 
Magnesia, . . : 5 4°40 | 0°80 
Silex, . , - 2°80 1400 - 
Soluble silica, 3 : ois 000 0°30 

' Coal and ‘organic matter, 5 é . 220 .140°' 


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. Enmons 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 laive 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- 
moily applied, with: the most decided benefit to'al] 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 enact 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 ” 
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 obser vation 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 areas 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 gréat 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 ae basis 
of large crops and smooth, high-flavored fruit. 

Again, the greatest difficulty in fruit culture in aus 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 thé whole, nearly worthless: An intelligent cultivator, living 

in a warm and genial corner of Canada West, (bordeting on the 
western part of Lake Erie,) had been more than usually: successful 
for several ‘seasons iri 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 a FRUIT. 


Vv . s 
may be. The good,.old- Gained, alia 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 ss a 
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 Ainerican 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, twerity 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 stich abundance that the Northmen, who were 
perhaps the first discoverers, gave it the beautiful name of ViInLAND, 
should never be the land of vineyards? There were at least two 
men who still believed winemaking 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 Cohiba 
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 upon thé 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- 
lie 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 anany in the western States. who are ready now to subscribe 
heartily. 

Mr. Longworth 1 is a man of different stamp. With abundant 
capital, a great deal of patriotism, and a large, love ofthe 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. 46D 


sek the naturalization of the foreign grape. He adsereed 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 j isthe | 


wine grape of America. ; 
“ What sort of wine does the Catawha ake #” inquires some 
of our readers, who Jike nothing but Madeira and Sherry ; “and 


what do you think will be the moral effect of making an abundaneg , 


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— 
4 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 
_Qhio, 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.* Tndeed, certain moala-' 


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 i is, which, so far as our abcervation goes, is not one of 
thethings wé 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 hock 
than Champagne. 


‘ 


466 wy FRUIT. 


paying millions -tc foreigners for deleterious drinks, let us produce - 
from our, own hillsides a wholesome rea that val be within 
reach of us all—the poor as well as the ric! ; 

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 alcohol. 
(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 athey hand, they exhilarate the spi: 
Tits, 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 alimenis 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 dvank, (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. bs 
As we think there are few who will: ‘ogists which horn of the 
dilemma té choose, (especially, as an Irishman would say, “ where 
one is no horn at all,”) it is, we think, worth while to glance for.a 
ent 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 Grapé Culture in Vineyards in the vicinity of Cinein- 
nati: By a member of the Cincinnati Horticultural Society. Sold by I 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 i ina season. New Catawba wine, at the press, 
brings 75 cents'a gallon. When. ready for bale it readily commands 
about $1.25 per gallon, . ' 

The’ best vineyard soil on the Ohio, as in the old weed, is one 
abounding with lime. A.“ dry calcaréous 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 ‘imnportant 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 Rave 


April 1852, 


TOTWITHSTANDING 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 wogld. 
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 cértainly 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, i 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 orehard culture. In the majority of cases, the orchard is planted, 
cultivated two or three years with the ‘plough, pruned badly three 
or four timés, 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 cuiltivators 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 4 kind of cosmopolitan constitu- 
tion, by which they are almost: equally at home in a cool or a hot 
country, they are the exceptioris, 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 i 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: “a 

Although the two modes by which the production of anew va- 
riety of a fruit or- flower—the first by saving the seeds of the very 
fruit only, and, the other. by cross-breeding hen the flowers are 
about expanding—are very well known, and have been largely.praé 
tised by the. florists and gardeners of Europe ‘for many years, in 
bringing jnto 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 thesé 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 lastingtand invaluable ornaments 

“to the garden. So with ,the gooseberry. This fruit shrub, 'so fine 
in the damp climate of England, ig 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 

c gooseberry i in the only way it is likely to become naturalized, viz.— 


by raising new varieties from seed in this Cony; so that they may 
4 


ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF VEGETABLE RACES. 471 


have American constitutions, adapted. to the American . climate— 
and therefore not likely to mildew. The same thing j 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 watt of constitutional adaptation. And still 
the foreieti 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 .—taising seedlings here,. and crossing it with our best 
native sorts. 

Every person interested in horticulture, must stumble upon facts 
almost daily, t 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 Jand, 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,” &e., seizes the Yankee axe, 

and the forest, for the first time, aclrigteledizes 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 sdapied 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 Gaucasian 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 


498 FRUIT. 


Wésteri phrase, “ climb higher and dive deépei,” thaii atiy nian ont 
6f America. 

“We are not going to be led into 4 physiological digression oft 
the subject of the inextinguishable rights of a supétio? organization 
in Géitain men and raves of men, which nattire every day’ reaffiriis, 
notwithstanding the socialistic and democratic theories of ‘our poli- 
ticians. But we will undertake tosay, that if the races or plants 
Were as iiuch improved as they might be, and as much adapted to 
thé various soils and climates of the Union, as they ought to be, 
thiere is not 4 single square mile in the United States, that might 
not boast its peaches, melons, apples, grapes, and all the other luxw- 
Hed of the gardeti now confined to a comparatively limited range. _ 

And this is not only the most interesting of all fields for the 
lover of the'Goititry 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, aud the blos- 
sori, governs aiid fixes the character of thé. new racé, by givingy a 
character to the seed: Let those who are not already familiar with 
hybridizing and cross-bréeding of plants—always effected when they 
aré in bloom—read the chapter on this subject in our “ Fruit Trees,” 
6f atiy othe: work which treats of this subject. Let them ascertaiti 
wWiiat are tle desiderata for their soil and climate, which have not 
yét been supplied, and set about giving that character to the new 
seedlings, which a careful selection from the materials at hand, aiid’ 
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 behefactor to mankind, certainly he is 
far more so who ofiginates a new variety of grain, vegetable, of 
frait, adapted to a soil and climate where it before refused to grow 
—since thousands may continue to reap the benefit of the labors of 
thé latter for an indefinite length of time, while the forinet has: only 
thie merit of being a good farmer for the time being. 


LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 


LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 


L 


er . 
” 


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—Warwicx Casts. 
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 ; al 


* Like Eton Hall, near Liverpool, perhaps visited by more dumarioang 
than any other seat—though the architecture is mer etricious, and the whole 
place as wanting in genuine taste as it is abounding i in evidences of immense 

- wealth: Warwick Castle bears, to ari 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: 


476 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 
aitique 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 alisolue perfection, a8 if the’ whole were only éonjured 
up by an enchanter’s spell, and would soon dissolve into’ thin ajr. 
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, SWanwrex, 
“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 scené 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, 
real in its characte® as a feudal stronghold, arid: yet as complete. a 
baronial residenze, as the imiagination: can conceive. To an Ameri- 
ean, whose country is but two hundred years old, the bridging’ over 
such a vast chasm of time by the domestic memorials of a rae 
family, when, as in this case, that fainily has so made its mark upork 
the early annals of his. own us there 3 is Sa that approaches 

- the sublime. 

The sviall town of Warwick, .a “quaint old #03 which -still. 
bears abundant traces of its Sdxon origin, is situated: nearly ' in thé 
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 
occupying the highest part, though mostly concealed:from the towa 
by thick plantations,. Atound. the other: sides-of the castle flows 
the Avon, a lovely streain, whose’ poetical fame has not belied its 
native charms; and beyond it stretch away me broad lands which 
belong to the pat 

The finest approach for the stranger is roe the pretty iawa n of 
Leamington, about two miles east of Warwick. At a turn, a-few 
hundred rods Catia from the castle, the road crosses the Avon by 


WARWICK CASTLE: KENILWORTH! STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 447 


a wide bridge with a mossy stene 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. 
thena 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 
Aight 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. Whdever 
_ designed this,front, made up as-it is of lofty towers and irregular 
+ wall, must have been a. poet. as well as arehitect, 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, adh 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 isthe 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, atnong many fine evergreens, 
I noticed two giant Arbutuses (a shrub-which Ihave 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 ae 
'200 years, 0) se 5 

On the south. side of this court’ Jies the principal mass of the 
castle, ‘affording an unbroken suite.of rooms 333 féet long. At'the 
northeast, Cesar’s tower; built in Saxon times,the oldest part of 
the whole édifice, 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 Wanrwicx—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 thetender drapery of vines and shrubs, and- the luxuriant Beanty 


of the richest verdure. cae ee Bl 

“In the’ centre of the south side of this noble’ court-yard, you 
enter the castle by a few steps, “Passing through the entrance hall, 
you reach the great hall, vast, baronial and ‘magnificent—the floor 
paved witli marble—and the roof carved i in oak.” Along the sides, 
which are parielled 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, ina sraight 
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 j in tone—its walls’ delicate apple-green, re- 
lieved by a little ‘pure white, and. enrichéd: 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 wor Kkmanship. Behind the hall is the chapel, 
and on the left the suite is continued in the same manner. as on the 


WARWICK OASTLE : “KENILWORTH |. STRATFORD-ON-AVON, 479 


right. Of course a good deal of the furniture hasbeen 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 i 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 ‘self-centred 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 ofthe 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 6 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 eeu of the feudal. court 
yard where. I first entered.’ : 

Passing through a gate i in the cai wall, I acetal 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 mags 
of marble, weighing 8 tons, of beautiful: proportions, of which. re-_, 
duced copies are now familiar to us’ all over. the world. It yas. 
brought from, the temple of Vesta, and.is larger than I had. been led 
to believe, holding nearly two hogsheads., It. is also ‘vather more 
globular in form, and more ‘delicate i in detail ‘than one , og sup- 
pose, from the copies. 

In the, pleasure grounds my «admiration was riveted by the 
“4 cedar walk”—a fine avenue of cedars of Lebanon—that noblest, of 
eyergreens-—-some sixty feet high, a tree which in its stately sym- 
. Inetry 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, sug 
tained by the moisture of its perennial waters, were allowed to grow 
. gnd 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 ma as 
those of Blue-Beard himself. Still, here is his sword, an enormons 
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—ag 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 .creduility as to the digestive : 
powers necessary to sustain the Colossus who slew ‘all the’ dragous 
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 wative 
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 
castes, and the recognition of the divine 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-fiells 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 ‘rai 
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- 
térday, upon a little spot of a few rods—where the hedges had been 
destroyed, and a'temporary post and rail fence, like those at home, 
put in their place. The whole thing was lowered at once to:the 
harshness and rickety aspect of afarm 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 pr apse 
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), 1 do. not think even, the 


drives through Warwickshire so full of rural. beauty as those i inthe |. 


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 i 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 jigs miles from ‘Warwick, hace: ts 
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 i in England. The 
magnificent suites of apartments where the celebrated Earl of Lei- 
cester, the favorite of Elizabeth, entertained his sovereigh 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 ¢rees—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. 483 


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 corning 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 i 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 dozén yards long, where the greatest of poets was born and 

‘passed so many days of his life, [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 is any 
truth in physiognomy could not have been a likeness—for the upper 
lip is that ofta 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, 


Il. 


KEW-GARDENS: NEW HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT: A 
NOBLEMAN’S SEAT. 


August, 1850. 

TY DEAR SIR =, 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 jhe 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 ! . 

Tur Nariona, 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 i 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 heres, 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 col- 
lected by English travellers—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 a 
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, i in America, you fing some Tittle 
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, 487 


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—growitig 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, oma- 
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—and fairy-like and elegant in its proportions, 
though of great strength; ‘for the whole, Earner’ 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’ i 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 Tuxuriance 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 
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 thé 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 Deddar 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 ‘araticaria, or Chili ‘pine, here, is of the 
thickness of a man’s leg; and the tree looks, at a distance, like a 
gigantic specimen of deep green coral from the depths ‘of the ocgan. 
I was glad to know, from experience, that those two noble ever- 
greens 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 valia- 
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, etc. 
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 eae of growth and manufac- 


NEW-HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT. 489 


' 


-ture. Collections of all the fine woods, and specimens of interesting 
seeds, are also kept in glass cases duily 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- 
meht 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, ful] 
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 een 
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. 

‘Taz New Houses or Paruiament—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 inust 
remember, too, that not only have as many as 3000 meti been em- 
‘ployed on it ata time, but all appliances of _steam-lifting ‘and other 
machinery are used besides, which were not known in ike days of 
cathedrals. 

The style chosen by Mr. Barry is the perpendicilar, 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 storie is‘a 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 tastés, 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 ard 
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 thé 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. 491 


florid Gothi¢ 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 thé intricate machinery of a gov- 
ernment, that rules an empire almost extending over half the 
globe. : : 
Preturz or 4 Nosieman’s Suar. a shall finish this letter with 
a sketch of a nobleman’s seat, where Tam 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. Tt is not a “show place ;” and though a tesi- 
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. ee 
- The landed estate, then, anions 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 
—hboth 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, epee of | omenng: a 
couple of hundred persons. 

In front of the house, a broad level oe 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- 
* Jand; 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 2 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 into 
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 as 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: Jawn—each bed composed of 
a single speciés—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 lines. and so thickly sprinkled | 
with bloom. Some of them are made of two new varieties of scar- 
Jet geraniums, with variegated Jeaves, that have peceely the ae 
of'a mottled pattern in worsted embroidery. 

Beyond this lie the pleasure-grounds,—picturesque,” one 
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 pele and masses of rhodo- 
dendrons and English laurels. 

_ Imust 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, Ihave 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 lere,.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.haye a more uniform deep green tint than with us, which 
I think rather lessens the richness and variety of the. laridscape. 

The queen made a visit herein 1844; 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— 
cottagelike—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 hav- 


* But, after all, not 80 noble or beautifal as, in their needs 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 héart 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 test let to tenants. I was glad: to hear 
from him that he has endeavored, with great success, to abolish the 
enormous consuniption 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 other 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 Statés.* 

_ 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 falationis 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 landlord 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 bie 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-stufls, 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, aiuiebae 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, perliaps, 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 honie 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 i 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 im 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 1 we could 
have “that little’ "—good | 

I must close my letter here, with a promise to’ give you some 
account of Chatsworth in my next, which stands, in some respects, 
at the head of all English places. : “y 


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 a 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, im 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 pluced 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 i 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 impr ove and 
rebuild it in the most tasteful, comfortable, and. picturesque moanner: . 

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 exeellent judge of such’ | 
matters, Prince Puckler Muskau, of thé 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 fo 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 i 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 watthed 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 riot know indi- 
vidually and by heart—which others have reared for him—thinned, ; 
watered, and shaded—watched the sunny cheek redden, and the 


CHATSWORTH. 499 


bloom deepen—without any of that strong personal interest which 
glads the heart of the possessor of a small, 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 ! 


4 


August, 1850. 

2 Cason, the magnificent seat ue the Duke of Devonshire, 
fis the unquestionable reputation of being the finest private country 
_ Tesidence 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 yery. 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 poetearchitect 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 i in form and pro- 
portions, most admirably built, and set in its appropriate framework 
of trees and shr ubbery,—making . an ensemble such as I saw no- 
where else in England. There are dwellings in the Italian, Gothic, 
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, i 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 ‘Ttalian gardens 
lying around it—the whole, a palace in Arcadia. On the or est. 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 wand 
which the horizon, shuts in—is at home i in his castle. . 

The palace i is a superb pile, extending i in all some eight hundred _ 
feet, It is designed i 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, anil 
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 galleri ies, 
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 helongs 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 
roonis are thé 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 thé 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 Rapliael could not 
have astonished me so much as these matchless artistic car mies 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), 
a long corridor, completely lined with ‘original sketches by the great 
masters, and 4 very:richly decorated private chapel, are among. the 
show apartments of Chatsworth. 

