Still less has there been any general attention paid to the art--for such I believe has been settled to be the classification of so beautiful a study--of landscape and ornamental gardening. Of this study, a late elegant writer remarks: 'It is a noble and worthy pursuit, and one that cannot be too earnestly encouraged, as a source of the purest and most elegant recreation; one whose indulgence is equally beneficial to the mind and to the body. The enjoyment which it affords, is at once sensual and intellectual; and if less stimulating than many other sensual gratifications, it has this superiority over them, that it is the least palling of any, or rather one that is incapable of satiating.' I know there are reasons why landscape gardening, of which the untravelled American knows literally nothing, can scarcely if ever be expected to reach that degree of splendor for which other climes are already noted. The fortunes of our citizens are of too recent acquirement, and too often divided among heirs, and otherwise, to permit of the great expense of such undertakings, even had society arrived at that pitch of refinement which naturally fosters this and other branches of the fine arts. These obstacles will effectually retard, if not prevent, those stupendous results of individual wealth and energy, which ages of feudal power, and the laws of primogeniture, have heaped upon the soil of Europe.
But there is a lesser branch of the art, more properly denominated the ornamental, which it is within the reach of most of our citizens to carry to a great degree of perfection. The grounds about our dwellings, though they may be limited, are capable of being dressed in a garb at once pleasing to the eye, and in other ways profitable to the owner. The traveller in England remarks, continually, upon neat rural cottages, embowered amid fruit trees, shrubbery, and flowers, with a portion of the ground around them tastefully arranged, and devoted to the cultivation of esculent vegetables, that supply much of the food necessary for the subsistence of the family. So too in many parts of continental Europe, the attention which all ranks bestow upon the grounds surrounding their dwellings strikes favorably the eye of the stranger, and leads him to exclaim that his tour lies through 'one continued garden, highly picturesque and pleasing.' All this is within the reach of our citizens, the humblest, as well as those who revel in superfluous wealth. Shade-trees of great beauty and long life are readily to be obtained, easily transplanted, and easily made to thrive. The cost of a neat close fence is trifling to those who are bred in the paths of industry and economy. A trellis is easily thrown up, and there is no difficulty in leading over it the creeping vine. Fruits of various descriptions may be cultivated with pleasure and profit, and flowers with hardly less of either. Small neat cottages, those rich caskets of pure enjoyment, may be embellished with the various objects of rural taste, and be made each the centre of a little Eden, that shall lead the lover of rural felicity to believe that it may exist otherwhere than in the fruitful imagination of the poet.