[43:297]

My Dear Judge Monell,

The contents of the Cottage Residencies with the last revisions and additions made by Mr Downing may be classed as follows.

1st General principles & general advice.

2d Thirty-five plans of pleasure grounds, parterres [43:298a] etc. all of which may be appropriately associated with cottage residencies [43:297]

3d Sixteen plans of buildings, (several of which are described as villas in the letterpress, and cannot be properly classed as cottages) with descriptions, and building instructions—[43:298a]

4th four plans of orchards or lists of fruit trees adapted to different situations & circumstances

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In our conversation of Wednesday both yourself & Mr Wiley manifested a conviction that it would be best that the book now proposed to be prepared should have a new and more popular character and that half the building plans should be changed and a few others added. When you first suggested the undertaking to me, you expressed a desire that the leading purpose of Mr Downing, namely to encourage & give advice in regard to the formation of tasteful cottage homes, that is to a comparatively modest class of houses & grounds, should be more completely [43:298b] carried out.

If it had not been for these expressions I should hardly have allowed myself to propose a change in the general plan of the book which may at first thought appear to be of a very radical character, but I shall do so, in the conviction that you & Mrs Monell will understand that my object is simply to embody in a new form all that should be cherished as essentially Mr Downing’s aim, with such rearrangement of, additions to, and omissions of that in the original book which was mainly prepared or was adapted by Mr Downing to the work of others as is desirable in order to make it fresh and attractive to the public at this time.

That which I have above classed under the first and second divisions, contains [43:299a] the essence of the book, as a production of Mr Downing’s own mind and taste. For this reason I should be unwilling to make interpolations in the text of that part of the letterpress or any considerable omissions [971]

from it. I should only propose to add or substitute in the garden plans a few shrubs the value of which has been established since the book was written, and to offer a few suggestions perhaps in the form of footnotes.

Further to prevent any confusion or doubt as to that which was written wholly by Mr Downing & that in which considerable additions & changes will be made, I propose to arrange the book in parts or chapters, corresponding to the general classification above made of its original contents. [43:300a]

[972]

I should propose that Mr Charles Downing, if he would consent should undertake the revisal of the fruit lists, a matter of essential importance, because of the considerable addition which has been made to the valuable varieties of fruit in cultivation in the twenty four years which have passed since the lists contained in the volume were prepared. I should also hope that he would add several additional lists of fruit adapted to meet various requirements.

In these lists, in the additional garden plans & in the house plans, I should wish to keep much more strictly to the purpose of giving advice in regard to cottage homesteads in distinction from villas & mansions.

I think it practicable to draw considerable new matter, including wood cuts, from [43:299b] the pages of the Horticulturist, Mr Curtis having been confined in his selection to the more elaborate papers of Mr Downing, there is I judge from a cursory examination much remaining of considerable value, which is not accessible to the present generation.

From this & from original sources I would greatly increase the number of cuts which would tend to put the book before the public upon a new & more popular footing.

By adding about one third new matter, I think the [43:300b] book while calling the attention of a new generation to all that is desirable to be reproduced at this time of the original volume, and demanding its gratitude for Mr Downing’s labors would have the effect of a wholly new production addressed to a rather poorer and therefore larger audience than its progenitor— [43:302a]

It is perfectly compatible with this great respect for Mr Downing’s work that I should say that its great value consisted in its fitness to stimulate the exercise of judgment and taste in the audience he addressed—a most dull and perverse audience—and that many of the plans of houses with which his books and especially his first books were illustrated were very poor. Nor that I should

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[43:385]

Introduction

The author of this book had from an early day wisdom in trees such as is not usually fed by his original calling of a nurseryman and far greater than that simply of a botanist. His mind was well stocked otherwise. He had a fertile and disciplined imagination, was of methodically studious habits and habitually turned the curse of labor into a blessing to himself and all about him. His tastes were healthy and refined, he was [43:384] tactful, well bred and full of fellow feeling. His society was sought by the best, the most cultivated and the most successful men & women of the land and he was looked up to by these

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[973]

[43:478]

Introduction

The ceremony of introducing a new body of readers to an old and revered book is usually sufficiently well met by a few words setting forth the general character of what they may find in it. In the present case there is reason for thinking that the duty will rather be that of cautioning them what they should not ask to find.

* * *

[43:490]

Introduction. I regard the duty given me of introducing a new body of readers to the book as a very honorable one and I wish to meet it strictly. It thus requires, as I suppose, chiefly in setting forth the grounds upon which they may be assured of its value and in good faith be advised to study it. I cannot doubt that the greater number of these who may be attracted by its title to make some examinations of it will {…} feel that this is necessary. These are they to whom it should be more especially recommended and to whom, its defects being frankly acknowledged its excellence should be explained.

