970. The modern style of gardening is unsuitable to countries not generally under cultivation. The English style cannot long please in such countries as Sweden, Poland, and America, otherwise than from its novelty, or as giving rise to certain associations with the people whose name it bears. What delight or distinction can be produced by the English style in Poland, for example, where the whole country is one forest, and the cultivated spots only so many open glades, with the most irregular and picturesque sylvan boundaries? But let a proprietor there dispose of the scenery around his residence in the Roman or French manner; let him display a fruit or kitchen garden bounded by high stone walls; a farm subdivided by clipped hedges and by ditches; and a pleasure-ground of avenues, stars, circles, fountains, statues, temples, and prospect-towers, and he will gratify every spectator. The view of so much art, industry, and magnificence, amid so much wild and rude scenery, must awaken so many social ideas of comfort and happiness, and so much admiration at the wealth and skill employed, that a mind of the greatest refinement and the justest taste would feel the highest degree of pleasure, and would approve as much of such a country-residence in the wilds of Poland or America, as he would of the most natural and picturesque residence of England, amid the highly artificial scenery of that country.
