LANDSCAPE OBSERVATIONS FROM EUROPEAN TRAVEL
We know from Mr. Olmsted’s own words that he had a particular interest
in visiting parks both on his first European journey of 1850, and in
1856, when he was abroad attending to his publishing business and
travelling also somewhat with his sisters. In his _Walks and Talks of
an American Farmer in England_, first published in 1852, there are a
number of passages which should be quoted here, particularly as showing
the trained observation of scenery which he later brought to his
landscape designing, and his keen interest in the social and economic
aspects of rural life.[15] It is interesting to know, too, that the
book was illustrated by his own sketches.[16]
Although he went primarily as a farmer, he had in mind to see all
sides of the country. He wrote to his father before sailing: “I can
have now the advantage of letters from Norton to the Scotch farmers,
from Field to the English, from Antisell to the Irish. They all have
warm friends there yet among just the men I want to learn from. Parsons
will introduce me to the gardens and nurseries. Prof. Johnston returns
to Edinboro, Judge Emerson and Stevens direct me to the lions of
London, and Field opens the manufacturies.”
BIRKENHEAD AND ITS PARK
Birkenhead is the most important suburb of Liverpool, having the same
relation to it that Charlestown has to Boston or Brooklyn to New
York. When the first line of Liverpool packets was established, there
were not half a dozen houses here; it now has a population of many
thousands, and is increasing with a rapidity hardly paralleled in the
New World. This is greatly owing to the very liberal and enterprising
policy of the land-owners, which affords an example that might be
profitably followed in the vicinity of many of our own large towns.
There are several public squares, and the streets and places are broad,
and well paved and lighted. A considerable part of the town has been
built with reference to general effect, from the plans and under the
direction of a talented architect, Gillespie Graham....
The baker had begged of us not to leave Birkenhead without seeing their
_new park_, and at his suggestion we left our knapsacks with him, and
proceeded to it. As we approached the entrance, we were met by women
and girls, who, holding out a cup of milk, asked us--“_Will you take a
cup of milk, sirs?--good, cool, sweet, cow’s milk, gentlemen, or right
warm from the ass!_” And at the gate was a herd of donkeys, some with
cans of milk strapped to them, others saddled and bridled, to be let
for ladies and children to ride.
The gateway, which is about a mile and a half from the ferry, and
quite back of the town, is a great, massive block of handsome Ionic
architecture, standing alone, and unsupported by any thing else in the
vicinity, and looking, as I think, heavy and awkward. There is a sort
of grandeur about it that the English are fond of, but which, when it
is entirely separate from all other architectural constructions, always
strikes me unpleasantly. It seems intended as an impressive preface
to a great display of art within; but here, as well as at Eaton Park,
and other places I have since seen, it is not followed up with great
things, the grounds immediately within the grand entrance being very
simple, and apparently rather overlooked by the gardener. There is a
large archway for carriages, and two smaller ones for those on foot,
and, on either side, and over these, are rooms, which probably serve as
inconvenient lodges for the labourers. No porter appears, and the gates
are freely open to the public.