From what in numerous instances has come to my knowledge it appears that one can hardly begin to dabble in the smallest way in landscape gardening anywhere in the country that he will not {presently} be visited by a young man who gives him advice about his choice of trees will in a few minutes show a range of knowledge on the subject

* * *

[43:301]

It appears to me that the great value of Mr Downing’s work consisted in the fact and the grace with which he led people to apply common sense to the improvement of homesteads, making them more attractive and putting them more successfully in competition with delusive forms of wealth. It is perfectly compatible with the highest respect for his work that I should acknowledge that I think that many of the plans of houses which he presented in illustration of his views were very poor and that in his desire to commend anything which might supplant the rigid inconvenience bleakness and insipidity of {character}

* * *

[43:393]

While no other art has had more scholarly and graceful expositors, than landscape gardening the best of these, before Downing, had written with a controversial and consequently a partial purpose. It thus happened that this book coming from America could appear to a reviewer of such high special [974] [43:394b] standing as Dr Lindley to be unsurpassed by any of English authorship in sound, clear, concise and winning presentation of the ground-work of the art.

Without claiming that it is all that might be asked in any of the following respects, I shall recommend it to a new generation of Americans. [43:395] First as the best available primer of such knowledge of landscape gardening as should be common.

Second as the best available mentor for amateur practice under circumstances favorable to unassisted amateur practice.

Third, as the best available preparation for consulting and proceeding upon professional advice. [43:396b]

Fourth, as the best available introductory lecture to a course of professional study.

I should, (upon the grounds that I have indicated) Such recommendation might be given without argument but for a question sure to arise in many minds and which I shall presently consider. Before doing so, however, there are certain grounds of interest in the book to which a class of readers who may [43:397b] otherwise open it with the least spontaneous interest may be glad to have their attention called.

Landscape Gardening has been generally regarded as an art to be practiced for the gratification of tastes and to suit habits and customs such as are to be looked for almost exclusively within the ranks of a wealthy and cultivated gentry, and upon a cursory examination this book will seem to sustain such a view from the fact that [43:398b] though prepared for American readers, its illustrations of the Art are almost wholly drawn from properties of men of wealth, generally of inherited wealth, liberal education and of somewhat exclusive social position.

It should not, then, be overlooked that its author—an acknowledged master of the art—though notably fine in tastes and habits and of winning social qualities was not himself of the wealthy cultivated class, as the best English writers upon the subject (Repton, Gilpin, Price, Loudon) had been; that he had not been liberally educated, that he was deeply of the democratic faith; and that he had no marked aptness, either formative or receptive, for other arts of design.

But it is even more worthy of note that so sound a work on such a subject, should nearly half a century ago have been much wanted by Americans of moderate means, [43:399a] whose only advantage for cultivating landscape taste had been that of familiarity with scenery, the beauty of which owed nothing to art; by Americans who had [43:400b] never seen a good painting, carving or engraving or any work whatever of professional landscape gardening and who were, in the common understanding of the term wholly “uncultivated.”

It is remarkable that any book upon an art which more than any other had been one of practice and pride with gentlefolk should have been selected, as this book was, for [43:401] a prize at cattle shows, plowing matches and rural [975]fairs in districts wherein not one man could be found at all representative of a gentry. It is remarkable that a book of this sort could have obtained a popularity so great as to call within six years of its first issue for four successive editions & that in the preface to the [43:402b] last, prepared shortly before his death, the author could modestly refer to the rapid advancement of his countrymen in taste for the Art which had in that time become generally noticeable. And all these circumstances are yet the more remarkable from the fact that the book is not one of the class called practical manuals. It does not cater to the large class of book buyers who want to acquire that for which the devotion of a lifetime is insufficient in ten easy lessons. [43:403]

Many of its purchasers could have found in it no direct advice upon the very first operations of practice that would stop their way. For example, a man to whom the landscape wealth of his home might be of more consequence than its wealth in pictures and tapestry, stained glass, rugs, frescoes and mosaics, dados and curios would have often placed it with a deliberate estimate of the deprivation involved by his choice, upon ground which because of its special local dryness and sterility, perhaps its rockiness, or stoniness, put the elegant lawn- or park-like foreground qualities generally had in view in Mr Downing’s instructions wholly out of the question. This he might have done from considerations of bodily health; of domestic economy or because of the charms to him of an expanded distant outlook only to be had from the point in question. [43:404b] Such a man would have looked vainly in this book for a routine to be followed in order to make the best of his forlorn foreground; vainly for so much as a list of plants suitable to the circum-[43:406] stances. The value to such a man of this book was that of food for the growth of a refined sense of landscape propriety and of a habit of observation and study through which he might be able to have greater enjoyment of natural landscape beauty and possibly of his own motive and in his own original way to solve his own special problems of the Art of guiding nature in landscape. [43:407b]

But if this explains the value which the book might once have had, the question remains of its continued value.