‘So much of the palace as ‘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. Hav- 
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 furnished 
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 pom 
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 ef 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 indéx to a mind capable of seizing and enjoying the 
delights of both extremes of refined’ life. 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 housg, . 
and the cottage orneé. “With such a prodigality of space, you can 
easily see that the Duke can afford, for the: ‘greatet 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’Chstsworth, 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 readyto 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 a 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. , A pretty effect. is produced 
by avenues of Portugal. laurels, grown with single stems and round . 
heads, like the orange-trees that always border the walks of the 
gardens of the continent; aud the Duke mentioned, in passing, that 
the Prince and Princess Borghese, who had been guests at Chats- 
worth but a few days beforg,had really mistaken them for orange- 
‘ trees. But one point where the Italian gardens of Chatsworth must 
always be finer than any in Italy; is in the ‘carpet of turf which 
forms their groundwork. The. “velvet turf” of England is world- 
wide in its reputation; but no one, till he sees it as it is here— 
short, tufted, elastic to the tread—can realize that the phrase is not 
a metaphor. A surface of real dark green velvet of a dozen acres, 
would scarcely soothe the eye .more, by its look of softness and 
smoothness, than the turf in the Italian gardens at Chatsworth, 

But the crowning glory in Chatsworth, is its fountains. In a 
country where water is always scarce, a situation that affords a pretty 
stream, or a small artificial lake, is a rarity. But the whole of the 

“hill, or mountain, that. rises behind the house and pleasure-grounds, 
is full of. springs, and has been made a vast reservoir, which is per- 
‘fectly under command, and fulfils its purposes of beauty as if it 
were under the spell of some enchanter. If you will suppose your- 
self standing with me on the upper terrace of the Italian gardens 
that morning, behind you rises wh the palace, stately and magnifi- 
cent; all along its front of eight hundred feet, those gardens extend 
—a carpet of velvet, divided by broad, alleys, enriched by masses of 
the richest flowers, and enlivened by fountains of various form, 
» sparkling in the sunshine. like silver. Before you, also, stretches 
_ part of these gardens—a part in which the principal feature is-a 
mirror-like lake, set in. turf, and overhung by a noble avenue of 
drooping lime trees—beyond which you catch a vista of the distant 
hills.’ he 5 : ; 
Out of this limpid sheet springs up a fountain, so high that, as 
you look upward and fairly hold your breath with astonishment 


4 


504 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 


you almost expect it, with its next leap, to reach the sky; and yet, 
with all this vast power and volume, it is so light, and airy, and beau- 
tifwl, and it bursts at the top, and falls in such a superb storm of 
diamonds, that you will not be convinced that it is not a produc- 
tion of nature, like Niagara. This is the Emperor Fountain—the 
highest in the world; about the height, I should say, of Trinity 
Church spire.* It is only suffered to play on calm days, as the 
weight of the falling water, if blown aside. by a high wind, would 
seriously-damage the pleasure-grounds. 

As the eye turns to the left, the’wooded hill, which forms itis 
rich forest back-ground to this scene, seems to have run mad with 
cataracts. Far off among the precipices, near its top, you see water- 
falls bursting out among the rocks,—now disappearing amid the 
thick foliage of the wood, and then reappearing lower down, foam- 
ing with velocity, and plunging again into the dark woods. — To- 
wards the ‘base. of the hill stands a circular water-temple, out of 
which the water rises. It gushes 'out as if’ from the hydrant of the 
water gods, and, running down a slope, falls at the back of the gar- 
dens down a long flight of very broad marble steps, that lead from 
the water-temple to the edge of the pleasure-grounds, so as to give » 
the effect of a waterfall of a hundred or more feet high. This 
wealth of water, as if some river at the back of rthe mountain had 
broke loose, and, after wild pranks in the hills, had been forced. into 
order and symmetry in the pleasure'grounds, gives almost the 

- tumult and excitement of a freshet in the wilderness to this most 
exquisite combination of garden and natural scenery. 

Leaving the point—where you take in, without moving, all this 
magical landscape—you wander through flower gardens, and amid 
pleasure-grounds, till you reach a more wooded and natural looking 
‘paysage. The fountains, the carefully polished Italian gardens, are 
no longer in view. The path becomes wild, and, after'a turn, you 
enter upon a scene the very opposite to all that-I have been describ- 
ing: You take it for ‘a rocky wilderness. The rocks are of vast 
size, and: indeed of all ‘Sizes 5 with thickets of laurels, rhododen- 


* The height, of the Emperor Fountain i is 267 feet. The next highest 
fountains in the world, are one,at Hesse Cassel, 190 feet; one at St. Cloud, 
+ 160 feet; and the great jet at Versailles, 90 feet. 


CHATSWORTH.. e 505 


drons and azaleas growing among them, ivy and other vines climb-' 
ing over them, and foot-paths winding through them. From the 
top of a rocky precipice, some thirty feet high, dashes downy. a 
waterfall, which loses itself in a pretty. meandering stream that 
steals away from the foot of the rock. Nothing can well look 
wilder or more natural than this spot ; and yet: this spot, the “rock- 
garden,” of six: acres, has all been created. Every one of these 
rocks has been brought here—some, of them from two or three miles 
away. It is just as wild a scene as ‘one finds on the skirts of some 
wooded limestone ridge in America. Though it was all made a few 
years ago, yét now that the trees and shrubs have had time to take 
forms of wild luxuriance, all traces of art are obliterated. The eye 
of the botanist only, detects that the masses of laurels are rare rho- 
dodendtons, and that beautiful azaleas of ‘the Alps* make the un- 
‘derwood to the forest that surrounds it, 

You wish to go onward. We will. leave the rock nee by 
this path, on the side opposite to that which we entered.- No, that, 
you see, is impossible; a huge rock, weighing fifty or sixty tons, 
exactly stops up the path and lies across it. Your compan- 
ion smiles at your perplexity,.and with a single touch of his hand, 
the rock slowly turns on its centre, and the path is unobstructed ! 
There is no noise, and nothing visible to explain the mystery; and 
when the rock has been as quietly turned back to its place, it looks 
so firm and solid upon its base, that you feel almost certain that 
either your muscles or the rocks themselves obey the spell of some 
unseen and supernatural wood-spirit. 

One of the greatest beauties ‘at Chatsworth lies in the diversity 
of surface—the succession of hill and dale, which, especially in the 
pleasure-grounds, continually. occurs. This variation. offers excel- 
lent opportunities for the production of a succession of scenes, now 
highly. ornate and artistic, like the flower gardens, now romantic 
and picturesque, like: the rocky valley. And as we .continue our 
ramble; after entirely losing. sight,of the wild scene I have just de- 
scribed,’ we enter upon another still different,—a wide glade or 


* Azalea, or,.rather, Rhodode dron hirsutwm: and ferrugineum ; two beau- 
tiful sorta, perfectly hardy. ; 


506 « LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 


opening, like an amphitheatre, i in the midst of a fine grove of trees. 
An immense palace of glass rises before us. Its curved roof, spring- 
ing seventy feet high, gleams in the morning sun; and you.would 
be at a loss to conceive for what purpose this vast structure was in- 
tended, did you not see as you approached; by the indistinct forms of 
the foliage, that it incloses another garden. This is the great con- 
servatory, which is three hundred feet long, and covers rather more 
than an acre of ground. Through its midst runs a broad. road, 
over which the Duke and his guests occasionally drive in a carriage 
and four. All the riches -of the tropics are grown here, planted. 
in thesoil, as if in their native climate; and a series of hot-water 
pipes maintain, perpetually, the temperature of Cuba in the heart of 
Derbyshire. The surface is not entirely level, but there. are rocky 
hills and steep walks winding over them; and lofty as the roof is, 
some of.the palms of South America have already nearly reached 
the glass. From the branches and trunks of many of the largest, 
hang curious air plants, brilliant, and apparently as tittle fixed to 
one spot as summer butterflies. HS 7 

But ‘I shall never bring this letter to a close, if I’ dell: -even 
slightly 3 upon any Interesting scene in detail. I must mention, how- 
ever, in passing, the arboretum—perhaps a mile long—planted with 
the rarest trees, and every day becoming richer and moie interest- 
ing to the botanist and the landscape gardener., The trees are 
neither. sét in formal lines, nor grouped in a single scene, but are 
scattered along .a picturesque drive, with space enough for each to 
develope its natural habit of growth. There are some very grace- 
ful Deodar cedars here, and a great many araucarias. But the 
two most striking and superb trees, which I nowhere else saw half 
so large and in such perfection, were Douglass’ fir (Abies Doug- 
lasst), and the noble fir (Abies nobilis). They are two of the mag- 
nificent evergreens of California and Oregon, discovered -by Doug- 
lass, and brought to England about eighteen years ago. These two 
specimens are now about thirty-five feet high, extremely elegant in 
their proportions, as well as beautiful in shape and;color. I cannot 
describe them, briefly, so well as by comparing the first to a gi- 
ganti¢ and superb balsam fir, with. far larger leaves, a Iuxuriance 
and freedom always wanting in the balsam, together, with the 


CHATSWORTH. 507 


richest dark bronze-green foliage; and the latter to-the finest droop- 
ing Norway spruce,-equally multiplied in the scale of luxuriance 
and grace. .They grow upon:a rocky bank, overhanging: a pool of 
clear water, and look as if noromrly at. ca on the.slope of .a 
hill-side in Oregon. 

‘The arboretum walk forms .a sonal collection of -all the 
hardy trees that will grow out of doors at Chatsworth, with space 
for planting every new species as it may be introduced into Great 
Britain. A fine effect is. produced by grafting the weeping ash 
into the top of a common ash tree with a tall trunk thirty feet high, 
whence it falls on all sides. more gracefully and. prettily than. when 
grafted low ;:a hint that I laid up for easy prattice at hgme. 

A mile farther on, and you: ‘reach the tower, on the hill top, 
where the eye commands the whole of Chatsworth valley,—such a 
picture of palace and pleasure-ground, park and forest scenery as 
can be found, perhaps, nowhere else in the circle of the planet. 

After a long exploration—after exhausting. all the well-bred_ex- 
pressions of enthusiasm in my vocabulary, and imagining that it was 
impossible that landscape gardening, and embellishment, and park 
scenery, and pleasure-ground decoration, could farther go—the 
Duke reminded me that I had neither seen the kitchen gardens, the 
great peach-tree, ngr the famous new water lily—the Victoria Regia.; 
and that Mr. Paxton, his able chef, would never forgive a neglect of so 
important a feature in a place. As the gardens where all these new 
swonders lay, were quite on the opposite side of the park, we gladly 
took to the carriage after our industrious morning’s ramble. 

I shall not attempt to describe these large and complete fruit and 
foreing gardens. But the peach-tree of Chatsworth has not, to ny, 
recollection, been described, though it deserves to. b¢ as famous as 
the grape-vine of Hampton Court. It is the more wonderful, be- 
cause, a8 you know, peach-trees do not grow in England in orchards 
of five hundred acres, like those of the Reybolds, in Delaware ; but 
are only seen upon walls, or under glass. Yet I assure you, our 
friend R.’s eyes, accustomed as they are to peach blossoms by the 
mile,"would have dilated at the sight of this monster tree, occupy 
ing a glass house by itself, and extending over a trellis—I should 
say a hundred feet long. . I inquired about the product of this tree, 


a B 


508 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 


and:when the. number was mentioned, I imagined His Grace de- 
tected a slight smile of incredulity ; for he begged Mr. Paxton to 
copy for me, and subscribe his name to, the accurate statistics of the 
present crop. I send’it to you in a note,* with the addition, that 
the fruit was of the variety known as the Royal George, very large, 
and. finer flavored than I had before tasted from trees grown under 
glass. The whole trellis from one end to the other, was most. ad- 
mirably clothed—not a vacant place to’be found. . : 
Of the superb water lily, lately discovered in Brazil, and named 
Victoria Regia, in honor of the Queen, you have already published 
an account. It has grown. and bloomed here more perfectly than 
" elsewhere x though there are, also, good specimens at the Duke of 
Northumberland’s, and at.Kew. ‘The finest plant here-occupies a 
house built specially for it, 60 by 45 feet, inclosing a small pond 83 
feet in diameter for it.to grow in. The plant: is, unquestionably, 
the most magnificent aquatic known. The huge circular leaves, ‘4 
to 5 feet across, are like great umbrellas in size’; and the blossoms, as 
large as a man’s hat—pure white, tipped with crimson—float: upon 
the surface with avery queenly dignity,as if ready to command. 
admiration. A small frame or board. was placed’ on one of the 
leaves, merely in order. to divide. the weight equally as it floated ; 
and it upheld the weight of a man readily. Sgme seeds were pre- 
sented to me of this beautiful floral amazon before I left Chatsworth ; 
but as it requires the tank to be heated to a temperature of 85°, 
andthe water kept constantly in motion by a small wheel, I fear I 
shall not readily find an amateur in the United States who will be 
inclined to indulge a taste for so expensive a floral fancy. 
The kitchen and forcing grounds are on an immense scale, and 
some handsome fruit was being packed to go asa present to the 
‘Queen. The pines were usually large and fine; and the Duke re- 
marked that Mr. Paxton has reduced the cost of producing them 
two-thirds, since he has had charge of that department,—some ten 
or twelve years. 


* “ Memorandum of Peaches, borne by the Great Peach Tree at Chats- 
worth, in 1860.—Fruit thinned out at various times before maturity, 7, 801; 
do. left to ripen, 926; total crop, 8,7 ae 


7 Jos. Paxton.” 


CHATSWORTH. 509 


_ If after this lengthy description, I have almost wholly failed to 
give you an idea of Chatsworth, it is not wholly because my pen is 
not: equal to’ the task. Something must be allowed for the difficulty 
of presenting to you any adequate’ notion of the variety, richness, 
and completeness of an estate, ‘where you may spend many days 
with new objects of interest and beauty constantly before you; ob- 
jects which, only to enumerate, would be presenting you with dry 
catalogues, instead of living pictures, brilliant and varying as those 
of the kaleidoscope. 

‘And, I think I hear you say, this is all for the pride and pleasure 
of a ‘single individual ! All this is done to minister to his happiness. 
Not entirely. The Duke of Devonshire has’ the reputation, very 
deservedly, I should think, of being second to no man in England 
for his benevolence, kind-heartedness' and liberality. Certainly, I 
think I may safely say, that Chatsworth shows more refined taste, 
; joined to magnificence, both externally and internally, than any 
place I have ever seen. ‘W. hen one sees how many persons are con- 
stantly employed ‘i in thé various works of improvement on this single 
estate, and how cheerfully the whole is thrown open to the study 
and ‘enjoyment : .of thousands and tens of thousands annually, one 
cannot but concede a liberal share of admiration and thanks to a 
nobleman who might follow the example of many others, and make 
his home his closed castle; but who prefers, on the other hand, to 
open, like a ‘national picture gallery, this magnificent specimen of 
landscape gardening ‘and architecture, on which his fine taste and 
ample fortune have been lavished for half a century. One ‘has only. 
to: visit Windsor and Buckingham Palace after Chatsworth, to see 
‘the difference between a noble ahd pure ‘taste, and a royal want of 
it, The one may serve to educate and reform the world. The ut- 
most that the other can do, is to dazzle and astonish those who can- 

“not recognize real beauty or, excellence in art. 


IV. 


ENGLISH TRAVELLING: HADDON HALL: MATLOCK: 
' THE DERBY ARBORETUM: ‘BOTANIC GARDEN IN 
REGENTS PARK, 
eet 1850. 
ERBYSHIRE (you senate you left me at Chatsworth), is so 
picturesque a country, that I drove about among its hills and 
valleys with. the luxury of good roads and the easiest of private car- 
riages. It is, indeed, only in this way that England can be seen or 
understood. To dash through. such a country as this, where the de- 
tails are all wotked up into such perfect; finish, is like going through 
a gallery of cabinet pictures at the speed of Capt, Barclay, or some 
«, erack pedestrian,” who performs a thousand miles in a thousand _ 
hours. Here is indeed a hilly country, where you get a glimpse of - 
something new and. interesting at every turn: aad yet the roads are 
by no means those we are accustomed to see in such a district, but 
smooth and hard as a Macadam can make them. It would, how- 
ever, amuse one of our expert, Alleghany stage-drivers, who goes 
down a five mile mountain on a full run, to see an English coach- 
man lock his wheels on such smooth and easy grades as these, | 
among the Derbyshire hills. A proposal of such feats to an Eng- 
lish driver as are performed daily in the Alleghanies, with the most 
perfect success and nonchalance, would be received by him with the 
same belief in your sanity, as if you should ask him to obligé you 
by swallowing the cupola of St.-Paul’s. On the other hand, the 
perfect neatness of dress; (especially in. snowy linen, and spotless 
white-top boots), the obliging manners, and the «careful and rapid 


HADDON HALL, 511 


driving (on those level roads) of a John Bull who is’ bred to hold 
the reins, would be a straziger. revelation to one of our uncouth look- 
ing drivers, than an explanation of the whole art of governing a 
monarchy. 