Walking a short distance up an avenue, we passed through another light
iron gate into a thick, luxuriant and diversified garden. Five minutes
of admiration, and a few more spent in studying the manner in which
art had been employed to obtain from nature so much beauty, and I was
ready to admit that in democratic America there was nothing to be
thought of as comparable with this People’s Garden. Indeed, gardening
had here reached a perfection that I had never before dreamed of. I
cannot undertake to describe the effect of so much taste and skill as
had evidently been employed; I will only tell you, that we passed by
winding paths over acres and acres, with a constant varying surface,
where on all sides were growing every variety of shrubs and flowers,
with more than natural grace, all set in borders of greenest, closest
turf, and all kept with most consummate neatness. At a distance of a
quarter of a mile from the gate, we came to an open field of clean,
bright green-sward, closely mown, on which a large tent was pitched,
and a party of boys in one part, and a party of gentlemen in another,
were playing cricket. Beyond this was a large meadow with rich groups
of trees, under which a flock of sheep were reposing, and girls and
women with children, were playing. While watching the cricketers, we
were threatened with a shower, and hastened back to look for shelter,
which we found in a pagoda, on an island approached by a Chinese
bridge. It was soon filled, as were the other ornamental buildings,
by a crowd of those who, like ourselves, had been overtaken in the
grounds by the rain; and I was glad to observe that the privileges of
the garden were enjoyed about equally by all classes. There were some
who were attended by servants, and sent at once for their carriages,
but a large proportion were of the common ranks, and a few women with
children, or suffering from ill health, were evidently the wives of
very humble labourers. There were a number of strangers, and some we
observed with notebooks and portfolios, that seemed to have come from a
distance to study from the garden. The summer-houses, lodges, bridges,
etc., were all well constructed, and of undecaying materials. One of
the bridges which we crossed was of our countryman Remington’s patent,
an extremely light and graceful erection.
I obtained most of the following information from the head
working-gardener.
The site of the park and garden was, ten years ago, a flat, sterile
clay farm. It was placed in the hands of Mr. Paxton, in June, 1844, by
whom it was laid out in its present form by June of the following year.
Carriage roads, thirty-four feet wide, with borders of ten feet, and
walks varying in width, were first drawn and made. The excavation for a
pond was also made, and the earth obtained from these sources used for
making mounds and to vary the surface, which has been done with much
_naturalness_ and taste. The whole ground was thoroughly under-drained,
the minor drains of stone, the main, of tile. By these sufficient water
is obtained to fully supply the pond, or lake, as they call it, which
is from twenty to forty feet wide, and about three feet deep, and
meanders for a long distance through the garden. It is stocked with
aquatic plants, gold fish and swans.
The roads are macadamized. On each side of the carriage way, and of all
the walks, pipes for drainage are laid, which communicate with deep
main drains that run under the edge of all the mounds or flower beds.
The walks are laid first with six inches of fine broken stone, then
three inches cinders, and the surface with six inches of fine rolled
gravel. All the stones on the ground which were not used for these
purposes, were laid in masses of rock-work, and mosses and rock-plants
attached to them. The mounds were then planted with shrubs, and heaths
and ferns, and the beds with flowering plants. Between these, and the
walks and drives, is everywhere a belt of turf (which, by the way, is
kept close cut with short, broad scythes, and shears, and swept with
_hair-brooms_, as we saw). Then the rural lodges, temple, pavilion,
bridges, _orchestra for a band of instrumental music_, _etc._, were
built. And so, in one year, the skeleton of this delightful garden was
complete.
But this is but a small part. Besides the cricket and an archery
ground, large valleys were made verdant, extensive drives arranged,
plantations, clumps, and avenues of trees formed, and a large park
laid out. And all this magnificent pleasure-ground is entirely,
unreservedly, and for ever the people’s own. The poorest British
peasant is as free to enjoy it in all its parts as the British queen.
More than that, the baker of Birkenhead has the pride of an OWNER in it.
Is it not a grand good thing? But you are inquiring who _paid_ for
it. The honest owners--the most wise and worthy townspeople of
Birkenhead--in the same way that the New Yorkers pay for “the Tombs”
and the Hospital, and the _cleaning_ (as they amusingly say) of their
streets.
Of the farm which was purchased, one hundred and twenty acres have been
disposed of in the way I have described. The remaining sixty acres,
encircling the park and garden, were reserved to be sold or rented,
after being well graded, streeted, and planted, for private building
lots. Several fine mansions are already built on these (having private
entrances to the park), and the rest now sell at $1.25 a square yard.
The whole concern cost the town between five and six hundred thousand
dollars. It gives employment, at present, to ten gardeners and
labourers in summer, and to five in winter.
The generous spirit and fearless enterprise that has accomplished this,
has not been otherwise forgetful of the health and comfort of the poor.