* * *

[43:408b]

Mr Downing himself confidently looked forward to a very rapid development of his art in the United States and in certain respects unquestionably a great advance has occurred. Such an advance that now, hardly in any well-settled part of the country can a novice [43:409b] begin to dabble in landscape gardening ever so little that he will not be visited by a class of itinerant advisers offering him instruction by comparison with which all that Mr Downing was able to give will seem meagre and much out of date. Even if such voluble advice fails, like instruction will come by mail in the more compact form of illustrated pamphlets. Comparing one of these thus lately coming to me with Mr Downing’s work I find that it supplies a brief account [43:410b] of the [976]distinguishing qualities of upwards of four hundred cone bearing trees of which but twenty five were described by Mr Downing. Of its list of thirty magnolias Mr Downing described but nine; of twenty horse chestnuts, six; of forty oaks, fifteen, of [43:411] maples, five—

This however is but the list of one nursery-stock, and it is to be remembered that the interest of a nurseryman (as such), in trees, ends with their sale, before they have grown too large [43:412a] for convenient transportation. It is therefore limited in each case to such as he has hoped to dispose of within a certain period. His advice and that of his travelers is restricted to the selection thus occurring— and as no two dealers are situated alike in this respect; no single nursery catalogue offers the half of what the market offers as a whole. [43:465b]

It has, in truth, come to this that scarce anywhere in all the land can one begin to dabble ever so little in landscape gardening that he is not beset in his own house by young men offering him advice of a sort by comparison with which all that of Mr Downing’s is liable to appear to him singularly prosey and ignorant. Nor is this all for

* * *

[43:429a]

Dr Hosack was a virtuoso, a collector, a botanist, a plant fancier. He labored long and spent much of his substance, to establish a public botanic garden. He imported trees and plants, specimens and curios; [43:429b] wrote treatises and maintained a great correspondence about them. He built, I believe, the largest glass houses and had the largest private collection of exotic and rare plants in America. But when he engaged in landscape gardening he allowed none of these tastes to complicate his purpose. Mr. Downing says (page 30) that the result had, in the first half of the century, been considered the finest seat in all the land and to this day it remains unexcelled if not unrivalled. There are hundreds of places which are regular stations in the tourists round of Europe and the visitors to which are the principal support of certain rail way lines and hotels that do not compare with it in beauty or interest. There are even hundreds such which because of the collecting and specimen mania are not now half as well worth a visit as they were thirty years ago. Not so this of Dr Hosack’s. Never was it finer than now. It has no broad space of turf—the conditions do not require it—yet on an area of fifty acres there are fewer trees and the trees are of fewer species than those on the recently planted [43:430b] lawns in modern style of many suburban cottages of less than one acre.

The late Mr Winthrop Sargent who after Mr Downing’s death edited and supplemented several issues of this work is another example of a man in whom admirable taste and wisdom in landscape gardening were united with a warm scientific and horticultural enthusiasm. For many years he maintained an establishment for testing the adaption of foreign trees & plants to our climate of high national importance. During a period of many years he probably [977]imported and carefully cultivated and observed a larger number of new varieties of trees than all other amateurs together. He was equally regardful of floral beauty and there were few departmts of horticultural enterprise in which he did not stand in the front ranks. His knowledge [43:431] of and interest in plants otherwise than as materials of landscape gardening and his command of that which was rare, novel, curious and beautiful in trees and plants was far beyond that of any other landscape gardener. Yet one might [43:432b] pass on his approach road and look out from three sides of his considerable mansion, suspecting nothing of all this. The wood cuts, figures 88, 89 and 90, of this book poorly indicate [43:433b] what as a landscape gardener he thought desirable in the character of his place. Except a few house plants set out in visable tubs under the windows of the house there is nothing which to the ordinary observer would show any unusual knowledge, research enterprise or skill or the command of unusual resources in any respect. (Simplicity of taste) [43:434b] There is nothing consequently which by claiming the interest of the observer to itself, whether as a scientific novelty—or an object even of rare individual beauty or oddity tends to withhold or distract attention from the serene domestic foreground or mar the harmony of the foreground with the lovely yet majestic distant prospects. The larger number of the trees are selections from the spontaneous growth of the locality and of the only two that I [43:435b] remember as having called for special remark or inquiry because of their rare qualities Mr Sargeant was prompt to explain that they were the result of a happy accident rather than design, (one having been mislabeled, the other a sport). [43:436b] I now recall also his observation upon showing me in a ground back of his kitchen yard; a fine specimen of an eccentric tree that I have often seen of late placed as the most conspicuous object upon a lawn. “You see I keep it back here in a closet as it were. You don’t want specimens of morbid anatomy however interesting in your drawing-room.”