These Derbyshire hills are, in some parts, covered with “wood, : 
and in others entirely bare, or rather only covered with grass,—af- 
fording pasture to large flocks of sheep. As I drove amid long. 
slopes and rounded summits, some 200 or 300 feet high, I was 
. struck with the exquisite purple hue, like the bloom on a- plum, 

with which some of the hill-sides were suffused in the soft afternoon 
light. A little nearer approach enables one to solve the riddle of 
the mysterious color. The whole hillside was’ thickly covered, 
‘with purple heather, in fall bloom, which, at a distance, gave it the 
seeming of having been dipped in some delicate dye. I cannot tell 
you how these hills, and the wild wastes and downs of England, 
eovered with the delicate bells of the heath, affected me ‘when I 
first saw them. When you remember, that with all the forest and 
meadow richness of America, not .a single heath grows wild from 
one end of the country to the other, and that we scarcely know the 
plant, except as a delicate and cherished green-house exotic—a plant 
which every English poet has embalmed in his verse, and which is 
the very emblem of. wild, airy freshness—you may believe me, when 
I tell. you that a million, spent in -gardens under glass, could not 
have given me the same exquisite delight, which I expetienced in 
running over, plucking, and feasting my eyes upon these acres of 
wild heather. There are half a dozen spécies, with different shades 
of color—white, pink, pale and-deep purple; but the latter is the 
most beautiful, as well as the most common. 
_ Hapvpon Haut.—Next to Chatsworth, Haddon Hall is the most 
‘ noted locality in Derbyshire. As the two places are but a few 
miles apart, they form. the best possible contrast,—Chatsworth being 
one of the most finished specimens of the luxuty, refinement, and 
grandeur of modern England, as Haddon is of the domestic abodes 
and habits of an English nobleman two hundred years ago. 
Haddon Hall gives, perhaps, the best idea that may be gathered 
any where in this country, of the ancient baronial residence, exactly 
as it was. No part of this large castellated pile (which is finely 


\ 


512 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 


situated on the slope of.a wooded. hill), is of later date than the 
sixteenth century. Its history is that of the Vernon family,.who. 
built and inhabited it for more than, three, centuries. Sir George - 
Vernon, the last male ‘heir, lived here in the time of Elizabeth ; 
and his magnificent hospitality and great: establishment gave him, 
the name of the “ king of the Peak.” : 

What struck me at. Haddon was the realness and the rudeness 
of those halls of ancient. grandeur, There is not one alteration, to 
suit more modern tastes—not a single latter-day piece’ of furniture-— 
nothing, i in short, that does not remind you of the solidly. material: 
difference between ancient and modern times, Vast chimney- 
pieces, with huge fire-dogs in them, for burning wood, large hallsy 
with ,open timber. roofs, instead of: ceilings, wainscot covered with , 
tattered arras, which hung loosely over secret panelled | doors in the 
walls, rude-and massive steps to the staircases, and clumsy, though 
strong.bolts and hasps. to the doors,—all these, with many rude 
itteuile show that strength, and not elegance, stamped its charags 
ter upon the domestic life, even of the great nobles in those days. 
Here .is a house which held accommodation for. upwards of four- 
score servants, in all the luxury of the time; and yet, so great has: 
been the. progress: of civilization, that. many of our working men 
would doubtless think the best. accommodation. of those days but 
rough apartments to live in. The seats in the kitchen are of stone ; 
and there must have been cold draughts. in these great barn-like . 
halls, that would make modern effeminacy’s teeth: chatter. 

There is a singular charm about such.'a veritable antique castle 
as this, which perhaps an American feels more strongly than an 
Englishman, It gives one the. feeling « of a conversation with the 
spirits of antiquity ;\, and it has for us the additional piquancy,, 
growing out of the fact, that we come from a land where: such 
spirits are wholly unrecognized and. unknown. To feel that. in this 
rude dining-hall the best civilization of the: time flourished, and 
mighty barons, ladies, and vassals feasted and revelled, long before 
the first settlement was made at J amestown, i is very much like being 
invited to smoke a cigar.with Sir Walter ‘Raleigh, or go ts the 
Globe playhouse with Manager. Shakspeare. 

‘The terraced garden, too, is aan and “ old-timey.” The special 


MATLOCK. 518 


point of interest is “Dorothy Vernon’s Walk ;” for it. has both ro- 
mancé and reality about it. Dorothy was the beautiful daughter’ 
and heiress of the last Vernon. The son of the first Duke of Rut- 
land fell so violently in love with her, when she was but eightéen, 
that (his suit not being favored by her father) he lived some time 
in the woods of Haddon, disguised as a gamekeeper; and finally 
(during a. masked ball), éloped with the fair Dorothy, heiress of 

Haddon, pi ‘the door from thé tong gallery, which ey ‘down 

to this walk. 

And this gives me the opportunity to say, that this martiage, of 
course, brought Haddon Hall into the family of the Dukes‘ éf Rut- 
land, who; for a time, inhabited it in great state; but aboiit ‘a: hun- 
dred years: ago ‘abandoned ‘it for their more anode residence— 
' Belvoir Castle. Haddon Hall is, however, though uninhabited, 
wisely prevented from: falling into complete decay by the: present 
” Duke of Rutland, and is open to the a of visitors’ at all 

times. 

Matlock, considered the most picturesque: spot in: Derbyshire is 
in the ordinary route of travellers, but would, I think, disappoint 
any one accustomed to the Hudson; as would, indeed, any’ scenery 
in England (I will except Wales) i in “point of picturesquenéss. The 
village of Matlock Bath is a watering-place, nestled in ‘a’ pretty, 
quiet dale, surrounded by rocky cliffs some 200 or 300 feet ‘high. 
Excellent walks, charmingly laid out and well kept, sparry eaverns, 
petrifying wells, ‘with mineral springs, make up’ the attractions of: 
this rural neighborhood. . The real beauty of Matlock, to my’ eyes— 
and it is the essentially English feature—is in the luxuriance of the 
vines and shrubbery that clamber over and enwreath every’object— 
natural, artificial, and picturesque. A bare, rocky bank, unless it - 
has great magnitude or grandeur of outline, is hard and” repulsive, 
But Jet that same’ barkk be covered with rich masses‘of i ivy, avd 
overhung with. verdure of luxuriant shrubs and trees, and what was 

_ugly and harsh is transformed into something exceedingly beautiful. 
In this respect, both. climate and culture conspire to make English 
scenery of this character very captivating: The ivy springs up and 
grows readily, any . ‘where; and the people, with an instinctive feel- 
ing for rural expression, encourage this and other drapery, wherever 

33 ‘ a 


514 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 


it is becoming. Strip away from the English cottages, that are. so 
much admired, the vines that’ cover, and the shrubbery, that em- 
bowers them, and they would look as bald and commonplace as the 
most ordinary rural dwellings in America. *'The only difference 
would be, that an English cottage, stripped of drapery, would show 
plain brick walls, and tile or thatch roof—ours, wooden clap-board- 


ing and shingles. Architecturally, however, the English cottages— 3 


four-fifths of them—are no better than opr own; but they are. 80 
_ affectionately embosomed in foliage, that they touch the heart of 


the traveller. more than the designs of. Palladio would, if ‘they bor- 


dered the Janes and road-sides.. 

_As no ‘ceonttion is so cheap as vines, I was one day expressing 
my ‘regret to ‘an English landscape-gardéner, that, the ivy was 
neither a native of America, nor would it thrive in. thé northern 
States, without considerable care, “ You Americans are an un- 


grateful people,” said he; “look at that vine, clambering over "yon: 


der building, by the side of the ivy. It is, as you, see, more luxuri- 
ant, more rapid i in growth, and a livelier green than our ivy, It i is 
true, it has neither the associations nor. the evergreen habit of the 
ivy ; but we think it quite ‘as beautiful for the purpose of covering 
walls and draping: cottages.”. The plant’ he eulogized was the Vir- 
ginia Creeper (Ampelopsis quinguefolia), an old favorite of mine, 
and which we are just beginning rightly t to estimate at home as it 
deserves.* ’ 5 

Tat Dexsy Arsoretum —Derby i is an interesting old town, 
and I passed a day there with much satisfaction. What I particu- 


Jarly wished | to see, however, was the public garden or pleasure, : 


had nities can be wore brilliant, as. your readers ell know, than the’ 
Virginia Creeper. in the autumn woods at home, where it frequently climbs’ 


up the leading stem of some evergreen, and shines, in its autumnal glory, 
like foliage of five, through the dark foliage of a cedar or a hemlock. “Tt 
grows in almost every part of the country, and ‘will cling to walls or wood- 
work, like the ivy, without any artificial aid: We believe this vine is Tess 
frequently’ planted than it- would be, from many persons confounding it 


with the poison sumac vine, which a little resembles it, The: Virginia 


Creeper is, however, perfectly.harmless, and may be easily known from the 
poison vine, by the latter bearing only three leaflets: to a leaf, while the 
Virginia Creeper has five leaflets. : 


THE DERBY ARBORETUM. 515 


grounds, called the Derby Arboretum. It interested me, in three 

ways : first, as having beery espécially formed for, and presented to 
the inhabitants of the town by their member of Parliament, J oseph 
‘Strutt, Esq., a wealthy silk manufacturer. here ; then, as containing 
a specimen of most of the hardy trees that vill grow in Britain ; 
and lastly, as having been laid out by the late Mr. Loudon. | 

As a public garden—the gift of a single individual—it, is cer- 
tainly a most noble bequest... The area is about eleven acres, and is 
laid’ cut sd'as to, appear much Jarger,—the boundaries congealed by 
plantations, etc, There are neat and tasteful entrance lodges, with 
public rooms for the use -of visitors (where a lunch is provided, at 
the bare cost of ‘the provisions), ‘and where books of reference are 
kept ; go that any person who wishes to pursue the study of trees, 
can, with the aid of the specimens in’ the garden, quickly becorhe 
familiar with the whole, history’ of every known species. During 
five days in the week, these grounds are open. to all persons without 
charge ; and | on the other two days, the admission fee is, sixpence 
—merely enough to keep the place in good condition. 

The grounds were in beautiful order, and are evidently much 
enjoyed, not only by the good people of Derby, but by strangers, 
and visitors from the neighborhood: I met ‘numbers of young peo- 
ple strolling ‘about and enjoying the promenade, plenty of nurses and 
children gathering health and strength in the fresh air, “and, now 
and then, saw an amateur carefully reading the labels of the various 
trees and shrubs, and making notes in his memorandum -book— 
doubtless, with a view to the improvement of his own grounds, 
Every tree/or plant: is conspicuously marked: with a printed label 
(a.kind of brick set in the ground at the foot of the, tree or shrub, 
with the name under a piece of glass, sunk in a panel upon the top 

’ of the brick); and this label contains the common name of the plant, 
the botanical name, its native country, the year ofits introduction 
(if nota native), and the height to which it, grows. The .most: per- 
fect novice in trees, can thus, by walking round the arboretum, ob- : 
tain in a'short time a very considerable . knowledge of the hardy 
Sylva, while the arboriculturist can solve many a knotty point, by 
looking at‘ the trees and plants themselves; which-no amount of 
study, without the living specimen, would settle, Then the whole 


516 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 


collection, consisting of about a hamael ‘different species and varie- 
ties, is arranged according to the natuffl] system, so that, the’ bota- 
nist: may study classification, as well as structure and growth, with 
the whole clearly before his eyes. As the great point isto show 
the natural character of the different trees and shrubs, they are all 
planted quite separately, and allowed room to grow on all sides; 

and no pruning which would prevent, the natural _development of : 
the habits of the tree or shrub, is ‘permitted.’ a 

The whole arboretum was laid out and planted ten years ago— 
in 1840; so that, of course, one can, now, very well judge . of its 
yalue and its effécts. . 

That it is, and will be, one of the most useful and instructive 
public gardens in.the world, there can be.no, doubt; for it certainly 
combines thé greatest. possible amount of instruction, with a great 
deal of pleasure for all classes, and especially the working classes: 


- ‘That it may appeal: largely to the sympathies of the. latter, even to 


+hose'to whom all trees are alike, there is a fine piece’ of. smdtth 
lawn. (added, I think, to the original, eleven acres), expressly used as © 
a skittle ground, —a favorite English game ‘with ball; at. which 
numbers of men and boys were playing while I was there. - - 
As regards. taste, I do not hesitate to ae my disappointment. 
There is no other beauty in these grounds, an what grows out of 
the entire surface being covered with grass, “neatly ° mown,. with 


broad straight walks through the central portions, and a. series, of, : 


narrower covered walks, making a connected circuit. of athe whole, - 
The peculiarity of the design ‘belongs to the surface of the ground. 
This was naturally a level ; but in order to produce the greatest pos- 
sible intricacy and variety, in a limited space, it was thrown up, _ 
here and there, into ridges from six to ten feet high. These ridges 
are. not. abrupt, but gentle; and. the walks are led- between them,,.so 
that even when there are no intervening trees and shrubs, ' you could 
not easily see a person in one walk from another one parallel to it, 
though only twenty or thirty: feet off, If these ridges, or undula- 
tions in the: surface, had been ‘cleverly planted with groups and 
masses of trees and shrubs, the effect would-have been very good ;- 
but dotted as they are with scattered single trees and shtubs, the re- 
sult is a little harsh, with neither the ease of nature nor the symme- 


THE DERBY ARBORETUM. : 517 


try of art. If one looks at the Derby arboretum, . therefore, as an 
example of Mr. Loudon’s landscape-gardening, one would not- geta 
high idea of his taste. “But I believe this would not be judging him 
fairly, as I think he intended this place as a garden for instructing 
the British public in arboriculture, even more than as a specimen 
of public pleasure-grounds. And every .one who is familiar with 
' botanical gardens, knows how ugly they generally are, from the 
very plain reason, that: instead of planting only’ beautiful objects, 
they must necessarily” contain a great mass of species, very uninter- 
esting except, to' the scientific student. ee ot 

I noticed one tree that was entirely new to me, and which I am 
sure will be a valuable acquisition to.our pleasure-grounds at home. 

-It is the “hoary Pyrus,” from Nepaul, Pyrus vestita,—a very strik- 
ing tree, in its large foliage, which is dark green above, and hoary 
white below. It-is very mgerone and. sae the specimen about 
thirty feet high. 

The Derby arboretum, sliagettan as I eave there, cost above 
$50;000. Considered as the creation and bequest of a private: citi- 
zen to, his townsmen (and to the country at large), it is certainly a 
magnificent, donation. © ‘When one remembers what a gratification 
is afforded to the numerous inhabitants of a lar, rge town, for all time 
to come, by this arboretum, what a refreshment after a day’s labor 
for those who have no garden of their own, what’ an instructive 
walk—every. year increasing in extent—even for those who. have, 
what an attraction to strangers, and what a source of pride to the 
citizens to whom it especially belongs, one cannot but look upon 

- Mr. Strutt’s gift, as something done in the largest spirit of philan- 
thropy. ~ Quite as considerable sums have often been given by mer- 
“chants in my own country, to found hospitals and asylums for the. 
diseaséd' in mind and body. Perhaps it may not be long before 
some one of them will follow the example of Mr. Strutt, and form a 
public garden or park, as such places should be formed, and present 
it to one of our large cities or: towns, now so much in need of it. 
Would it not keep:his memory more lovingly fresh in the minds of 
his fellow-men, and their sscendants, than any other bequest it is 

possible to conceive ? 

