building the american landscape - Univerza v Novi Gorici

Despite the fact that Loudon knew of the American experiences thanks to his
correspondents or reports sent by readers of his magazine, 236 he concentrated on
what he believed to be the core of a cemetery project: “Churchyards and
cemeteries are scenes not only calculated to improve the morals and the taste, and
by their botanical riches to cultivate the intellect, but they serve as historical
records” 237 . This conviction had nothing especially innovative in the description of
the landscape of the English garden cemetery. The publication of the ground plans
attached to Loudon’s essay showed a self‐censored approach compared to the
236 In the 1841 number of The Gardner’s Magazine there is a report by Alexander Jackson Downing
about “Additional Notes on the Progress of Gardening in the United States”, pp.146‐147:
“In my notes to you on the progress of gardening in the United States (Vol. for 1840, p. 642.), I
accidentally omitted any allusion to the taste for cemeteries or rural burial‐grounds which has lately
sprung up among us. Some of these are exceedingly beautiful, displaying much of the beauty of
landscape gardening in the natural style. Mount Auburn, near Boston, is one of the finest examples,
and has been pronounced by good judges, superior in many respects to the celebrated Père la
Chaise. The area embraced is about seventy acres, and its characteristic beauty consists in the very
great natural variety of the surface, clothed with a profusion of fine trees of indigenous growth.
Open smooth glades are followed by shady and secluded dingles, and these by wild and picturesque
hills, all so rapidly presenting themselves in succession, and so ingeniously displayed by winding and
irregular carriage roads and footpaths, that the whole appears two or three times as large as it really
is. There are a great number of elegant monuments in marble and granite, in the form of columns,
obelisks, sarcophagi, &c., some of them highly elegant, and a few imported from Italy at very large
cost. Portions of the place exhibit all the floral beauty of highly kept pleasure‐grounds, while other
parts have all the wildness of rude nature. It is a favourite resort of the citizens of Boston, and one
can hardly conceive a lovelier place of repose for the dead. In the neighbourhood of New York, the
Greenwood Cemetery lately laid out for the purpose bids fair to eclipse Mount Auburn. In size it is
much larger, and if possible exceeds it in the diversity of surface, and especially in the grandeur of
the views. Every advantage has been taken of the undulation of surface, and the fine groups, masses,
and thickets of trees, in arranging the walks; and there can be no doubt, when this cemetery is
completed, it will be one of the most unique in the world. Laurel Hill, about two miles from the city,
is the boast of the Philadelphians. Instead of having been formed upon a picturesque natural surface,
covered with natural forest trees, this cemetery was formerly an elegant country residence,
bordering on the Schuylkill River, and displaying a kind of garden‐like beauty in the trees, shrubs, &c.
Since the grounds have been applied to the purpose of burial, a pretty entrance gate and cottage for
the superintendant, and also a neat Gothic chapel, have been built. There are innumerable
monuments tastefully disposed in various parts of the place, and many of the small enclosures
surrounding these are filled with the most beautiful flowering shrubs and plants. The variety of China
and Noisette roses in particular is very great; and these, as well as many rare exotics, are trained and
kept with the greatest care. Beside these three principal cemeteries, there are at least a dozen
others in progress in the neighbourhood of other cities. It is remarkable that these cemeteries are
the first really elegant public gardens or promenades formed in this country. In point of design,
keeping, and in so far as respects the variety of rare flowering shrubs and plants introduced, they are
much superior to the majority of country residences here, and may therefore be considered as likely
to affect in a very considerable degree the general taste for laying out and embellishing grounds.
Hundreds of the citizens who ramble through them form perhaps their first acquaintance with many
species of plants there, and apply the taste thus acquired to the improvement of their own gardens.
Botanic Garden and Nurseries, Newburgh, near New York, Nov. 29. 1840”.
237 LOUDON, John Claudius, The Gardener’s Magazine and register of rural and domestic
improvement, London, Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1843, p. 105
142