Among other things, I remember, a public washing and bathing house for
the town is provided. I should have mentioned also, in connection with
the market, that in the outskirts of the town there is a range of stone
slaughter-houses, with stables, yards, pens, supplies of hot and cold
water and other arrangements and conveniences, that enlightened regard
for health and decency would suggest.
The consequence of all these sorts of things is, that all about the
town lands, which a few years ago were almost worthless wastes, have
become of priceless value; where no sound was heard but the bleating of
goats and braying of asses complaining of their pasturage, there is now
the hasty click and clatter of many hundred busy trowels and hammers.
You may drive through wide and thronged streets of stately edifices,
where were only a few scattered huts, surrounded by quagmires. Docks
of unequalled size and grandeur are building, and a forest of masts
grows along the shore; and there is no doubt that this young town is
to be not only remarkable as a most agreeable and healthy place of
residence, but that it will soon be distinguished for extensive and
profitable commerce. It seems to me to be the only town I ever saw that
has been really built at all in accordance with the advanced science,
taste and enterprising spirit that are supposed to distinguish the
nineteenth century. I do not doubt it might be found to have plenty
of exceptions to its general character, but I did not inquire for
these, nor did I happen to observe them. Certainly, in what I have
noticed, it is a model town, and may be held up as an example not only
to philanthropists and men of taste, but to speculators and men of
business.
After leaving the park, we ascended a hill, from the top of which we
had a fine view of Liverpool and Birkenhead. Its sides were covered
with villas, with little gardens about them. The architecture was
generally less fantastic, and the style and materials of building more
substantial than is usually employed in the same class of residences
with us. Yet there was a good deal of the same _stuck up_ and uneasy
pretentious air about them that the suburban houses of our own city
people so commonly have. Possibly this is the effect of association,
in my mind, of steady, reliable worth and friendship with plain or
old-fashioned dwellings, for I often find it difficult to discover
in the buildings themselves the element of such expression. I am
inclined to think it is more generally owing to some disunity in the
design,--often, perhaps, to a want of keeping between the mansion and
its grounds or its situation. The architect and the gardener do not
understand each other, and commonly the owner or resident is totally at
variance in his tastes and intentions from both; or the man whose ideas
the plan is made to serve, or who pays for it, has no true independent
taste, but had fancies to be accommodated, which only follow confusedly
after custom or fashion. I think, with Ruskin, it is a pity that every
man’s house cannot be really his own, and that he can not make all that
is true, beautiful, and good in his own character, tastes, pursuits,
and history manifest in it.
But however fanciful and uncomfortable many of the villa houses about
Liverpool and Birkenhead appear at first sight, the substantial and
thorough manner in which most of them are built will atone for many
faults. The friendship of nature has been secured to them. Dampness,
heat, cold, will be welcome to do their best. Every day they will
improve. In fifty or a hundred years fashions may change, and they
will appear, perhaps, quaint, possibly grotesque; but still strong,
home-like, and hospitable. They have no shingles to rot, no glued and
puttied and painted gimcrackery to warp and crack and moulder; and can
never look so shabby, and desolate, and dreary, as will nine-tenths of
the buildings of the same denomination now erecting about New York,
almost as soon as they lose the raw, cheerless, imposter-like airs
which seem almost inseparable from their newness.
A FERME ORNÉE
A few miles further on we came to a large, park-like pasture, bounded
by a neatly trimmed hedge, and entered by a simple gate, from which
a private road ran curving among a few clumps of trees to a mansion
about a furlong distant. We entered, and rested ourselves awhile at
the foot of some large oaks. The house was nearly hidden among trees,
and these, seen across the clear grass land, were the finest groups of
foliage we had ever seen. A peculiar character was given it by one or
two _copper-leaved_ beeches--large, tall trees, thickly branched from
the very surface of the ground. (These trees, which are frequently used
with great good effect in landscape gardening in England, are rare in
America, though they may be had at the nurseries. There are two sorts,
one much less red than the other.) The cattle in this pasture-lawn were
small and black, brisk and wild-looking, but so tame in reality, that
as we lay under the tree, they came up and licked our hands like dogs.