Tas Boranic Garpen in Recent’s Parx.—As a pendant to 


518 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 


this: sketch of the arboretum at Derby, let me give you an outlind 
of another garden in the midst of the Regent's Park, at the west end 
of London. It cannot, perhdps, be strictly called a public’. garden’; ; 
itis, more properly, a subscription. garden, as it was made, and is 
maintaitied, ‘by about sixteen hundred members, who either pay 
twenty guineas at-the outset, or two guineas a year. The privileges 
they have, are the free enjoyment of the grounds, conservatories, ete., 
at. all timés, and the admission’ of their friends (not more than two 
per day) by tickets, As there is no other way of getting admis- 
sion (even the fee, that is so all-potent in most cases, does not pre- 
vail -here), of course, very few strangers ever see this ‘garden—-the 


best worth seeing; of its kind, perhaps, in all Europe. As I. had, 


fortunately, been one of the honorary members for sothe years, T 
was glad to claim my rights, soon after my arrival in London. 

The scen@® as you enter the grounds, is extremely beautiful and 
strikiig, especially when you recall (what, without an effort, you 
would certainly forget) that you are in the midst of a, vast city ; qF, 


aoe 


at the most, barely.on ‘the ‘borders of it. Here is. a large velvet - - 


lawn, admirably kept, the surface gently undulating and stretching 
away indefinitély (to all appearance). on either side, losing itself 
amid belts and groups and masses of shrubs and. trees, with winding 
walks stealing off, heré and there, in the most inviting manner, to 
the right and left. At the end of the broad walk, at the farther 
side of the great lawn, which forms the central feature to the “gar- 


den, stands a. noble conservatory of immense size, with. lofty curved . 


roof; and-on either side of it:are small hot-houses, full of all the 
ie of the day, and all the treasures of the exotic: Flora. 

There cannot be a finer contrast, in point of tasteful arrangement 
and beauty of effect, than that which this garden presents to the 
arboretum at Derby. They were both formed about the same time, 
and the extent is not greatly different ; the whole area of this place 
being only eighteen acres.* Here, the utmost beauty, variety, and 


interest are concentrated within these moderate limits. As you . 


enter, you are struck by the Breads and extent of the broad. velvet 


* It gains greatly by ee in the midst of the Regent’ Park, with its, . 
boundaries concealed. by thickets, over which the trees i in the park make a ‘ 


: pleasingly indefifite backgr ound, 


THE BOTANIC GARDEN IN REGENT’S PARK. 519 


lawn. As you ramble about the finely planted and well grown 
walks, which form the border to this lawn—now quite coricealed 
from all observation in a thicket of foliage—now emerging upon 
some pretty garden vista, and again opening upon a little’ separate 
nook, devoted to some single kind of culture, as groups of rhodo- 
dendrons, or American plants, or a flower garden set. in turf, 
or a.roek-work filled. with . curious alpines — you imagine you 
have been introduced into some’ pleasure-grounds of, fifty acres, 
instead of the moderate compass of less than twenty. - The ‘sur- 
face is most. gracefully undulating, so as to give that play of light 
and shade—those sunny smiles, so pleasant in a lawn, and to pre- 
-vent your eye from ranging over too large a sweep at one time; 
_ and though this variation of surface was, as I was told, wholly the 
' work of art when the grounds were laid out; it has none of the’ stiff 
and hard look of the surface in the arboretum at Derby, but is 
charmingly like the most pleasing bits of natural flowing surface. I 
cannot, therefore, but believe that Mr. Marock, the able landscape 
gardener who laid out this place, convinced me by this single speci- 
men, that he isa man of great skill and refined taste in his art, I 
saw no new place abroad. laid out in a more entirely satisfactory 
manner. 

In order to give the garden a character aad purpose, beyond that 
of mere pleasure, grounds (although. enjoyment of it in the latter 
sense is the main object), a botanical arrangement and a medical 
arrangement of plants, are both very well carried out here—I believe 
for the use of the students of the London University. But instead 
of bringing these: scientific arrangements into the pleasure-ground 
portion, which meets the eye of the ordinary visitor of the’ garden, 
they are kept in one of the side scenes—quite in the background ; 
so that. though they add greatly to the interest; and general extent 
of the garden when sought for, they do not mar the Peeauty: or 
elegance of its conspicuous outlines. . 

In the great- conservatory, though the larger number of the 
plants were out in their summer quarters, the whole effect-was still 
extremely pleasing, from the noble specimens of certain sliowy sum- 
mer-blooming plants, growing here and there throughout | the open 
space, which was elséwhere turned into a broad gravel walk. These 


520  TRTTERS FROM ENGLAND. 


were either gigantie specimens of brugmansias, loaded with their 

, great white trumpet flowérs—enormous scarlet geraniunis, trained as 
pyramids, ten feet high, and: brilliant with bloom—rich passifloras, 

~ and other vines, climbing up the rafters, or- very finely grown exotics, 
‘in tubs or large pots.’ 

Among, thé latter, I noticed with atinilaticaent , fuchsias, grown 
like standard roses to a wonderful.size, running up with a perfectly 
a, straight stem sixteen feet high, and branching into a fine spreading 
or depending head of ‘foliage, studded at every point with their’ 
graceful ear-drops.; Fuchsia corrallina, among several species, was 
~ much the finest, treated in this way,—its lnxuriant dark foliage, and 

deep crimson-purple flowers being quite beautiful. 

I saw here two rareplants, which will, I think, be very fine de- 
corations to our gardens in summer. The first:is Habrothamnus 
-elegans ; a plant from Mexico, which, it is thought, may stand the 
winter here.* It was planted in the ground here, and trained to’a 
pillar some ten or bwelge feet high. The end of every branch wap 
loaded with’ clusters: of ‘fine dark pink flowers (of the tint of a ripe 
Antwerp raspberry).; and I was told it blooms without, interruption 
from spring to winter. The size, color, and profusion’ of the blossoms 
are striking, and the whole plant is extremely showy. The second 
favorite is the Cestrumonirantiacum ; a greenhouse shrub, lately’in. 
troduced: from Guatemala. It-grows six or eight feet high, with fine | 
luxuriant ‘shoots, and is loaded all summer with rich clusters of 

‘goldén’ buff blossoms—very ornamental. Both ‘these plants made 
a gtand display here in the conservatory,. planted in the ground,and. 
trained to the columns; but if I am not greatly mistaken, both will 
thrive equally well inthe United States, if turned out in the open 
border, and trained:up to stakes like the dablia,—the roots coe 
taken up and houséd i in winter. 

. The society of: subscribers. to whom this garden belongs have 
a or three horticultural shows in the grounds, every. year, which 
aré among the most brilliant’ things of the.kind on ‘this side of the 
‘Aflantic. On these occasions, the grounds are open to any one who 
chooses to parchast tickets, and are enone by thousands of visit- 


*I think My. Buist has introduced thia fine plant, and has it in his nur- 
sery. 


THE BOTANIC GARDEN IN, REGENTS PARK. 521 


ors, The display of fruits and. flowers takes place in large tents 
and marquées, pitched: on the lawn, and bands of music perform in 
the gardens. All the élite of the West End of London are here ; for 
in London, horticultural slfows are even more fashionable chan the 
opera ; and a gayer or more beautiful sight i is not easily found. At 
’ the last festival of this sort, the great novelty was a magnificent plat, 
or garden of rhododendrons, of all colers; the plants, in full bloom, : 
were large and finely-grown specimens, sent beforehand from various 
nursery gardens fifty. or one hundred miles off, planted here in a_ 
scene by themselves, where they bloomed i in the samé perfection as 
if they had grown here for a dozen years. 
I was exceedingly gratified with this subscription garden, and 
examined it in all‘its details with great attention. In its tasteful 
arrangement, its moderate extent, its management and its position, it 
afforded the finest possible type for a similar establishment near one 
-of our largest cities. Here are eighteen acres of the most exquisite 
lawn, pleasure-grounds, and conservatory, wholly created and main- 
tained. by.sixteen hundred individuals, and“€njoyed by, perhaps, five 
or six thousand persons more—their friends at all times. Here isa 
fine example of the art of landscape-gardening, which, if it were 
near New-York, Philadelphia, or Boston, so that it could be seen 
by those who are anxious to learn, would have a great influence on 
the taste of the country in-ornamentel gardening ; here is the most 
perfect exhibition ground, for the shows of a horticultural society, 
that can be imagined or devised ; and here-is a scientific arrange- 
inent of plants, for-the study of bolanteal and medical classes, —the 
living plants arranged according to the best system. Half the money 
which has been paid annually into the credit account of the ceme- 
teries of Greenwood, Mount Auburn, or-Laurel Hill, would, keep up 
in the very highest condition (as this garden i is kept), one like it in 
the neighborhood of any of our cities. And the precincts.of the 
Elysian fields, near New-York—Brookline, near Boston—on the 
‘banks of the Wissahicon, near Philadelphia, would be as fine loca- 
-Kities for such subscription gardens as Regent’s Park is for- London. 
If our citizens, who have the money, could come here and see what 
it will do, expended in this way, I am sure they would not hesitate 
to.subseribe the “needful.” 5 


\ 


TW. 7 
THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 


i ‘ August, 1850.: 
1OUR days in the Isle of ¢ Wight the wéather,, the climate, 

and the scenery, all delightful. The Island itself, about fifteen 
iniles long, is England in miniature—with. its. hedges; green lawns, 
soft-tufted verdure—now* and then a great house, and plenty of, 
ornée cottages. In some respects it fell below, but in- many, fully 
equalled: my expectations. Ifyou think of it as the “ Garden. of 
England,” it will disappoint you,for there are counties in England 
—for example, Warwickshire-—better cultivated, and more soignéé,’ 
than this spot. A considerable ‘portion’ of the Island—especjally 
the western end, is neither cultivated fields nor gardens, but broad 
downs and high’ bluffs. ‘I should say that you would get the best 
idea of the Isle of Wight, without seeing it, by imagining it com: 
posed partly of Nahant, and partly of Brookline—near’ Boston 
the prettiest rural nest of ‘cottage villas in America. The bare grass 
slopes and bluffs of Nahant, will correspond to the western part of. 
the Isle of Wight, while the suburbs of Boston, that: I have men- 
tioned, are a very fair offset’to thé more decorated: arid cultivated 
cottages and grounds of the eastern and southern portions. 

You cross from Southamiptoti tothe Island, in rather less than 
an hour, by one of the small mail steamers plying here. The 
towns of East’ and West Cowes, where you land, as well as Ryde, 
which is a few miles further, have quite a gay appearance at this 
season of the year, from the harbors being filled with the pretty 
vessels of the various yacht olubs; that hold their regaitas here— 


. 


THE ISLE OF WIGHT, 523 


snd the aceommodation at the hotels ia, for the time at least, brought 
up to the style and prices which the titled yachtmen. naturally 'be- 
get. The flag of the admiral of ‘this fancy fleet, the Earl of Yar 
horough, floated from the’ mast of his fast-looking vessel, and a va- 

‘riety of craft, of all sizes, lying ‘about her, gave the whole neighbor. 
hood an air of gieat life and animation. 

Our party, three in number, took one of the light, open -car- 
riages, with which the Island abounds, and started, the. next morning 
after our atrival,.to explore it’ pretty thoroughly. 

The neighborhood of East Cowes, abounds with pretty seats, and. 
on the opposite shore, ate numberless little cdttages, by the side of 
the water, “ to let,” with all the cosy furniture in-doors, of English 
domestic life, and out-of-door accompaniments of trees and shrubs. 
and overhanging vines, that gave them a very inviting appedrance 
Although” I had never lived under the authority of a landlord,/] 
could find nothing but temptations to become a lessee of such pretty 
domicils as these. ‘They look so truly home-ish, and tell you at 
glance, such a story of years of the tenderest' care and.attention,.in 
all that makes a cottage charming, that they make one long to stoy 
acting: the traveller, and nestle.down in the bosom of that ‘peseehtt 
domestic life, which they suggest. 

A: short distance, perhaps a mile, from Shes is 5 Osbotne House 
—the marine residence of Victoria. This place is her private pro 
perty, and having been almost wholly erected within a few -yeari 
fpast, may be said to afford a tolerable index to the taste of her Ma 
jesty. The residence is an extensive villa, in the modern Italiar 
style, with a front of -perhaps two hundred feet, and the outlines 
picturesquely broken by tower or campanile. _ It stands in the mids 
of a sandy plain, which: is level around the house and towards the 
road, and undulating and broken towards the sea—of which it com. 
mands fine views. 

It is fenced off from the highway by a close, rough board.“ parl 
paling,” some . seven or eight feet. high. Within this fence is 
belt of young trees, and scattered here and there, over the surface 
of most of the ‘inclosure, are groups and-patches of smal] trees anc 
shrubs, newly planted. .The whole place has, most completely, the 
look of: the pretentious place of some of our wealthy men at home 


§24 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 


who, turning t their backs upon the numberléss fine. natural sites, with, 
which. our country abounds, choose the barest and baldest situation, 
in order that they may dig, delve, level and grade, and spend half 
their fortunes, i in doing ; what nature has, not a mile distant, ‘offered 
to them ready made, and a thousand times more beautifully, done. 
Osborne ‘House may bea toler able residence (we mean ‘respecting 
“its. out-of: door pleasure) fifty years hence ; but it is almost the only 
country-seat that we saw in England, that tocked thoroughly raw and’ 
- uncomfortable. I suppose, in a country where every thing. seems 
finished, there is a- singular pleasure in taking a place i in the rough, 
and working: ‘beauties out of tameness and insipidity. . ‘The Queen 
lives here, and walks and drives about the neighborhood, in a com- 
patatively simple and unostentatious manner, and attracts very little. 
attention, dnd her husband practises farming and’ planting , quite in: 
good earnest. } 
A country-seat, éaly a saile distant, in a thoroughly English 
taste, was a complete contrast to~the foregoing, and gave us _Breat, 
pleasure. This is Norris Castle, built by. Lord Seymour, but now' 
the property of: Mr. Bell, who resides here. Neither the place, nor 
the house, is Jarger than several on the Hudson, and the grounds 
reminded me, in the simple lawn.or park, sprinkled with fine groups 
of. trees, of Livingston Manor and Ellerslie. The house gave me 
greater pleasure, | than any modern castellated building that I have 

seen 5 partly because it was simple, and essentially domestic-looking, 
and yet, with a fine relish of antiquity about it. The facade may, 
perhaps, be one hundred and thirty feet, and ‘I was never more sur- 

prised than when I learned that the whole was erected, quite lately. 
The walls are of gray stone, rather rough, and they get 4a large part 
of their beauty from the luxuriant vines that festoon every part of 
the castle. The vines are the Ivy, and our Virginia, creeper, ‘intér- 
mingled, and as both cling to'the stone, they form the most pictur- 
ésque drapery, which has, in a few years, reached to the top of the 
battlemented tower, and given a mellow and venerable character to 
the whole. edifice. 

We dined at Newport, the substantial, little town, which, lying 

nearly in the centre of the Island, serves as its capital and principal 
market, The We of Wight, enjoying, as it, does, a. wholly: insulated 


#3 
, 


‘THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 525 


position, is almost the only English ground not interlaced by rail- 
roads, ' For this season, the genuine stage-coach, now comparatively 
‘obsolete elsewhere, still flourishes here, and still carries a number of 

passengers outside, quite at variance with all our ideas of safety. 
and speed. The ¢ guard, who accompanies these coaches, usually per- 
forms an obligato on the French horn or key bugle, just before the. 
coach starts—and L performs it too, with so much spirit “and taste, 
that it was not without some difficulty I could resist the temptation 
to jéin- his party. Progress, and. the spirit ‘of. the times, though 
they give us most ‘substantial benefits, in the shape of railroads, étc., 
certainly do not add to the poetry of life—as I thought when I 
compared the ‘delicious air‘of Bellini, played by the ‘coach guard, 

with the horrible screams of the steam-whistle of the locomotive— 
- now associated with thé travel of all christendom. 