But looking more closely upon these rough sketches of Mr Sargeant’s we shall find [43:437a] yet more to our purpose. The leading motive of the choice and disposition of the trees in these scenes (chiefly through the elimination of those not wanted of the spontaneous growth) had been the opening and suitable framing and setting off of views reaching beyond the limits of the property. The motive in the choice and disposition of the new plantings made by Mr Sargeant was in part the furnishing and enrichment of this foreground [43:437b] to bring it more into harmony with the refinement of his house but even more that of obscuring elements of scenery beyond his property which if fully exposed would have been discordant with the preferred general type of scenery. [43:438]

What may have been most important in this respect is seen in the indications of shrubbery crossing the middle distances. What was important to be considered in the choice of the material for this purpose? First, the height to which the shrubs at each point would grow or below which it could be kept without being made stubbed; this because, if too high, it would obscure what was desirable [978]to be kept in view, if too low it would expose what it was better should not be seen. [43:439b] Second, confidence that the shrubs selected should not fail to permanently accomplish their primary purpose through inadaptability to the soil and climate. Third that they should grow and compose together harmoniously and pleasingly both in form and tint of foliage. Last and least, that to one strolling near them they should exhibit some variety and admirable qualities of beauty in habit, bark, foliage, bloom or fruit. There are probably five hundred different sorts of shrubs which might be [43:440b] offered for the purpose but there is no reason to suppose that it might not be well accomplished with a dozen of them and these all indigenous in the neighborhood or brought out from old farm house gardens by its Dutch settlers two hundred years ago.

These reflections are here recorded because [43:441b] the prodigious popular advance that has been made in botanical knowledge, in horticulture and even in out-of-door decorative art since this book was written has certainly had a confusing, bewildering and discouraging influence upon the popular use of [43:442b] the art of landscape gardening.

Discouraging in two ways: First that it has made it seem hopeless to men who take the highest enjoymt in beauty of natural scenery that they should be able to make a wisely discriminating use of the present vast variety of material of scenery that is pressed upon them within any moderate limits of ground or expense of time or money. [43:443a] Second in that, acting with cautious judgment upon the best information attainable in regard to this new material, they have so miscalculated the result in landscape effects.

It needs to be said that largely through the influence of figures of speech in which the processes of landscape gardening are assured to be closely analogous to those of painting it is commonly supposed that landscape gardening is a much exacter art than is really the [43:443b] case— The landscape gardener does not form in his mind, pictures of scenery in full detail and then proceed to reproduce these same pictures in every line and light, tint and shadow. A little thought will show the absurdity of this supposition. But there is one reason against it the weight of which is generally underestimated. Every tree of the same species and the same variety has its own distinctive individuality [43:444b] of feature and of constitution no two trees of the same parentage are acted upon precisely alike by the same conditions of soil, temperature, wind, air and water. The difference will be generally imperceptible to ordinary observation, but it is always liable to be considerable and no man planting a sapling can know within a considerable degree of accuracy what its exact form or what the exact tint of its leaves will be; he can only be confident of its general character. Consequently landscape [43:445a] gardening aims chiefly not at exact results but at results of general feature and character and it is best practiced with a certain reserve—under the conviction that the chances are that nature will add charms of detail more to be desired than any that could be preconceived. (Such was the case for example with the Maclura planted by Mr Sargent near the carriage door of his house)

[979]

But of the larger part of the material now in [43:445b] the market and strongly urged and much used even by very small planters no calculation even of the general character to be obtained by it can be safely made. I will give a single illustration. Traveling in England in 1859 I found in numerous places a small tree planted in the choicest positions and regarded as a most valuable acquisition and which certainly promised to be most charming being a [43:446b] lovely delicate plume of a peculiar silvery green. Upon this promise and a few years experience of its hardihood as a seedling it was largely propagated and planted but of its mature character I could obtain no adequate information until several years afterwards I visited its native country, where I found it to be everything that it promised not to be—the ugliest and most unsuitable tree to be associated with refined domestic scenes that I ever saw.

* * *

[43:423b]

But I will put this question in plainer fashion; a visitor once came to me to whose name was attached the title of landscape gardener for which reason I devoted a day to showing him the scenery of the Hudson River. I have rarely known a man pass through it with so little interest. As we were opening the noblest reach he proposed that we should go below and have a bottle of beer. We landed & I took him to one of the finest illustrations of landscape gardening in the country— one of those for which Mr Downing in this book expresses great admiration. There were certain trees in it that were new to my guest & which he examined with interest & manifest pleasure but to their landscape effect or the beauty of the prospects he gave no obvious attention. We went on afterwards to a new place with a great variety of young and rare trees and flowering plants and great gardening elaboration. Then at once out came his notebook, his enthusiasm and his admiration. The question is whether his interest in this direction had not tended rather to his diseducation in landscape art and whether under the name of landscape gardening he may not have been unwittingly following a business to which some other name would have been better applied.