The whole picture completely realized Willis’s beautiful ideal, “The
Cottage _Insoucieuse_.”
EATON PARK
In the afternoon we walked to Eaton Park.
Probably there is no object of art that Americans of cultivated taste
generally more long to see in Europe than an English park. What artist
so noble, has often been my thought, as he who, with far-reaching
conception of beauty and designing power, sketches the outline, writes
the colours, and directs the shadows of a picture so great that Nature
shall be employed upon it for generations, before the work he has
arranged for her shall realize his intentions.[17]
... We came to the great castellated edifice that I have before spoken
of as the gateway to the park. Such we were told it was, and were
therefore surprised to find within only a long, straight road, with
but tolerable mowing lots alternating by the side of it, with thick
plantations of trees, no way differing from the twenty-year old natural
wood of my own farm, except that hollies, laurels, and our common
dogwood were planted regularly along the edge.
* * * * *
We tramped on for several miles through this tame scenery and most
ungentlemanly farming, until it became really tiresome. At length the
wood fell back, and the road was lined for some way with a double row
of fine elms. Still no deer. A little further, and we came to a cottage
most beautifully draped with ivy; passed through another gate. Ah! here
is the real park at last.
A gracefully, irregular, gently undulating surface of close-cropped
pasture land, reaching way off inimitably; dark green in colour; very
old, but not very large trees scattered singly and in groups--so far
apart as to throw long unbroken shadows across broad openings of
light, and leave the view in several directions unobstructed for a
long distance. Herds of fallow-deer, fawns, cattle, sheep and lambs
quietly feeding near us, and moving slowly in masses at a distance; a
warm atmosphere, descending sun, and sublime shadows from fleecy clouds
transiently darkening in succession, sunny surface, cool woodside,
flocks and herds, and foliage.
The road ran on winding through this. We drew a long breath, and walked
slowly for a little way, then turned aside at the nearest tree, and lay
down to take it all in satisfactorily.
* * * * *
We concluded that the sheep and cattle were of the most value for their
effect in the landscape; but it was a little exciting to us to watch
the deer, particularly as we would sometimes see them in a large herd
leisurely moving across an opening among the trees, a long way off, and
barely distinguishable.
* * * * *
It is not my business to attempt a criticism of “the finest specimen of
the pointed Gothic” in England; but I may honestly say that it did not,
as a whole, produce the expected effect of grandeur or sublimity upon
us, without trying to find reasons for the failure. Even when we came
to look at it closely, we found little to admire. There was no great
simple beauty in it as a mass, nor yet vigorous original character
enough in the details to make them an interesting study. The edifice
is long and low, and covered with an immense amount of meaningless
decoration.
Such was our first impression, and we were greatly disappointed, you
may be sure. We admired it more afterwards on the other side, from
the middle of a great garden, where it seems to stand much higher,
being set up on terraces, and gaining much, I suspect, from the
extension of architectural character to the grounds in its front. Here
we acknowledged a good deal of magnificence in its effect. Still it
seemed as if it might have been obtained in some other style, with less
labour, and was much frittered away in the confusion of ornament.
This garden is a curiosity. It is in the geometrical style, and covers
eight acres, it is said, though it does not seem nearly that to the
eye. It is merely a succession of small arabesque figures of fine
grass or flower beds, set in hard, rolled, dark-coloured gravel. The
surface, dropping by long terraces from the steps of the hall to the
river, is otherwise only varied by stiff pyramidal yews and box, and
a few vases. On the whole, the effect of it in connection with the
house, and looking towards it, is good, more so than I should have
expected; and it falls so rapidly, that it affects the landscape seen
in this distance _from_ the house but very little. This is exquisitely
beautiful, looking across the Dee, over a lovely valley towards some
high, blue mountains. From other parts of the hall grand vistas open
through long avenues of elms, and there are some noble single trees
about the lawn.