_ It is but a mile from Newport to Carisbrook Castle—one of the 
most interesting ‘old ruins in England. It’ crowns a fine hill, and 
from the top of its ruined towers, you’ look over a lovely landscape 
of hill and vale, picturesque villages, and green meadows. The 
ie itself, with its fortifications, covers perhaps half a*dozen acres, 
’ and is just in that state of ruin and decay, best. calculated to excite 
the imagination, and send one upon a voyage into dream-land. 
You clamber over the patapets, and look out from amid the mould- 
ering ‘battlements, mantled with the richest masses of i ivy, and: see 
wild trees growing in the very centre of what were once stately 
‘apartments. Here is the very window from which Charles I. vainly 
endeavored to make his escape, when he was a prisoner within. 
these walls, two hundred years ago (1647). I felt tempted to ques- 
tion the stone walls around me, of the ‘sad soliloquies which they 
had heard uttered by:that- royal prisoner and his children, confined 
here after him. But the , stone looked silent and cold; the’ ivy,. 
however, so full of mingled life and health and antiquity, seemed 
full of the mysterious secrets of the place, and would, doubtless, 
have unburdened itself to a willing ear, if any such would linger 
"here long enough to get. into its confidence. -I looked down into 
‘the vast well, in the centre of the castle, three hundred feet deep, 
_and still in excellent order—fr om which water is drawn by an’ ass, 

walking his slow rounds inside a large windlass wheel. I ‘clambered 


526 - LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 


up: the severity-two stone steps that led into the high old ruined 

keep, and found one of my companions (who is a military man) 

discoursing to a little group'of tourists,-who had made a Picnic ‘on 

‘the ramparts, about the nature-of the fortifications—breastworks— 

and bastions, which cover’ some’ fifteen or twenty acres under the 

castle walls,’ While he was demonstrating how easily this ancient 

stronghold could be taken by a modern benieoe, I speculated on 

the quiet way in which a few types and a ‘printing ‘press are, at the 

_present’ moment, far' more -powerful restrainers of wayward sov- 

ereigns, and more: able. protectors of the rights of the people, thaii 

the fierce battlements, and standing war. tlogs, of, the old castles of ¢ 
two centuries ago. The imagination is’ so excited by these strong. 
old castles, now fast crumbling into dust, that we wonder what. the 

people of two hundred -years hence will Have, to be:romantic and 

picturesque about, as emblems of power in a by-gone age. An old 

printing- press, or galvanic battery, perhaps ! No—even they ‘will 

be melted up for their value, as old metal. : 

We dove from Carisbrook, to the extreme end of the Iland— 
saw the Needles, the volored sands, and the white ’cliffs of Albion, 
and returned by the south side. What pleased me more than even 
the sea views, and the -bold bays, and snowy cliffs (perhaps from 
novelty}, were the Downs—those long reaches’ of gently sloping sur- 
face, covered with very short’ grass—as close and fine as the finest 
lawn. They are so’ smooth and -hard, and. the air is so pure and 
exhilarating, the temperature so bracing and delightful, that one is 
tempted into walking—or even running—miles and miles, upon 
them. Here and there, mingled with the grass; on the breeziest’. 
parts.of the Downs, 1 saw tufts of heather, in full bloom, only two" 
or three inches high—their purple’ bells embroidering, as with the 
most delicate pattern, the: fragrant turf. “Herds of sheep graze upon 
these Downs, andthe flavor of the mutton, as you may suppose, is 
not despised by those who cannot liye uporr air, however elnstig and 
exhilarating. : 

All over the Island, the. roads, sometimes ‘ronda often’ 
mere narrow lanes—are bordered by high hawthorn hedges—so 
that frequently you drive for a mile or more, without getting a peep 

beyond these leafy walls of verdure. I could imagine that in May, 


THE ISLE QF WIGHT. Zp <t 527 


when these hedges are all white with blossoms,.the whole Island 
-must.’be a very, gay-landscape—but just now, they only served to 
‘ confirm me in my opinion of, the Englishman’s fondness for seclu- 
sion_and privacy, in his own demesne. Just in proportion, to the 
smallness of his place, his desire to shut out all the rest of the world 
increases—so that if he only owns half an acre, his hedge shall be 
eight feet high, and the sanctity of the paradise within remains in- 
violate. The solid, high, well-built stone wall around some of the 
little cottage and villa places, of half an acre, on the south side of 
‘the Island, astonished me, and gave me,a new understanding of the 
saying, that “every man’s house is his castle.” Here, at least, I 
thought, it is clear that people understand what is meant by private 
‘rights, and intend-to have them respected. ei 
_ It was not until I reathed the, pretty villages of Bowchurch, 
Shanklin, and Ventnor, that my ideal of the Isle of Wight. was re- 
alized. “These villages lie on the south side of the Island, backed 
_ by steep hills, and sloping to the sea. The climate is almost per- 
fection. It is neither, hot in summer norcold in winter, and though: . 
open to all the sea-breezes, the latter seem shorn of all their violence 
here. The consequence is, they enjoy that perfect marriage of the 
land and sea so rarely witnessed in northern climates. The. finest 
groves and woods, the richest shrubbery and. flower-gardens, the 
‘most, emerald-like glades of turf, here run down almost to the beach, 
and you have.all the hixuriant beauty of vegetation, in its loveliest 
forms, joined to all the sublimity, life and excitement.of the ocean 
views, As to the climate, you may judge of-its mildness and uni- 
formity, when I ‘tell you that ‘the bay trees of the Mediterranean 
grow here on the lawns, as luxuriantly as snow-balls do at. home, and’ 
fachsias, as tall as your head, make rich masses in almost every 
garden, and stand the winter as well here, as lilacs or syringoes do 
with us. In the neighborhood of Shanklin, I saw a charming old 
parsonage house—the very picture of spacious ease and ¢omfort— 
with its great bay windows, its picturesque gables, and its thatched 
roof—quite émbowered in tall myrtles—Roman myrtles—one of 
our cherished green-house plants, that here. have grown thirty, or, 
forty feet high, quite aboye the eaves ! Bays, Portugal Jaurels, hol- 
, ties and China roses, surround this parsonage, and never lose their 


528 LETTERS: FROM ENGLAND. 


‘freshness and verdure (the owner assured me that the roses bloomed 
all winter long), cheating the inhabitants into the belief that: winter 
‘is an allegory, or if not, has ‘only a substantial existence i in Toeland 
or Spitzbergen. : op 
Then-the hotels here—especially i in Benita “ase! eel To- 
mantic in their rural beauty. ‘Designed like the prettiest cottages, 
or rather. in a quaint and rambling style, half cottage and half villa,, 
the. roof covered with thatch, and the walls with ivy; jessamines, 
and perpetual roses, and set down in the midst of a charming lawn, 
and surrounded by. shrubbery, you feel the same reluctance to take 
the room which, the chambermaid—with the. freshest.of roses in her 
cheeks, and. the cleanest of caps' upon her head—shows you, as you 
would in hiring the apartutents, of some, tasteful friend’ in reduced 
circumstances. When you rise from yout dinner (admirably served), 
‘always 4 ina private parlor, the casement windows open. upon a vel- 
vety lawn, bright with masses of scarlet geraniums, verbenas, and tea, 
roses set in the turf, and you’ give yourself up to the profound con- 
viction that for snugness, and cosiness, and perfection. at a rural: i inn, 
the world can coxtain nothing better than ney be found in the, Isle 
of Wight. : ‘ 
Bonchurch disputes the palm with Shanklin, for haeaiiee and 
sylvan beauty. .We made a visit here to Capt. 8 of the Royal 
Navy, whose beautiful villa in the Elizabethan style; gave me an 
opportunity for indulgikg my architectural and antiquari ian taste to 
the utmost. Imagine an entrance through a rocky dell,-the steep 
sides of which are clothed with the richest chmbing Plants, between. 
which your carriage winds for some distance, passing. ‘under a light 
airy bridge, with festoons of ivy and. clusters -of blooming creepers 
waving over your head. You soon emerge upon the prettiest of 
little lawns, studded with fine. oaks, and running down to the very 
shore of the sea. On the left are shrubberies, Pleasure-gr ounds, 
kitcher and ‘flower gardens, all in their place, and though you think 
‘the place one of sixty or eighty acres, there are not above twenty: 

_ The house itself is one of the most picturesque | and agreeable 
residences, of moderate sizé that I have ever seen. Its interior, 
especially, unites architectural beauty, antique.character, and modern 
comfort, to a surprising degree. Every room seemed to have’ been. 


THE ISLE OF WIGHT, . 529 
oh, e 


studied, so that not a feature was omitted, or an effect lost, that. could 
add to, the pleasure or increase the beauty of a home of this kind. 

Tf Iwas delighted with the house, I was astonished with the 
furniture. It was all in the antique Elizabethan style— richly 
carved in dark oak or ebony. This is not very rare in England, and 
Thad seen a good deal’ of the same style in many of the great’ 
country mansions before. But almost every piece here, was either 
a masterpiece of’ workmanship, or marked by singular beauty of 
design, or of great historical interest. Yet the effect of the whole, 
and the adaptation to the uses of each separate room, had been con- 
sidered, so that the ensemble gave the impression of the finest unity 
of taste. Among the fine specimens which Lady 8: had the 
goodness especially to. make us acquainted with, I remember an 
exquisitely carved work-box once presented by Essex to Elizabeth, 
a curious silver clock that belonged to Charles I. (and was carried 
about with him in his carriage on his journeys); and a superbly 
carved, high bedstead, once Sir Walter Raleigh’s, and the couch of 
Cardinal Wolsey.. There was an old Dutch organ, bearing the date 
1592, of singularly beautiful workmanship, and still in perfect tone, 
Some rare and unique carved oak cabinets, of flemish origin one of 
.them with the history of John the Baptist carved in the different 
panels, challenged the most elaborate investigation. Of beautiful 
chairs, seats, and carved wainscot, there was the gréatest variety, 
and in short the house was at once a museum for-an antiquarian— 
and the most agreeable home to live in. 

This villa was built by a wealthy eccentrie—I think a bachelor 
~—who wholly finished the collection only a few years ago.. He 
carried his passion f for collecting very choice and rare antique furni- 
ture—especially that of undoubted historical interest—to such ‘an 
extent,'that it became a species of madness, and at ‘last led hima. 
through a very large fortune, and forced him to surrender the whole 
to his creditors., You may judge something of the cost of the fur- 
niture—every room in the house being well filled—when I tell you 
that fora single: Flemish cabinet, only remarkable for its superb 
carving, not for any history attached to it, he paid £900 (about 
$4,500). The property, when brought into market in the‘ gross, 

. 84 


530 LETTERS ‘FROM ENGLAND. 
was of course bought by the present owner at a. merely: nominal, 
‘sum, compared with its original cost. é 

England, though in the. main remarkable for its common sense, - 
abounds with instances like this, of large wealth applied to the in- 
dulgence of personal taste—to the building of a great mansion, the 
collection of books, pictures, or to the indulgence of personal whims 
or fancies, Thus the Earl of Harrington has in his seat near Derby, 
a peculiar spot of twenty or thirty acres, wholly filled with the rarest 
and -Ynost. beautiful evergreens in the world—where ‘araucarias and. 

deodars, bought when they were worth. five or ten guineas apiéce; 
are as plentiful now as hemlocks in Western New-York; where 
dark-green Irish yews stand along the walks like sable. sentinels and 
gold and silver hollies and yews are cut into peacocks, shepherds, 
and shepherdesses, and all manner of strange and fantastical’ whim- 

“sies. The conceit, though odd (I iad’a glimpse of it), is the finest 
specimen of its kind in the world—yet the owner—an old man.now 
—who has amused himself and spent vast sums on this garden for 
twenty-years past, will not let a soul enter it—unless it may be some 
gardener whom it is impossible to iinagine acritic. Even the Duke 
of Devonshire—so ‘the story goes—in. order to get a sight of it 
went incog. as a kitchen gardener. The Duke of Marlborough,. a 
few years ago, had a private garden at Blenheim, surrounded by a 
‘high wall, into- which even his own brother had not ‘been admitted. 
You see even the most amiable qualities of the heart—those which 
lead us to make our homes happy—occasionally run into a mono- 
mania. 

I left the Isle of Wight with the feeling that if I should. ever 
need the nursing of soft airs and kindly influences in a foreign land, 
I should try to find my way back to it again. Even one, blest with 
excellent health, and usually insensible to the magical influence which 
most, persons find in a change of air, finds something added: to the 
pleasurable sensation of breathing and taking exercise, in the. de- 
licious summer freshness of this spot. 

There is another memorandum which I made here and which i is 
worth relating. In England at large, the great wealth of the landed 
aristocracy, and the enormous size of their establishments, raises‘ the ‘ 
houses and gardens to a scale so far ‘above ours, that they are not 


THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 531 


directly.-or practically instructive to Americans. In the Isle of. 


Wight, on the other hand, are numerous pretty cottages, villas and 
country houses, almost precisely on a ‘transatlantic scale as to the 
first. cost and the style of living. For this reason, one who can only 
learn by seeing the thing dene to a scale that he can easily measure, 
should come to the Isle of Wight to study how to get the most for 
his money—rather than to Chatsworth or Eaton Hall. And it is 


this kind of rural beauty, the, tasteful embellishment of small. places, . 


for which the United ‘States will, I am confident; become celebrated 
in fifty years more. 


‘VIL 


‘WOBURN ABBEY. 
“September, 1850. 
RECEIVED in London, a note from the Duke of Bedford, which 


led me, while I was in Bedfordshire, to make a visit to: Nv bunt 
Abbey. : 


lishments in the kingdom. It is fully equal to Chatsworth, but quite 
in another way. Chatsworth is semi-continental, or rather it is the 
‘concentration of every ‘thing that European art can do to ‘embellish 
and render beautiful a great country residence. Woburn Abbey is 
thoroughly English ; that is, it does not aim at beauty; so much as 
grandeur of extent and substantial completeness, | united with the 
most systematic and thorough administration of the whole. Besides 
this, it interested me much as the home, for exactly three centuries,.” 
of a family which has adorned its high station by the highest vir- 
ties, and by an especial devotion:to the interests of the soil.* The 
present Duke of' Bedford is one of the largest and most scientific 
farmers in England, and his father, the late Duke, was not only an 
enthusiastic agriculturist, but the greatest arboriculturist, and botanist 
of his day, whose works, both: practical and literary, made their 
mark upon the age. 
The Woburn estate consists of about. thirty thousand acres of 


* The first John Russell, Duke of Bedford, came into possession of this 
estate, in 1549, and it has-descended in the family ever since. In one of the 
apartments of the palace is a ser ies of miniatyre portraits of the heads of the 
family in an unbroken line, for 300 years. 


This is considered one of the most complete ee om estab- oe 


WOBURN ABBEY. 533 


land. ‘There is a fine park’of three thousand acres. You enter the 
, approach through a singularly rich avenue ‘of evergreens, composed 
of a belt perhaps one hundréd feet broad, sloping down like an am- 
phitheatre of foliage, from tall Norway spruces and pines in the 
background, to rich hollies and Portugal laurels in front. This 
continues, perhaps, half a mile, and then you leave it and wind 
through an open park, spacious and grand—for a couple of miles 
_—till you reach the Abbey. This is not a building in an antique 
“style, but a grand and massive pile in the classical manner, built 
about the middle of the last century on the site of the old Abbey. 
I have said this place seemed to me essentially English. The first 
sight of the. house is peculiarly so. It is built of Portland stone, 
and has that miossy, discolored look which gathers about even mo- 
dern buildings in this damp , climate, and which we in America 
know nothing of, under our pure and bright skies—where the fresh- 
ness of stone remains unsullied almost any length of time. 
‘Woburn Abbey-is a large palace, and containing as it does the 
accumulated luxuries, treasures of art, refinements, and comforts of 
so old and wealthy a family (with an income of nearly a million 
of our money),.you will not be surprised when I say that we have 
nothing with which to compare it. . Indeed, I believe Woburn is 
considered the most complete house in England, and that is saying 
a good deal, when you remember that there are 20,000 private 
_ houses in Great Britain, larger than our President's House. To get 
“an idea of it, you must imagine a square mass, about which, exter- 
nally—especially on the side fronting the park—there is little to im- 
press you; only the appearance of large size and an air of simple 
dignity. Imagine this quadrangular pile three stories high, on the 
_ park or entrance front, and two: stories high on the garden‘or rear, 
and over two hundred feet in length, on each side. The drawing- « 
room floor, though in the second story, is therefore exactly on a 
level with the gardens and pleasure-grounds in the rear, and the 
whole of this large floor is occupied with an unbroken suite of. 
superb apartments—drawing-rooms, picture galleries, music-rooms, 
library, etc.—projecting and receding, and stealing out and in among 
the delicious scenery of the pleasure-grounds, in the most agreeable 
‘manner. There is a noble library with 20,000 volumes; a gallery, 


584 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 


one hundred and forty feet long, filled with fine sculpture (among 
other things the original group of the three graces, by Canova), 
and a sort of wide corridor running all around the quadrangle, 
filled with cabinets of natural history, works of art, dc. and form- 
ing the most interesting in-door walk in dull weather. Pictures by 
the great masters, especially portraits, ‘these rooms are very rich in, 
and among. other things I noticed casts in. plaster; of alll the cele 
brated animals that were reared here by the late Duke. 

