In all the expenditure of means in these improvements, amounting in the aggregate to an immense sum, professional talent is seldom employed in Architecture or Landscape Gardening, but almost every man fancies himself an amateur, and endeavors to plan and arrange his own residence. With but little practical knowledge, and few correct principles for his guidance, it is not surprising that we witness much incongruity and great waste of time and money. Even those who are familiar with foreign works on the subject in question labor under many obstacles in practice, which grow out of the difference in our soil and climate, or our social and political position.
These views have so often presented themselves to me of late, and have been so frequently urged by persons desiring advice, that I have ventured to prepare the present volume, in the hope of supplying, in some degree, the desideratum so much felt at present. While we have treatises, in abundance, on the various departments of the arts and sciences, there has not appeared even a single essay on the elegant art of Landscape Gardening. Hundreds of individuals who wish to ornament their grounds and embellish their places, are at a loss how to proceed, from the want of some leading principles, with the knowledge of which they would find it comparatively easy to produce delightful and satisfactory results.
