Andrew Jackson Downing

Andrew Jackson Downing (October 31, 1815–July 28, 1852), a prominent nurseryman, landscape designer, and author, helped steer Americans’ popular taste away from formal, geometric styles of landscape design and toward more natural, picturesque modes in the middle of the nineteenth century. He especially advocated improvements in rural landscape design and the creation of public parks. His untimely death at age thirty-six inhibited the realization of his ambitious proposal for Public Grounds in Washington, D.C., that were to be developed on the present site of the National Mall.

History

Fig. 1, Anonymous, Ground Plan of a portion of Downing’s Botanic Gardens and Nurseries, in C. M. Hovey, ed. The Magazine of Horticulture 7 (1841), p. 404.

Andrew Jackson Downing, a leading nurseryman, landscape designer, and author in the mid-nineteenth-century United States, was born in 1815 to Samuel Downing (d. 1822), a nurseryman, and his wife Eunice Bridge Downing (d. 1838) in Newburgh, New York, where A. J. Downing spent his entire life and career. Downing showed an early interest in horticulture, and he joined the family nursery business in 1831, while still a teenager. Downing took over his brother Charles’s share of the family nursery business soon after their mother’s death in 1838, and he named the establishment Botanic Garden and Nurseries, also known as Highland Gardens or Highland Nurseries [Fig. 1]. By the early 1840s, Downing’s career began to evolve and he marketed himself primarily as a professional landscape designer. In the June 1842 issue of Hovey’s Magazine of Horticulture Downing took out an advertisement for his “Professional Landscape Gardening” services [Fig. 2]. Throughout this period, Downing also published extensively on horticulture, landscape design, and architecture. He sold the nursery business in 1846, when his activities as a landscape designer and author began to occupy more of his attention.

Between 1841 and 1850, Downing published four books that had a significant and enduring impact on the fields of landscape design, horticulture, and architecture in the United States. A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, Adapted to North America—Downing’s first book and the first treatise on landscape gardening to be published in the United States—lays out “leading principles” and “practicable methods” by which proprietors could embellish their rural residences. For Downing, such embellishments were of great civil and social import, and he claimed that improving one’s home could “increase local attachments...strengthening [the proprietor’s] patriotism and making him a better citizen.” In the preface, Downing also acknowledged that he drew heavily on European—especially British—authors when developing his principles of landscape design, adapting their principles to suit “this country [the United States] and the peculiar wants of its inhabitants” (view text).

Although he did not see English landscapes in person until the end of his life, when he traveled abroad for the first and only time in 1850, British landscape theories of the picturesque—especially the writings of Edmund Burke (1729–1797), Sir Uvedale Price (1747–1829), Humphry Repton (1752–1818), John Claudius Loudon (1783–1843), and John Ruskin (1819–1900)—played a significant role in the formulation of Downing’s own principles of landscape design. By the time Downing published the second edition of his Treatise in 1844, he was arguing more forcefully for the “great advantage” of the picturesque, writing in a passage not included in the first edition, “The raw materials of wood, water, and surface, by the margin of many of our rivers and brooks, are at once appropriated with so much effect, and so little art, in the picturesque mode; the annual tax on the purse too, is so comparatively little, and the charm so great!” (view text). Downing thus became a champion of the natural style of landscape design in the middle of the nineteenth century, helping to steer Americans’ popular taste away from the more formal, geometric modes that dominated throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. According to David Schuyler, “Downing interpreted this progression from classic to romantic not simply as a change in stylistic preference but as a reflection of the nation’s evolution from a pioneer condition to a more advanced state of civilization.”

Between the publication of the first two editions, Downing’s recommendations on the use of native versus exotic plants shifted. In 1841, while he still made his living primarily as a nurseryman, Downing warned estate owners not to replicate the woodlands of the surrounding Hudson Valley countryside and instead advocated the use of nonlocal North American and Eurasian species (view text). Philip J. Pauly has argued that financial decisions may have informed Downing’s advice, noting that gardens that used exclusively local plants “would generate little business for nurserymen like Downing.” By 1844, when Downing was better known as an author and designer than as a nurseryman, his opinion shifted, and he embraced the use of local landscape features—especially “the raw materials of wood, water, and surface”—in picturesque landscape design. Downing’s recommendations for the use of local “raw materials” were likely rooted not only in design aesthetics but also in Downing’s own nativist attitudes during this period. Concerned about foreign competition, Downing “lashed out” at European landscape gardeners working in the United States in a “Note on Professional Quakery” that he added to the appendix of the 1844 edition of his Treatise.