Now, imagine the quadrangle continued in the rear on one side 
next the sculpture gallery, through a colonnade-like side. series 
of buildings, including riding-house, tennis court, ete. a quarter of 
atmnile, to the stables, which are of themselves larger than most 
country houses ; imagine hot-houses and conservatories almost with- 
out number, orien’ with the house by covered passages, so as to 
combine the utmost comfort and beauty ; imagine an aviary con- 
sisting of a cottage and the grounds about it fenced in and filled 
with all manner of birds of brilliant and ‘beautiful plumage; ima-* « 
gine a large dairy, fitted up in the Chinese style with a fountain in 
the middle, and the richest porcelain vessels for milk and butter ; 
imagine a private garden of bowers and trellis work, embosomed in: 
creepers, which belongs especially to the Duchess, and you have a 
Kind of sketchy outline of the immediate accessories of. Woburn 
_Abbey. They occupy the space of a little village in. themselves ; 
but you-would gather no idea of the luxury and comfort they afford, 
did you for a moment forget that the whole is ‘managed with that 
order and’ system which are nowhere to .be found so perfect:as in 
England. I must add, to give you ariother idea of the establish- 
ment, that a hundred beds’ are made up daily for the family and 
household alone, exclusive of guests, The pleasuré-grounds, which 
surround three sides of-the house, and upon which'these rooms open, 
are so beautiful and complete that you must allow me to dwell upon 
them a little. ‘They consist of a series of different’ gardens merging 
one into the other, so as to produce a delightful variety, and: cover- 
ing a space of many acres—about which T walked in so bewildered 
a state of delight-that I am quite unable to say how large they are. 
I know, however, that they contain an avenue of araucarias backed 
by another of Deodar cedars in the most luxuriant growth—each 


WOBURN ABBEY. 535 


line upwards of 1,000 feet long. .A fine specimen of the latter tree, 
twenty-five or thirty feet high, attracted my attention, and there 
was another, twenty-five feet, of the beautiful Norfolk Island pine, 
growing in the open ground, with ‘the shelter of a glazed frame in 
winter. These pleasure-grounds, however, interested me most in 
that portion called the American garden—several acres of sloping 
’ velvety turf, thickly dotted with groups of rhododendrons, azaleas, 
 &c., forming the richest masses of dark green ‘foliage that it is pos-, 
sible to.conceivée. In the months of May and June, when these are 
in full bloom, this must be a scene of almost dazzling brilliancy. 
The soil for them had all been formed artificially,and consisted of a 
mixture.of peat.and white sand, in which the rhododendrons and 
kalmias seemed: to. thrive admirably. 

Besides this scene, there is a garden composed sohially of heaths, 
the beds cut: in the turf, one species in éach bed, and full of delicate 
bells ; a parterre flower-garden in which a striking effect was pro- 

duced by contrasting vases colored quite black, with rich masses 
_ (growing in the vases) of scarlet geraniums. I also saw a garden 
' devoted wholly to willows, and another to grasses—both the most 
complete collections of these two genera in the world—the taste of 
the former Duke—and with which I was familiar beforehand, 
through the “ Salictum Woburnense,” and’ Mr. Sinclair’s work on 
the “ Grasses of Woburn.” 7 

The Liga is,the richest in large evergreens of any that I have 
ever seen. The planting taste of the former Duke has produced at 
the present moment, after a growth of fifty or sixty years, the most 
superb’ results. The Cedars of Lebanon—the most sublime and 
venerable of all trees, and the grandest of all evergreens, bore off 
the palm—though all the rare pines and firs that were known to 
arboriculturists half a century ago are here in the greatest perfection 
—including hollies and Portugal laurels which one is accustomed 
to think of as shrubs, with great trunks like timber trees and mag- 
nificent heads of glossy foliage. A grand old silver fir has’ a 
straight trunk eighty feet high, and a lover of trees could ‘spend 
weeks here without exhausting the arboricultural interest of the 
park alone—which is, to be sure, some ten or'twelve miles round. 

A very picturesque morceau in the park, inclosed and forming 


536 “LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 


‘a little scene by itsélf, is called the Thornery. It is an abrupt piece 
of grotind covered with a wild looking copse of old thorns, hazeis, - 
dog-woods and fantastic old oaks, and threaded by walks in various 
directions. In the centre is a most complete little cottage, with the 
neatest Scotch kitchen, little parlor and furniture inside, and a sort 
of fairy flower garden outside. 

All this may be considered: the ornamental portion of ‘Woburn, 
and I have endeavored ‘to raise such a picture of it in your mind as 
would most interest your readers. But’ you must remember that 
arming is the: pride. of Woburn, and that farming is here a matter 
of immense importance, involving the outlay of immense ‘capital, : 
and a personal interest and systematic attention which seems almost 
like managing the affairs of state. About half a mile from the: 
house is the farmery—the most complete group of farm buildings, 
perhaps, in the world, where the incoming harvest make a figure 
only equalled by the accommodations to receive it. Besides these 
there are mills and workshops of all kinds, and on the outskirts of * 
the park a whole settlement of farm cottages. I can only give-you 
an idea of the attention bestowed on details, and the interest taken in: 

‘the comforts of the immediate tenants by resorting ‘to figures, 
and telling you that the present Duke has expended £70,000 . 
_ (£850,000), within the. past five years, in the farm cottages on this 
estate, which are model cottages—combining | the utmost convenience 
and comfort for dwellings of this class, with so much of architectu- 
ral taste as is befitting to dwellings of this size. Of course, a large 
part of this estate is let owt to tenants, but still a large tract is ma- 
naged by the Duke himself, who pays more than 400 laborers. 
weekly throughout the year. The farming is very thorough, and 
the effects of draining in improving the land have been very strik- 
ing. Above fifty miles of drain have been laid, i in this estate alone, 
annually, for several years past. 
’ You will gather from this, that English’ agriculture i is not made 
a mere recreation, and that even-with the assistance of the most 
competent and skilful agents, the life of a nobleman, with the im- 
mense estate and the agricultural tastes of the Duke of Bedford, is 
one of constant dccupation and active employment. Besides this 


WOBURN ABBEY. 537 


estate, he has another in Cambridgeshire, called the “ Bedford 
Level”—a vast prairie of some 18,000 acres reclaimed from the 
sea, and kept dry by the constant action of steam’ engines, but which 


is very productive, and is, perhaps, the most profitable farm land in 
the kingdom. a 


vil. 


DROPMORE.—ENGLISH RAILWAYS.—SOCIETY. 
, fapeuiben,3 1850. 
ROPMORE is the seat of Lady Grenville, and has been cele- 
brated, for some time, for its collection of rare trees—especially 
evergreens. It is in the’ neighborhood. of Windsor, and I passed a 
moruing there with a good deal of interest. ° 
Tn point of taste and beauty, Dropmore disappointed me. ‘The 
site is flat, the soil. sandy and thin, and. the a rangement, in no way 
remarkable. The mansion is not so fine’as some upon the Hudson, ° 
and the scenery about it, does not rise above the dead level of a 
uniformity. rendered less jnaipid by abundant plantations. There is, — 
however, a wilderness of flower-garden- about: the house, in which-I 
saw scarlet geraniums. and garden. vases enough to embellish a 
whole village. The effect, however, was riant and gay without the 
sentiment of real beauty. 
_ , But one does. not go to Norway to drink sherbet, and Sa 
is only a show place ‘by virtue of its Pinetum.. This is. its collec~ 
tion of evergreen. trees, and. particularly of the’ pine tribe—every — 
species that will grow in England being collected in.this one place. 
, Of course, in a scientific collection of evergreen érees, there: are 
many that are only curious to the. botanist—many that are only valu- 
able for timber, and many that are almost ugly in their growth-—or 
.at least present, no. attractive feature to the general eye. But there 
are also; in this Pinetum, some: evergreens of such rare and wonder- 
ful beauty, growin g in such’ exquisite perfection of development, 
that they effect a iree-lover like those few finest Raphaels and Van- 


DROPMORE. 585 


dykes in the great galleries, which irradiate whole acres of com- 
mon art. 

The oldest and finest porticn of the Pinetum sieaipies a lawn of 
several acres near the house, upon which are assembled, like belles 
at a levee, many of those loveliest of’ ever greens—the araucaria or 
pine of Chili, the Douglass’ fir' of California, the sacred cedar of 
_ India, the funcebral cypress of J: apan, and many ‘others. 

Perhaps the finest tree in this scene is the Douglass’ fir (Abies 
Douglassit). Tt is sixty-two feet high, and has grown to this alti- 
tude in twenty-one years from the seed. It resembles, most the - 
Norway’ spruce, as one occasionally sees the finest form of that tree, 
having that graceful downward sweep of the branches arid feathering 
out quite down to the turf—but it is altogether more airy in form 
and of a richer and darker green in color. At this size it is the 
symbol of stately elegance. Here is also a specimen, thirty feet 
high, of Pinus insignis, the richest and darkest of all pines, as well 
as Pinus excelsa, one of the most affectedly pretty evergreens—its 
silvery leaves resembling those of the white pine, but drooping lan- 
guidly—and Pinus macrocarpa with longer leaves than those of 
the pinaster.* 

But thd gem of the collection is the ae Chili pine or arau- 
caria—the oldest, I think, in England, or, at all events, the finest. 
The seed was presented to the late Lord Grenville by William IVth 
——who had some of ‘the first gigantic cones of this tree that were 
imported. This spécimen is now thirty feet high, perfectly symme-_ 
trical, the stem’ as straight: as a column—the branches disposed 
with the’ utmost régularity,- and the lower ones drooping and 
touching the ground like those of a larch. If you will not smile, I 
will tell you that it. struck me -that the expression of this tree is 
heroic—that is, it looks the very Mars of evergreens. There are no 
slender twigs, no small branches—but a great stem with branches 
like a colossal bronze candelabrum, or perhaps the whole reminds 
one more of-some gigantic, dark green coral than a living, flexible 


%® Tawodium sempervirens is here seventeen feet high--rich. dark green in 
foliage and very ornamental. 073 ‘yptomeria Japonica, nearly as large, rather 
disappointed me—keeping its brown leaves so long as to disfigure the plant 
somewhat. Picea nobilis i isa tr uly beantifal fir tree. 


+ 


540 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 


tree. Yet itis a grand object—in its faclieet of dark green, its no- 
ble aspect, and its powerful, defiant attitude. This is quite the best 
specimen that I have seen, and stands in ‘a light, sandy soil on a 
gravelly’ bottom—on which soil, I was told, ¢ it only grows luxuriantly. ; 
I do not know how well this fine “evergreen ‘will sueceed at’ home. . 
It is now on trial—but I would hint to those who ‘may fail from 
planting it in rich damp soil, that even here, it completely fails in 
such situations. 

After leaving what I should call the Pinetum i in full dress—i. e.. 
in the highly-kept part of. the grounds: near the house, you emerge 
‘gradually into a tract of many acres of nearly level surface, which 
reminded me so strongly of a'scattered Jersey pine barren, that had 
it, not been for tufts and patches. of that charming little plant; the. 
heather in full bloom, growing wild on all sides, I might ‘have fan- 
cied myself in the neighborhood of Amboy. The whole looked, 
and much of it was, essentially wild, with, the exception of carriage- 
drives and foot-paths running through the mingled copse, heath and 
woodland. But I was soon convinced of the fact that it was not 
entirely a wild growth, by being shown, .here and there, looking 
quite as if they had come up by chance, rare specimens of pines, 
firs, cedars, etc., from all parts of the world, and presently T came 
upon a noble avenue, half a mile long, of cedars of Lebanon (a tree 
to which I always feel inclined to take off my hat as I would do, to 
an old cathedral). , The latter have been planted about twenty-five 
years, and are just beginning to merge the beautiful: i in the grand. 
Every thing in the shape of an’ evergreen seems to ‘thrive in this 
light sandy soil, and I suggest to the owners of similar waste land. 
in the middle and southern States, to take the hint from this part 
of Dropmore—plant here and there in the openings the same ever- 

‘green trees, protecting them by slight paling at first, and gradually 
clearing away all the common growth as they advance into beauty. 
“Th this way they may get a wonderfully interesting park—in soil 
where oaks and elms would never grow—at a very trifling outlay. 

I cannot dismiss Dropmore without mentioning a superb hedge 
of Portugal laurel, thirty-one feet high—and the beautiful.“ Burnam 
beeches,” almost as fine as one-ever sees in America, that I passed 
on the way back to the railway station. 


ENGLISH RAILWAYS. : 541 


The last word reminds me that I must say a word or, two hefe, 
. about the English railways,” In point of speed I think their reputa- 
tion outruns the fact. I did not find their average (with the excep- 
tion of the road between Liverpool and London) much above that 
of our best northern and eastern roads.” They make, for’ instance, 
hardly twenty miles: an hour with the ordinary trains, and about 
thirty-six miles an hour with the: express trains. But the perfect 
order and systemi with which they are managed; the obliging 
civility of all persons in the employment of the companies to travel- 
- Jers, and the quietness with which the business of the road is carried 
on, strikés an American very strongly. For example, suppose you 
are on a railroad at home. You. are about to approach a’ small 
town, where you may leave and take up,, perhaps, twenty passen- 
gers. As soon as the town is.in sight, the engine or its whistle be- 
gins to scream’ out—the bell rings—the steam whizzes—and the 
train stops. Out hurry the way passengers, in rush the new comers. 
Again the bell rings, the steam whizzes, and with a noise something 
between a screech and a yell, but more ‘infernal than either—a 
noise that deafens the, old ladies, delights the boys, and frightens all 
the horses, off rushes the train—whizzing and yelling over a mile 
or two more of the country, before it takes breath for the like pro- 
cess at the next station. 4 

In an English railway you seldom ‘hear the scream of the steam 
whistle at all. It is not considered part of the business of the en- 
gineer to ) disturb the peace of the whole neighborhood, and inform 
_ them that he and the train are’ coming. The guard at the station 
notices the train when it first comes in sight. He immediately rings 
a hand-bell, just loud enough to warn the passengers in _the station, 
to get yeady. - - The train arrives—no yelling, screaming—or whizzing 
—possibly a “gentle ‘letting off of the steam —quite a necessary 
thing—not at all for effect. The passengers get out, and others get 
in, and are all carefully seated by the ‘aforesaid guard’ or guards. 
When this is all, done, the guard of the station gives a tinkle or two 
with his hand- bell ‘again, to signify to the conductor that all is 
ready, and off ‘the train darts, as quietly asif it knew screaming to 
be a thing not tolerated i in good society. But the difference is na- 
* tional after-all. ‘Jobn Bull says in his railroads, as in every thing 


ee 


542 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 5 
aes , 


else, “ -steady-—all right.” Beiter Jonathan, “ clear the coast—ge 
ahead!” Still, as our most philosophical writer has said, it is only 
boys and savages who scream—men_ learn to control themselves— 
we hope to see the time when, our people shall find out. the advan- 
tages of possessing power without making a noise about it. 