This English elm is a much finer tree than I had been aware of--very
tall, yet with drooping limbs and fine thick foliage; not nearly as
fine as a single tree as our elm, but even more effective, I think, in
masses, because thicker and better filled out in its general outline.
ENGLISH LANDSCAPE
I must say, that on the whole, the agriculture of Cheshire, as the
first sample of that of England which is presented to me, is far below
my expectations. There are sufficient reasons to expect that we shall
find other parts much superior to it; but what we have seen quite
disposes of the common picture which our railroad and stage-coach
travellers are in the habit of giving to our imagination, by saying
that “all England is like a garden.” Meaning only a “landscape
garden,” a beautiful and harmonious combination of hill and dale, with
the richest masses of trees, and groups and lines of shrubbery, the
greenest turf and most picturesque buildings, it might be appropriately
said of many parts, particularly in the south of the country. But, with
reference to cultivation, and the productiveness of the land, it might
be quite as truly applied to some small districts of our own country as
to this part of England.
* * * * *
... We reach another lane and cultivated fields again, and, being on
elevated ground at the knarly feet of a glorious, breezy, gray, old
beech-tree, lay ourselves down, and, looking back upon the extensive
landscape, tell our friend in what it differs from American scenery.
The great beauty and peculiarity of the English landscape is to be
found in the frequent long, graceful lines of deep green hedges
and hedge-row timber, crossing hill, valley, and plain, in every
direction; and in the occasional large trees, dotting the broad
fields, either singly or in small groups, left to their natural open
growth, (for ship-timber, and, while they stand, for cattle shades,)
therefore branching low and spreading wide, and more beautiful, much
more beautiful, than we often allow our trees to make themselves.
The less frequent brilliancy of broad streams or ponds of water,
also distinguishes the prospect from those we are accustomed to,
though there are often small brooks or pools, and much marshy land,
and England may be called a well-watered country. In the foreground
you will notice the quaint buildings, generally pleasing objects in
themselves, often supporting what is most agreeable of all, and what
you can never fail to admire, never see any thing ugly or homely
under, a curtain of ivy or other creepers; the ditches and the
banks by their side, on which the hedges are planted; the clean and
careful cultivation, and general tidiness of the agriculture; and
the deep, narrow, crooked, gulch-like lane, or the smooth, clean,
matchless, broad highway. Where trees are set in masses for ornament,
the Norway spruce and the red beech generally give a dark, ponderous
tone, which we seldom see in America; and in a hilly and unfertile
country there are usually extensive patches of the larch, having a
brown hue. The English elm is the most common tree in small parks or
about country-houses. It appears, at a little distance, more like our
hickory, when the latter grows upon a rich soil, and is not cramped, as
sometimes in our river intervals, than any other American tree.
There seems to me to be a certain peculiarity in English foliage,
which I can but little more than allude to, not having the skill to
describe. You seem to see each particular leaf, (instead of a confused
leafiness,) more than in our trees; or it is as if the face of each
leaf was parallel, and more equally lighted than in our foliage. It is
perhaps only owing to a greater density, and better filling up, and
more even growth of the outer twigs of the trees, than is common in our
drier climate. I think that our maple woods have more resemblance to it
than others.
There is usually a much milder light over an English landscape than an
American, and the distance and shady parts are more indistinct. It is
rare that there is not a haziness, slightly like that of our Indian
summer in the atmosphere, and the colours of every thing, except of
the foliage are less brilliant and vivacious than we are accustomed
to. The sublime or the picturesque in nature is much more rare in
England, except on the sea-coast, than in America; but there is every
where a great deal of quiet, peaceful, graceful beauty, which the
works of man have generally added to, and which I remember but little
at home that will compare with. This Herefordshire reminds me of the
valley in Connecticut, between Middletown and Springfield. The valley
of the Mohawk and the upper part of the Hudson, is also in some parts
English-like.
