Practical Landscape Gardening, with reference to the Improvement of Bond Residences, firing the general Principles of the Art, with full Directions for Planting Shade Trees, Shrubbery end Flowers, end Laying cut Grounda. By G. M. Kern. Cincinnati : Moore, Wilstaoh, Keys & Co. 1855.

Oar first impression on opening this book, is that the publishers hare done their part well - so well, indeed, as to be quite equal to the best productions of our largest cities. Mr. Kern did well to put his book in the hands of these gentlemen, and we trust they will have a profitable sale, if for no other reason than that they have displayed such commendable taste. The volume contains 328 pages - about as large as Elliot's Fruit Book, or The Fruit Garden - is illustrated with numerous well executed wood cuts, and dedicated to A. H. Ernst, Esq., a gentleman well known to horticultural readers, and who well deserves the honor intended him by Mr. Kern.

The author is, judging from his book, a man of cultivated mind, and one who has had considerable experience as a professional landscape gardener. We cannot give his work an unqualified recommendation, but we can honestly say that gentlemen who are conducting improvements on their own grounds, without having had experience, will find much in it that will be of service to them. The practical part, especially, abounds with useful directions concerning the planting and arrangement of trees, making and keeping lawns, grading and excavating, making roads and walks, lakes and ponds, rock work, etc. This the backbone of the work, and comprises about one hundred pages, or less than one-third of the whole.

We will point out what appears to us a few defects which may hereafter be remedied. In the first place, the introduction is quite too lengthy, and too prominent for a small practical work like this. It occupies some thirty pages, instead of simply stating the objects and plan of the book as briefly as possible. Then sixty-one pages are devoted to the vegetable garden, which should not have been treated of at all, because "landscape gardening" is one thing and " kitchen gardening " another. This is a very common and very grave error in book-making now-a-days. A pocket volume must be an encyclopedia. All that the treatise on landscape gardening has to do with the kitchen garden is to provide or point out the most suitable place for it. But while these ninety-one pages are bestowed upon matters that might and should have been omitted, we find no description of ornamental trees and shrubs, such as all inexperienced planters are crying out for more than for aught else. Mr. Kern gives some eighteen pages of bare names of trees and shrubs, good, bad, and indifferent, without discrimination. Many of them are mere rubbish, which no man in his senses would plant unless in an arboretum, where everything is welcome, while hundreds of the finest things are not mentioned. This is a great error.

The "limits " of the volume is no excuse, for we have shown, or can show, that one hudred pages have been thrown away or mis-appropriated.

Nor is this all. We find after reading and examining the book attentively, that the division into two parts - "Principles of the Art," and "Practical Operations," - though necessary and proper in a larger and more comprehensive volume, does not work well in this. It has led to an unnecessary division of the same subject in many instances, and to considerable repetition of words as well as ideas. For instance, water, roads, and walks, rock work, lawn, and all these matters, are treated of in the first part and again in the second; and we believe no man who will read the book will lay it down without wishing that all the author's ideas on each of these subjects had been given in one place. We cannot see but that the remarks in the one part are just as practical as those in the other; the division is a mere cumbrous formality. So we find "plantation," "outline," "composition," "groves," etc., treated separately in chapters, while one chapter, under the head of Plantation, should have embraced all the others.

If space permitted at present, we should speak of the illstrations. Many of them appear to us faulty. The worst of all is, we think, the " artificial rock work," which forms the frontispiece. The castle seems to be in a very awkward and perilous situation, and the trees growing out of the side of the rock have not the aspect or forms of trees which nature produces in such situations. We cannot imagine how Mr. Keen's good taste could plant this production in such a conspicuous place. And the illustration called " the pleasure ground," seems to be planted exclusively with evergreens, which gives it a very monotonous appearance. We do not believe that Mr. Keen would carry out such a design in practice.

Now if Mr. Kern wishes to make his book really popular and useful, and true to its character, he will consider what we have said, not as being prompted by any dictatorial feelings, but by a hearty desire to see his book improved and made serviceable to the public. We hail such books with real pleasure, even if not what they should be, and we shall rejoice to see Mr. Kern's volume find its way into the hands of thousands who have not before opened a book on Landsape Gardening.

Notices Of Books, Pampblets #1

Home for the People in Suburb And Country, the Villa, the Mansion, and the Cottage. Adapted to American Climate and wants, with examples showing how to alter sad re-model old buildings, in a series of One Hundred original designs. By Gervase Wheeler, Architect, Author of Rural Homes, etc. New York: Chas. Scrirner.

1855.

Homes for the People is indeed an attractive title for a book, in these times when people are really beginning to realize the meaning of that word - Horns. The book itself is no less attractive than its title, for, like all of Mr. Scribnes's books, it is presented in beautiful style. Paper, type, and illustrations, are all excellent. In size it is about equal to Down-ito's Fruits and Fruit-Trees of America. It is divided into five parts, thus: Part 1, The Villa; Part 2, The Mansion; Part 3, The Cottage; Part 4, The House on a Farm; Part 5, Constructive and Miscellaneous details.

Each of these parts is again subdivided into chapters, in which the various branches of the subject are separately discussed. The arrangement seems to be all that the reader could desire; and this, in the making up of a book of this kind, is a matter of no small important.

The want of leisure has prevented us from perusing this book so fully and carefully as to enable us to offer any lengthy account of its contents; but we can cheerfully say this much - that it is one of the most practical and comprehensive treatises of the kind which has yet appeared in this country. Every man who intends to build a house, whether the cost be $1,000 or $20,000, and all who contemplate alterations or improvements in their dwellings, should immediately consult it. More than this, it will be found a most interesting book to all classes of readers, whether they intend to build or not, for Mr. Wheeler possesses the faculty of expressing his ideas in refined and very agreeable language.

We are informed that Mr. Chorlton is preparing, and will very soon have ready for the press, a new, large, and greatly improved edition of his treatise on Grape culture. It will be very acceptable at the present time, when sound, reliable information on this branch of culture is much sought for. The appearance of good, practical works on rural affairs is the best sign of our progress.