If we may take a lesson, from the English in the management. of. 
railways, they might learn vastly more from us in the accommodation. 
of passengers. What are called “ first-class, carriages” on the Eng- 
lish rails, are thoroughly comfortable, in the. English sense of the 
word, They have.seats for,six—each double-cushioned, padded, and 
set-off from the rest, like the. easy chair of an alderman, in which. 
you can intrench yourself and imagine that the world was made 
for you alone. But only a small part of the travel in England is in 
first-class cars, for it-is a luxury that. must be paid for in hard gold 
—osting four or five times as much as the most comfortable travel- 
ling by railroad in the United States,- And the second-class cars— 
in- which. the great majority of the British people really, travelh— 
what are they.? 4 Neat boxes, in which you may sit down.on a per- 
fectly smooth board, and find out all the softness that lies in the 
grain of deal or good English oak—for. they are guiltless: of all 
cushions. Our neighbors of this side of the Aflantic have been so. 
long accustomed to catering for the upper class in this country, that 
the fact that the railroad is, the most ‘democratic: institution,-of the 
day, has not yet dawned upon them in all its. breadth. “An American 
rail-car, built to carry a large number in luxurious comfort, at a 
price that seems fabulous in England, pays better profits. by the im- 
mense travel it begets, than the ill-devised first and second-class. caz- 
riages, of the English railways. =~ 

But what finish and nicety in these English soni The ats 
all coyered with, turf, kept as nice as a lawn, quite down to the rails, 
and the divisions between the road and the lands adjoining, made. 
by nicely trimmed hedges, The larger-stations are erected in 80 ex- 
pensive and solid a manner as to have greatly impaired the profits 
of some of the roads. But the smaller ones are almost always built 
in the style. of the cotéage ornée—and, indeed, are some of the prete 
tiest and most picturesque rural buildings that I have seen in Eng- 
land. They all have their: little flower-gardens, generally: a parterra 


* SOOIETY. 548 


lying dpen quite to the edge of the rail, and looking like a gay car- 
pet thrown on the: ‘green sward. If the English are an essentially 
common sense people, théy, atleast, have a lové of flowers in all 
places, that has something quite: romantic in it. 

I reached London only to leave it-again in another direction, to 
accept a kind invitation to the country house of Mrs. , the 
distinguished authoress:of some charming. works of fiction-cahich 
are widely known in my country, though I shall not transgress Eng- 
lish propriety by. giving you a clew to her real name. - 

This place réminded me of home more than ‘any,that I have 
séen in England ; not, indeed, of my-‘own home fh the Hudson. 
highlands, with its bold river and mountain scenery, but of the gen- 
eral features of Ameri¢an cultivated landscape. The house, which 
is 'ndt unlike a country house of: good -size with us,-is situated on a 
hill which rises gently, but so high above the surrounding’ country, 
as to give a wide panorama of field and woodland, such as one sees 
from a height about Boston and Philadelphia. The. approach, and” 
part of the grounds, are bordered with plantations of forest-trees, 
which, though all paaiied, have been left. to themselves'so much as 

' to look quite like dur native after-growth at home. -The place, too, 
has not the thorough full-dress air of the great ‘English country 
places where I' have been staying lately, and, both in extent and 
keeping, is more: like a residence on the Hudson. : The house sits 
down: quite on a level with the ground, however, so that you can 
step. out of the drawing-room on the-soft grass, and. stroll to yonder 
bright ‘flower-garden, grouped réund the fountain dancing i in the 
stmshine, as if you were. ‘only going out of one room into another. 
In the library is'a great bay-window, and a spacious fire-place set in 
a deep recess lined with books, suggesting warmth and comfort at 
once, to both mind and body; and the air of the whole: Place, joined 

to the unaffected and cordial welcome from many kind voices, gavé 
me a feeling of maladie du pays that I had not felt before in England: - 

There: are no especial wonders of park or palace’ here, though 
there is a great deal of quiet beauty, and as I have, pérhaps, given 
you almost a surfeit of great places lately, you will not regret ity I 
look out of the’ windows, however, and see in abundance. here, as 
every where, those two. evergreens t .that enrich. “with their broad 


4 


544° LETTERS FROM ENGLAND, 


glossy leaves all English gardens and pleasure-grounds, and which 
I never cease to reproach for their monarchical habits—since they 
so obstinately refiise to be naturalized in our republic—I mean the 
English and Portugal laurels. .. id would give all the hot-house plants 
that Yankee glass covers, to: have: these two evergreens,as much at 
home in our pleasure-grounds as they are every where in England. 
There are other guests in the house—Sir Charles M 
Lady P., some Irish ladies without titles (but so rich in natural gifts 
as to mike one feel the poverty of mere rank), and a charming fam- 
ily of grown up daughters. It would be difficult, perhaps, to have 
a better opportunity to judge of the life of the educated middle 
class of this country, than in such homes as this. And what im- 
pressions do such examples make upon my mind, you will ask? I, 
will tell you (not without remembering how'many fair young read” 
ers you have at home). The young English woman is less conspic- 
uously accomplished than our yoyng women of the same position in’ 
America. , There is, perhaps, a little less of that je ne sais ca 
‘that namiéless grace which ‘captivates at first sight—than with us, 
‘but a better and more solid éducation, more disciplined minds, and. 
above all, more common sense. In the whole art of conversation, 
including all the topics of the day, with so much of politics'as makes 
@ woman really a companion for an intelligent man in his serious 
‘thoughts, in history, language, and pr. ractical knowledge of the duties 
of social and domestie life, the English. women haye, I i imagine, few 
superiors. But what, perhaps, would strike one of our young women 
most, in English society, would be the thorough cultivation and re- 
finement that éxist here, along with the absence of alb false delicacy. 

‘The fondness of English women (even i in the highest rank) for out- 
of-door life, horses, dogs, fine cattle, animals of all kinds,—for their. 
grounds, and in short ‘every thing that belongs to their homes— 
their real, unaffected knowledge of, and pleasure in these things,, and 
the unreserved way in which they talk about them, would startle 
some of my young friends at home, who are dusted’ in the fash- 
ionable boarding-school , of Madame to consider all such 
things “vulgar,” and “unlady-like.” I accompanied the younger 
members of the family here this morning, in an exploration of the 
mysteries of the place. No sooner did we.make our appearance out 


* soorsry, 545 


of doors, than we were saluted by dogs of all degrees, and each had 
the honor of an interview and personal reception, which seemed to 
be productive of pleasure on both sides. Then some of the horses 
were brought out of the stable, and a parley took place between 
them and their fair mistresses; some favorite cows were to be petted 
and looked after, and their good points. were descanted on with - 
knowledge and discrimination; and there was the basse cour, with 
‘its various population, all ienmed and shown with such lively, un- 
affected interest, that I‘soon saw my fair companions were “ born to 
love pigs and’ chickens.” ‘I have said nothing about the garden, be- 
cause you know. that it is especially the lady’s province here. An 
- English woman with no. tasté.for gardening, would be as great a 
marvel as an angel without wings. And now, were these fresh look- 
ing’ girls, who have so thoroughly entered into these rustic enjoy- - 
‘ments, mere country lasses and dairy maids? By no means, They 
‘will converse with you in three or four languages; are thoroughly 
well-grounded in modern literature; sketch’ from nature with, the 
ease of professional artists, and will sit down to the piano-forte and 
“give you an old ballad, or the finest German or Italian music, as 
gots taste may dictate. And yet many of my young countrywomen 
of ‘their age, whose ‘education—wholly ; intended for the drawing- 
room—is far below what I have described, would have half fainted 
with terror, and half blushed with false delicacy, twenty times in the 
course of the morning, with the discussions of the farm-yard, meadow 
and stables, which properly belong to a wholesome country life, and 
are not in the slightést degree at variance with réal delicacy and re- 
finement. I very well know that there are many sensibly educated 
’ young women at home, who have the same breadth of cultivation, 
and the same variety of resources, that make the English women 
such truly agreedble companions; but alas, I also know that there 
are many whose beau ideal is bounded bya circle that contains the 
latest fashionable dance for the feet, the latest fashionable novel for 
the head, and the latest fashionable fancy-work for the fingers. . 

If I have unconsciously run into something like a sermon, it is 
from the feeling that among my own lovely countrywomen’ is: to 
be found the ground- -work of the most perfectly attractive feminine 
character in the world. But of. late, their education has been a little 


35 


546 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 


vitiated by the introduation of the flimsiest: points of French sovial 
requirements——rather than the more solid and estimable qualities 
which belong to English domestic life. The best social development 
in America will, doubtless, finally result from an internal movement 
springing from the very bosom of our institutions ; but, fore that 
can happen, a preat many traits and refinements will nevessarily be 
borrowed from the old world—and the larger interests, healthier 
home tastes, and more thorough education of English women, seem 
to me hardly rated so highly by us as they deserve. Go to’ Paris, 
if you will, to see the most perfect taste in dress, and the finest’ 
charm of merely external manners, but make the acquaintance of 

» English women if you wish;to get a high idea of feminine character 
as it should be, to command your sineenest and most lasting admi- 
ration and respect. 


VI. 
THE LONDON PARKS. 


September, 18650. 
Y DEAR SIR:—If my English letters have told you mostly 
of country places, and country life, it is not that I have been 
insensible to sight-seeing in town. London is a great world in it- 
self. ‘Ink enough. has, however, already been ‘expended upon it to 
fill ‘the Grand Canal, and still it is a city which no one can undér 
stand without seeing it. Tts vastness, its grave aspect -of business, 
the grandeur of some parts, the poverty of others, the. air of order, 
and the taint of smoke, that pervade it every where, are its great 
features. To an American eye, accustomed to thé clear, pure, trans- 
atlantic atmosphere, there is, at first, something really repulsive in 
the black and dingy look of almost all buildings, whether new or 
old (not painted within. the last month). In some of the oldest, 
like Westminster Abbey, it is an absolute covering of dirty soot. 
That hoary look of, age which belongs to a time-honored building, 
and which mellows and softens all its lines and forms, is as delicious 
to the sense of sight as the tone of old pictures,’or the hue of old 
wine. But there is none of this in the antiquity of London. You 
are repelled by the sooty exterior of all the old facades, as you would 
be by that of 4 chimney-sweep who has made the circuit of fifty 
flues in a morning, and whose outer man would almost defy an en- 
tire hydropathic institution. 
If I have shown you the dark side of the picture of the great 
Metropolis, first, let me hasten ‘to present you with some of its lights, 


548 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 


which made a much stronger impression upon me. I mean the 
‘grand and beautiful. parks of London.. - 

‘If every thing one sees in England leads gne to the ‘conviition 
__ that the English do not, ‘like the French and Germans, possess the 
genius of high art, there is no denying that they far surpass all 
other nations in a, profound sentiment of ‘nature. Take, for exam- 
ple, the West end of London, and what do you’ see there?’ Mag- 
nificent palaces, enormous piles of dwellings, in ‘the shape of “ ter- 
‘races,” “ squares,” and“ places ”—the same costly town architecture , 
that you find every where in the better portions of: populous and* 
wealthy capitals. But if you ask me what is the peculiar and dis: ~’ 
__ tinguishing Iucury of this part of London, I answer, in its holding 
the countty in its lap. In the midst of London lie, in an'almost 
connected. series, the great parks, Hyde Park, Regent’s Park, St. 
James's and Green Parks.~ These names. are almost as familiar to 
‘you as the Battery and Washington Square, and I fear you labor 
under the delusion that the former are only an enlarged edition of ¥ 
the latter. Believe me, you have fallen into as great an error as if » 
you took the “ Brick meeting-house” for a suggestion of St. Peter's. - 
The London parks’ are actually like districts of open country—mead- 
ows and fields, country estates, lakes and- streams, gardens and 
shrubberies, with as miuch variety as if you weré in the heart of 
Cambridgeshire; and as much seclusion in some parts, at certain 
hours, as if you were on a farm in-the interior of Pennsylvania. 
And the whole is laid out and treated, in the ‘main, with a broad 
and noble feeling of natural beauty, quite ‘the reverse of what’ you 
see in the public parks of the continental cities. This makes these 
parks doubly refreshing to citizens tiréd of straight lines and for- 
mal streets, while the contrast heightens the natural charm: Unac- 
customed to this breadth of imitation of nature—this creating’ a 
‘piece of wide-spread country large enough to shut out for the time 
all trace of the houses, though actually in’ the midst of a city, an. 
\. American is always inclined ‘to believe (notwithstanding the abun- 
dance of ‘evidence to the contrary) that the London parks are a bit 
of the native country, surprised: and fairly taken prisoner by the. 
outstretched arms of this giant of modern cities. 

St. James’s Park and Green Park are enormous pieces of' real 


THE LONDON PARKS, 549 


pleasure-ground scenery—with broad glades of turf, noble trees, 
rich masses of shrubbery and flowering plants—lakes filled with 
rare water-fowl, and, the proper surroundings, in fact, to two royal 
palaces and the finest private houses in London ; but still, all open 
to the enjoyment of hundreds of thousands: daily. - You look, out 
upon the forest.of yerdure in Gréen‘' Park, as you sit-in the windows 
of. our present minister’s fine mansion in Piccadilly, astonished at 
the breadth and beauty of the green landscape,.which seems to you 
more like a glimpse into one of the loveliest pleasure-grounds on 
the Hudson, than the belongings of the great Metropolis. 

But the pride of London is in Hyde Park and Kensington . 
Gardens, which, together, contain nearly eight hundred acrés, so 
that you have to make a circuit of nearly: seven miles to go over 
the entire circumference. If you enter Hyde Park between seven 
and eight in the morning, when all the world of fashion is asleep, 
you will fancy, after you have left the great gateways-and the fine 
collosal statue of Achilles far‘enough behind you to be quite out of 
sight, that you have made a mistake and strolled out into the coun- 
try unawares. Scarcely a person is to be seen at: this time of day, 
unless it be some lonely foot-passenger, who looks as if he had lest 
his way, or his wits, at this early hour. But yousee broad grass 
meadows with scattered groups of trees, not at-all unlike what you 
remember on the smooth banks of the Connecticut, and your im- 
pression that you have got astray and quite out of the reach’ of the 
“Metropolis, 1 is confirmed by hearing the tinkle of sheep-bells and 
seeing flocks of these and other pastoral creatures, feeding quietly 
on the short turf of the secluded portions of the park. You walk 
on till you are quite weary, without finding the end of the matter 
—for Kensington. Gardens, which is only another and a larger park, 
is but the continuation of Hyde Park—and you turn back in a sort 
of béwildered astonishment at’ the vastness and wealth of a city 
which can afford such an illimitable space for the pleasure of air 
and exercise of its inhabitants. 