* * * * *
Soon after leaving Warminster, began a very different style of
landscape from what I have before seen: long ranges and large groups
of high hills with gentle and gracefully undulating slopes; broad and
deep cells between and within them, through which flow in tortuous
channels streamlets of exceedingly pure, sparkling water. These hills
are bare of trees, except rarely a close body of them, covering a space
of perhaps an acre, and evidently planted by man. Within the shelter
of these you will sometimes see that there is a large farm-house with
a small range of stables. The valleys are cultivated, but the hills
in greater part are covered, without the slightest variety, except
what arises from the changing contour of the ground, with short, wiry
grass, standing thinly, but sufficiently close to give the appearance
at a little distance from the eye, of a smooth, velvety, green surface.
Among the first of the hills I observed, at a high elevation, long
angular ramparts and earth-works, all greened over. Within them at the
summit of the hill were several extensive tumuli, evidently artificial,
(though I find nothing about it in the books,) and on the top of one
of these was a shepherd and dog and a large flock of sheep, clear and
coldly distinct, and appearing of gigantic size against the leaden
clouds behind. In the course of the day I met with many of these
flocks, and nearly all of the hill-land seemed given up to them. I
was upon the border, in fact, of the great _Southdown_ district, and,
during the next week, the greater part of the country through which we
were travelling, was of the same general character of landscape, though
frequently not as green, varied, and pleasing as in these outskirts of
it.
THE DESCRIPTION OF SCENERY
There is always a strong temptation upon the traveller to endeavor to
so describe fine scenery, and the feelings which it has occasioned
him, that they may be reproduced to the imagination of his friends.
Judging from my own experience, this purpose always fails. I have never
yet seen any thing celebrated in scenery, of which I had previously
obtained a correct conception. Certain striking, prominent points,
that the power of language has been most directed to the painting
of, almost invariably disappoint, and seem little and commonplace,
after the exaggerated forms which have been brought before the mind’s
eye. Beauty, grandeur, impressiveness, in any way, from scenery, is
not often to be found in a few prominent, distinguishable features,
but in the manner and the unobserved materials with which these are
connected and combined. Clouds, lights, states of the atmosphere, and
circumstances that we cannot always detect, affect all landscapes, and
especially landscapes in which the vicinity of a body of water is an
element, much more than we are often aware. So it is that the impatient
first glance of the young traveller, or the impertinent critical stare
of the old tourist, is almost never satisfied, if the honest truth be
admitted, in what it has been led to previously imagine. I have heard
“Niagara is a mill-dam,” “Rome is a humbug.”
The deep sentiments of nature that we sometimes seem to have been made
the confidant of, when among the mountains, or on the moors or the
ocean,--even those of man wrought out in architecture and sculpture
and painting, or of man working in unison with Nature, as sometimes in
the English parks, on the Rhine, and here on the Isle of Wight,--such
revealings are beyond words; they never could be transcribed into
note-books and diaries, and so descriptions of them become caricatures,
and when we see them, we at first say we are disappointed that we find
not the monsters we were told of.
Dame Nature is a gentlewoman. No guide’s fee will obtain you her
favour, no abrupt demand; hardly will she bear questioning, or direct,
curious gazing at her beauty; least of all, will she reveal it truly
to the hurried glance of the passing traveller, while he waits for his
dinner, or fresh horses, or fuel and water; always we must quietly and
unimpatiently wait upon it. Gradually and silently the charm comes over
us; the beauty has entered our souls; we know not exactly when or how,
but going away we remember it with a tender, subdued, filial-like joy.
Does this seem nonsense to you? Very likely, for I am talking of what I
don’t understand. Nature treats me so strangely; it’s past my speaking
sensibly of, and yet, as a part of my travelling experience, I would
speak of it. At times I seem myself to be her favourite, and she brings
me to my knees in deep feeling, such as she blesses no other with;
oftener I see others in ecstasies, while I am left to sentimentalize
and mourn, or to be critical, and sneering, and infidel. Nonsense
still; but tell me, do you think it is only for greed of trouts that
your great and sensitive man lingers long, intently stooping over dark
pools in the spray of the mountain torrents, or stealing softly a way
through the bending rushes, or kneeling lowly on the darkest verdure of
the shaded meadow? What else? I know not what he thinks, but of this I
am assured: while his mind is most intent upon his trivial sport, his
heart and soul will be far more absorbent of the rugged strength, the
diffuse, impetuous brilliance, the indefinite gliding grace, or the
peaceful twilight loveliness, of the scenes around him, than if he went
out searching, labouring directly for it as for bread and fame.
The greater part of the Isle of Wight is more dreary, desolate, bare,
and monotonous than any equal extent of land you probably ever saw
in America--would be, rather, if it were not that you are rarely
out of sight of the sea; and no landscape, of which that is a part,
ever can be without variety and ever-changing interest. It is, in
fact _down-land_ in the interior, exactly like that I described in
Wiltshire, and sometimes breaking down into such bright dells as I
there told of. But on the south shore it is rocky, craggy; and after
you have walked through a rather dull country, though pleasing on the
whole, for hours after landing, you come gradually to where the majesty
of vastness, peculiar to the downs and the ocean, alternates or mingles
with dark, picturesque, rugged ravines, chasms, and water-gaps, sublime
rock-masses, and soft, warm smiling inviting dells and dingles; and,
withal, there is a strange and fascinating enrichment of half-tropical
foliage, so deep, graceful, and luxuriant, as I never saw before any
where in the world. All this district is thickly inhabited, and yet so
well covered with verdure, or often so tastefully appropriate--quiet,
cosy, ungenteel, yet elegant--are the cottages, that they often
add to, rather than insult and destroy, the natural charm of their
neighbourhood. I am sorry to say, that among the later erections there
are a number of very strong exceptions to this remark.
* * * * *
As to Mr. Olmsted’s travels in 1856, we have a memorandum that he
visited Rome, Genoa, Florence, Prague, Leipzig, and Dresden as well as
London. We have a delightful reference to his brief Italian visit in a
letter written to Charles Eliot, then abroad, March 4, 1886:
I think that you want to get hints for gardening in dry, hot regions
of our country from Italy, Spain and south of France. You do not, it
seems to me, get much of value from the show villas to which you go
as a matter of course. But I remember modester places which struck me
as delightful, and one or two that I cannot now specify I made my way
into and faintly recall always when I think of what should be done in
California, Colorado, New Mexico, or really in Georgia and Florida. I
speak of a month in all Italy more than thirty years ago when I had no
more thought of being a landscape architect than of being a Cardinal.
Yet my experience has been of much value to me.
FOOTNOTES:
[15] In regard to the preparations for his trip, Mr. Olmsted wrote in
the Preface of his _Walks and Talks_: “With a hearty country appetite
for narrative, I have spent, previous to my own journey, a great many
long winter evenings in reading the books so frequently written by our
literary tourists, upon England; and although I do not recollect one
of them, the author of which was a farmer, or whose habits of life,
professional interests, associations in society, and ordinary standards
of comparison were not altogether different from my own, I remember
none from which I did not derive entertainment and instruction.”
[16]
LIST OF CUTS
DRAWN ON WOOD BY M. FIELD
FROM SKETCHES BY THE AUTHOR
1. The School-House (vignette, title page).
2. The English Coaster (calm).
3. The English Coaster (squalls).
4. The English Plough (vertical).
5. The English Plough (horizontal).
6. The Timber House (old farm-house).
7. Old English Domestic Architecture (Chester, 16th century).
8. Old English Domestic Architecture (Chester, 16th Century).
9. The Clod Crusher.
10. The Uley Cultivator.
11. The Stage Wagon.
12. Old English Domestic Architecture (the village schoolmaster’s
cottage).
[17] Mr. Olmsted was fond of quoting this passage in his later
professional writing.