That is Hyde Park in dishabille. Now go in again with me in 
the afternoon, any time during the London season, and you shall 
see the same place in full dress, and so altered and animated by 


550 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 


the dramatis persone, that you will hardly identify it as the locale 
of the solitary country ramble you took in the morning. * 

It is half past four in the afternoon, and the fashionable world 
(who dine at-seven all over England) is now taking its morning air- 
ing. If you will sit down on one of these solid- -looking seats under 
the shadow of this large elm, you will see such a display of equi- 
page, pass you in the cousre of a single hour, as no other park of the 
world ‘can parallel. This broad, well-macadamized carriage-drive, 
which makes a’ circuit of some four or five miles in Hyde Park, is, 
at this moment, fairly filled with private carriages of all degrees. 
Flere are heavy coaches and four, with postilions and footmen, and 
massive carriages emblazoned with family crests and gay with all 
the brilliancy of gold and crimson liveries ; yonder superb barouche 
‘with eight . spirited horses and numerous outriders, is the royal 
equipage, and as you lean forward to catch. a glimpse of. the sov- 
ereign, the close coach of the hero of Waterloo; the servants with 
cockades in their hats, dashes past you the other way at a rate so 
rapid that you doubt if he who rides within, i is out merely for an 
airing. Yonder tasteful turn-out’ with liveries of a peculiar delicate 
mulberry, with only a single ‘tall figure i in the coach, is the Duke ‘of. 
Devonshire’s. Here is the carriage of one of ‘the foreign ambassa- 
dors, less showy and lighter than. the | English vehicles, and that 
pretty phacton drawn by two beautiful blood ’ horses, is, you see, 
driven by a woman of extraordinary - beauty, with, extraordinary. 
akill. She is quite alone, and behind: her sits a footman with his 
arms folded, his face as grave. and solemn as stones that have sér- 
mons in them. As you express your surprise at the air of conscious 

* grace with which the lady drives,” your London friend quietly re- 
marks, “ Yes, but she isnot a lady.” Unceasingly the carriages 
roll by, and you are less astonished at the numberleas superb equi- 
‘pages or the beauty of the horses, than at the ‘old-world air of the 
footmen in gold and silver Tae, gaudy liveries, spotless linen and 
snowy silk stockings. Some of the grand old coackmen in full- 
powdered wigs, decked ‘in all the glory of laced coats and silken 
‘valves, held the ribbons with such a conscisus air of imposing 
grandeur that I-willingly accepted them as the tree-poeonias, the 
most blooming blossoms of this parterre of equipage. It seemed 


THE LONDON PARKS, 551 


to me that there may be something comfortable in thus hanging all 
the trappings of station on the backs of coachmen and footmen, if 
one must be botheréd with sych,things—so that one may lean back 
quietly in ‘plain clothes in, the well-stuffed seat of his private 
carriage. 
But do not let us loiter away all. our time in a single scene in 
Hyde Park. A few steps farther.on is Rotten Row (rather 2 an odd 
name for an elegant place), the chosen arena of | fashionable eques- 
trians. The English know too well the pleasures of riding, to gal- 
‘lop on horseback over hard: pavements, and Rotten Row is a Soft 
circle of a couple of miles, in the park, railed off for this purpose, 
where your horse’ 8 feet have an elastic surface to travel over. Hun- 
dreds of fair - equestrians, with fathers, brothers, or friends, for com- 
panions, are here enjoying a more lively and spirited exercise, than 
the languid inmates of the carriages we have just left behind us. 
The English women rise in the saddle, like male riders, and at ‘first 
sight they look awkwardly and. less graceful to our eyes—but you 
soon see that they also sit more firmly and ride more boldly, than 
ladies on -our side of the water. 

« To stand by and see others ride, seems to me to be always’ too 
tantalizing to be long endured as a pastime—even where. the scene 
is as full of novelty and variety as this. Let us go on, therefore. 
This “beautiful stream of water, which would be‘ called a pretty 
“creek” at home, is the ‘Serpentine*River, which has been.made to 
meander gracefully through Hyde Park, and wonderfully does its 
bright waters enhance the beauty of the verdure and the charm ‘of 
the, whole landscape. ‘As we stand on the bridge, and. look up and 
down the river, amid the rich groves and across the green lawns, the 
city wholly shut out by groves and plantations, how finely one - feels 
the contrast’ of art and nature to be realized here. ee 

_ That delicious band of music which you hear now, is in Ken- 
sington Gardens, and only a belt of trees and yonder i iron gate, sepa- 
rate the latter fiom Hyde Park. Let us join the crowd of. -persohs 
of all-ages, collected in the great walk, under the shade of gigantic 
elm trees, to hear the music. ‘It is a well-known air of Donizetti’s, 
and as your eye glances over the company, perhaps some five or six 
thousand’ persons, Hho form the charmingly Bopeh * out-of-door 


552 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 


audience (for.the afternoon is a bright one), and as you see thera 
diant pleasure-sparkle i in a thousand happy. faces, young and. old, 

who are here enjoying a little pleasant mingling of heaven and 
earth in an innocent manner, you cannot but ‘be ‘struck. with the 
fact that, if there is a duty belonging to good governments, next to 
protecting the lives and property of the people, itis that of previgr 
ing public parks for the pent-up inhabitants of cities. 

“ Imperial Kensington” is not, only more spacious and: grand 
than Hyde Park, but it has a certain antique stateliness, which 
touches my faney and pleases me more. The trees are larger and 
more grove-like, and thé broad glades of soft. green. turf. are of a 
darker and richer green, and invite you to a more private and in- 
timate confidence than any portions of Hyde Park. The grand 
avenue of elms at the farther patt of Kensington Gardens, coming 
suddenly into it from the farther Bayswater Gate, is one of the 
noblest geometric groves in any city, and was laid out and planted, 
I believe, in King William’s time. An avenue some hundreds of 
years old, is always majestic and venerable, and when it adds great 
extent and fine keeping, like this, is really a grand thing. _ And yet, . 
perhaps, not one American in fifty that visits Hyde Park, ever gets 
far’ enough into the.depths of. its enjoyment to explore this avenue 
in ‘Kensington Gardens, 

No carriages or horses are permitted 3 in. ieeattcton: Gardens, 
but its broad glades and shadpwy lawns are sacred to pedestrians, 
and are especially the gambol-fields of thousands of lovely children, 
who, attended by their nurses, make a kind of infant Areadia of these 
solemn old groves of the monarch of Dutch tastes. Even the dingy 
old brick Palace of Kensington, which overlooks one side of the: 
great lawn, cannot chase away the bright. dimples , fron. the. rosy 
faces: of the charming children one ‘sees ‘here; and the symbols of, 
natural aristocracy—beauty and intelligence—set upon these young 

faces, were to my eyes a far more agreeable study than those of 
accident, birth, and fortune, which are so gaudily blazoned: forth in 
Hyde Park. 

My London friend, who evidently enjoys our agonist at 
the vastness of the London Parks, and the apparent display and 
real enjoyment they minister to, ‘calculates that not: ie than 50,000 


‘THE LONDON PARKS, 5538 


persons have been out, on foot, on horseback, or in ‘carriages, this 
afternoon, and adds that upon review days, or other occasions of 
particular brilliancy, he has known 200,000 persons to be in nie 
Park and Kensington Gardens at once. i 
' You- may be weary of parks to-day, but I shall not allow you 
to escape me without a glance at Regent’s Park, another link in’ the 
rural scenery of this part of Londen. Yes, here are three hundred 
and thérty-sie acres more, of lawn, ornamental plantations, drives 
and carriage roads. Regent’s Park has a younger look than any of 
the others in the West End of London, having only been planted 
sbout twenty-five or thitty years—but it is a beautiful surface, con- 
taining a great variety of different scenes within itself, Here are; 
for'instance, the Royal Botanic Garden, with ‘its rich collection of 
plants ‘and its beautiful flower-shows, which I have already described 
to you; and the Zoological Garden, some twenty acres in extent, 
where youmay see almost every living animal as nearly as possible 
in the same circumstances as in its native country. . Over the lawns 
walk the giraffe or cameleopard, led by Arabs in oriental costume; 
among the leafy avenues-you see elephants waddling along, with 
loads of laughing, half-frighteped children on their backs; down in a 
deep pool of water you peer upon the sluggish hippopotamus ; you 
gaze at the soft eyes of the gazelle as ‘she feeds in her little private 
paddock, and you feed the black swans that are floating along, with 
innumerable other rare aquatic birds; upon the surface of glassy lakes 
of fresh water. And the “ Zoological ” is just as full of people as Hyde 
Park, though of a totally different appearance—many students in 
natural history, some fashionable loungers, chiefly women, more cu- 
tious strangers, and most of all, boys and girls, feeding their juvenile 
appetite for the marvellous, by seeing the less astonished animals 
fed. ; 
And whose are those pretty country residences that you see in 
the very midst of another part of Regent’s ‘Park—beautiful Italian 
villas and ornamental cottages, embowered in trees of their own, 
and only divided from the open park by a light railing and belts of 
shrubbery ¢ These are the villas of certain favored nobles, who have 
at large cost. realized; as you see, the perfection of a residence in 
town, viz, @ country-house in the midst of a great park, ‘which is 


‘ 


554 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 


itself in the midst of-a‘great city. In these favored sites the owners 
have the luxury of : ‘quiet and rural surroundings, usually confined.to 
the country, with the:whole of the great world of May Fair and 
politics within ten or twenty minutes’ walk. 

» And now, having been through more than a thousand acres of 
park scenery, and witnessed the enjoyments of tens of: thousands: of 
all classes; tewhom these parks are open from sunrige to nine o’clock 
at night, youawill naturally ask me if these: luxuries are wholly con- 
fined to the West End of. London, ‘By no means. In almost all 
parts of London are “squares”—open places of eight or ten acres, 
filled with trees, shrubs, grass, and fountains—like what we call 
“ parks” in our cities at home. Besides these, a large new space 
called the Victoria Park, of two hundred and. ninety acres, has been 
laid out lately in the East. part of London, expressly for the recrea- 
tion, and: amusement of the poorer classes who are confined to that 
part of the town. ' # 

You'see what noble breathing- plaoes London. has, within’ its own 
boundaries, for the daily health and ‘recreation of its citizens. But ; 
these by no means.comprise all the rural pleasures of its inhabitants. 
There are three other magnificent pubjic places within half an hour 
of London, which are also enjoyed daily by thousands and tens of 
thousands. I. mean Hampton: Court, Richmond Park, and the 
National Gardens at Kew.. 

Hampton. Court is the favorite secre the middle Jes on 
holidays, and a pleasanter sight than that spot on such occasions,— 
when it is. thronged by immense numbers of ‘citizens, their wives 
and children, with all the riches of that grand old: palace, its. picture- 
galleries, halls, and splendid apartments, its two parks and its im- 
mense pleasure-grounds thrown open to them, is not easily found. 
Indeed, a man may be dull enough to care for neither palaces nor 
parks, for neither nature nor art, but he can scarcely be human, or 
have-a spark of sympathy in the fortunes of his race, if he can -wan- 
der without interest through these magnificent halls, still in perfect 
order, built with the most kingly prodigality by the most ambitious 
and powerful of ‘subjects—Wolsey : halls that were afterwards suc- 
cessively the home of Henry VIIL, Elizabeth, James, Charles and 
Cromwell; halls where Shakspeare ‘played: and Sidney wrote, but 


THE LONDON PARKS, 555, 


which, with ‘all their treasures of art, are now the people's ’s palace and 
normal school of enjoyment. 

‘Tam neither going to weary you with Sealer of pictures or 
dikeartations upon -palace architecture.. But I must give you, one 
more impression—that of the magnificent surroundings of Hampton, 
Court. Conjure up a piece of country of. diversified rich meadow’. 
surface, some five or six miles in circuit; imagine, around ¢he pal- 
ace, some forty or fifty acres of gardens, mostly in the ancient taste, 
with pleached alleys (Queen Mary’s bower among them), sloping 
banks of soft turf, huge orange trees in boxes, and a “ wilderness” 
or labyrinth where you may lose yourself i in the most intricate per- 
plexity of shrubs ; imagine an avenue a mile and a quarter long, of 
the most sinantic horse-chestnuts you ever beheld, with long vistas 
of velvet turf and highly-dressed garden scenery around them; ima- 
gine other. parts of the park ‘where’ you see on all sides, only great 
masses and groups of oaks and elms of centuries’ growth, and all the 
freedom of luxuriant nature, with a broad carpet of ‘grass stretching 
on all sides ; with distant portions of the park quite wild-looking, 
dotted with ‘great hawthorn trees ‘of centuries’ growth, with the tan- 
gled copse and: fragrant. fern- which are the belongings of our own 
forests, and then fill up the scene in ‘the neighborhood of the palace 
and gardens as I have before said, on a holiday, ‘with’ thousands of ' 
happy faces, while in the secluded parts of the park the'timid :deer 
flits before you, the’ birds stealthily. build their nests, and the insect’s 
hum fills the silent ‘air, and you have some faint idea of the value’ of 
such’a possession for the: population of a great city to cia their 
holidays i in, or to go pic-nic-ing! 

“Iam writing you.a long letter, but the parkomanie is upon me, 
and I will not Jet the ink dry in my pen without a word about 
Richmond: Great Park-—also free to the public, and also within the 
reach of the Londoner who, seeks for ait and exercise. “Richmond 
Great. Park was formerly a royal hunting: ground, but; like all’ the 
parks I have mentioned, has been given up to the people—at least’ 
the free enjoyment of it. It is the’ largest ‘of all the parks I-have 
described, being eight ‘miles round, and ‘containing two thousand 
two hundred arid fifty acres. It is a’ piece of magnificent forest tract 
—open forest, with grass, tufts of hazel, thorns and ferr nS, , the surface 


156 LETTERS: FROM ENGLAND. 


rently undulating, and’ dotted with grand old oaks—extremely like. 
vhat you see on a still larger scale in Kentucky. Its solitude and 
clusion, within: ‘sight of LLondon+—are almost. startling. The land 
s high, and from one side of it your eye wanders over the valley of 
2ichmond—with the Thames—here only a silvery looking stream 
vinding through jit—a world-renowned view, and- one whose sylvan 
eauty if is impossible ‘to. praise too highly. Just in this part of the, 
vark, and commanding. this superb view, with the towers of Windsor” 
Jas in the diftance on one side, and the dome of St. Paul’s on the 
other, and all the antiquevsylvan seclusion of the,old wood around 
t, stands a modest little cottage—the favorite summer residence of 
Lord John Russell, the use of which has been given him by his sove- 
‘eign. A more unambitious looking home, and one‘better caleu- 
ated to restore the faculties of an over-worked premier, after a day's 
oil in Downing-Street, it would’ be impossible to conceive. . 

I drove through Richmond. Great Park in the carriage of the 
Belgian minister, and his accomplished wife, who was my cicerone, 
stopped the coachman for a moment. near chad. place, in order that. 
she might point out to me an old oak, that had a story to tell. “It. 
was here—just under this tree,” she added (her eyes gleaming 
slightly with womanly indighation as she said it), “that the cruel 
Henry stood, and saw with his own eyes, the signal .made from the 
Tower of London (five miles off), which told him that Anne’ Boleyn 
was at that moment beheaded!” I thanked God that oak trees 
were longer lived ‘than bad monarchs, and that modern civilization 
would no longer permit such butchery in a christian ‘country. 

I will close this letter. with only a single remark. We fancy, 
not without reason, in New-York, that we. have a great city, and 
that the introduction of Croton water, is so marvellous a luxury in 
the way of health, that nothing more need be done for the comfort 
of half a million of people. In crossing the Atlantic, a young New- 
Yorker, who was rabidly patriotic, and who boasted daily of ‘the 
superiority of our beloved commercial metropolis over every city on 
the globe, was our most amusing. companion. I chanced to meet 
him one afternoon a few days after we landed, in one of the great 
parks in London, i in the midst of all the sylvan beauty and human 
enemen I have attempted to describe to you -He threw up his 


THE LONDON PARKS. 557 | 


arms as-he recognized me, and xdlvieet— Good heavens! . what a 
scene, and I took some Londoners to the: steps of the City Hall last 
summer; to show them -the Park of New-York!” I consoled him 
with the advice to be less conceited thereafter in his cockneyism, 
and to show foreigners the’ Hudson and Niagara, instead of the 
City Hall.and Bowling Green. ‘But the question may well be asked, 
Is ‘New-York really not rich ‘enough, or is there absolutely not land 
enough in America to give our citizens public parks of more than 
ten acres ? 


THE END, 


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tee my Fake mangas 

ue Gunes eat 

i af Nar Bi 
on ea ie 


” baie eae. 
rhs ag 3 Lae 
fi 


' share y 
{ Aap Nh 


eit Hy ¥ = ¢ 

vs pain By 
eine 
ane 


at 
Say) De 
Bout, i 


ts Lae 
i one i ‘i 
" 


aad ere gtinels | 


‘th 
if 

Ba ch 

eit 


eh ai thon ate 


en 
wit Raaginante 
; Pra rlotcbareeis 
eee te ene es 
ae ‘ at Biche 
nau 


th 
a 


i ben : 
Dea its itr ato cs ae 
Se it : i So HAM ig mee he biviegtr eae rat ny brie an i 
paar hey i Eas Miter tile eM hatha ha ean Saka eit ar Seo ico) a ? 
i Nah kt sage} cat 


Crit 


z 
itt eon Si