While preparing the manuscript for A Treatise in 1838, Downing enlisted the help of the New York City architect Alexander Jackson Davis (1803–1892) to illustrate the text—a collaboration that would continue throughout the remainder of Downing’s career. Downing, who was, according to Robert Twombly, “not a polished draftsman,” provided Davis with sketches that Davis “put into proper form for engraving and publication.” Because of advances in printing technologies, Downing was able to integrate images into his texts easily and inexpensively, making his well-illustrated publications affordable to a growing middle-class audience. Caren Yglesias has argued that “The images satisfied his audience’s visual appetite and allowed readers to imagine their own tasteful homes and gardens,” using the accompanying texts as a guide. A Treatise was immediately popular after its publication; Downing edited at least two additional editions of the text during his lifetime (in 1844 and 1849), and the Treatise remained in print until the publication of the tenth edition in 1921.

In 1842 Downing and Davis collaborated on a second book, Cottage Residences, which proposed integrated designs for modest dwellings and gardens that targeted cost-conscious, middle-class consumers (view text). In his third book, The Fruit and Fruit Trees of America, published in 1845, Downing drew on his experience as a nurseryman and offered practical advice on planting orchards and what types of trees would grow best in different environments. Downing’s fourth and final book, The Architecture of Country Houses, published in 1850, again provided practical advice for homeowners and proposed designs for freestanding houses. In the preface, Downing argued for the “moral influence” and social benefits of having “good houses.” He wrote, “when smiling lawns and tasteful cottages begin to embellish the country, we know that order and culture are established. . . . the interest manifested in the Rural Architecture of a country like this, has much to do with the progress of its civilization” (view text). Unlike Downing’s previous architectural tome, however, The Architecture of County Houses provided no specific advice on landscape gardening.

In addition to authoring books, Downing also published numerous articles in horticultural periodicals throughout his career. In 1832, as a teenager, Downing published his first essay in a regional horticultural magazine. In July 1846, following the successful release of his first three books, he became the founding editor of a new monthly journal started by Luther Tucker (1802–1873) in Albany, The Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste, a position that he held for six years. Downing published seventy-four monthly editorials covering a wide range of topics in The Horticulturist, and, as with his books, Downing worked with Davis to illustrate his articles. Downing devoted much of his writing to rural improvements and better land management. His advocacy for such issues extended beyond his role as editor, however. As a champion for public agricultural education, between 1849 and 1852, Downing helped develop a plan for a state agricultural college in New York that, much to his disappointment, was never realized. He had long argued for the importance of institutions of public learning, claiming that such institutions were essential for the development of American society and republican virtues. Throughout the late 1830s and early 1840s Downing helped establish a number of institutions of public learning, including the Newburgh Library Association (1835), the Newburgh Lyceum (1837), and the Horticultural Association of the Valley of the Hudson (1838).

In addition to advocating for rural improvements, Downing also addressed the importance of urban and suburban public parks and gardens, arguing that such spaces were essential for the cultivation of moral and civic virtues in the American public. In his October 1848 Horticulturist editorial entitled “A Talk about Public Parks and Gardens,” for example, Downing wrote that public parks would play an important role “in elevating the national character.” He urged his readers: “Let our people see for themselves the influence for good which [the founding of a public park] would effect, no less than the healthful enjoyment it will afford, and I feel confident that the taste for public pleasure-grounds, in the United States, will spread as rapidly as that for cemeteries has done” (view text).

Downing’s ideas reached a wide audience through his authorship of various books and editorials in the Horticulturist, but his reach exceeded the readership of such publications. As David Schuyler has argued, Downing’s own ideas were modified, adapted, and widely disseminated by agricultural journals and later generations of pattern-book authors. Much as Downing had imitated and altered English architectural and landscape practices to suit an American audience, “[t]he publication of his designs was followed by a process of imitation and modification, an American analogue to the adaptation of English forms he had practiced.” Gardens and buildings that were not designed by Downing but nonetheless owed their forms to Downing’s ideas proliferated throughout the United States during the middle of the nineteenth century.

Downing designed a small number of buildings during the course of his career, and few of his designed landscapes remain intact today. His first major architectural and landscape design project was Highland Garden (also known as Highland Place), Downing’s own Tudor-style house in Newburgh that he designed in 1838, around the time of his marriage to Caroline Elizabeth De Windt (1815–1905). Only twenty-four years old and with no formal architectural training, Downing, according to Adam W. Sweeting, although “the Newburgh villa was...an accomplished work," Downing most likely “relied on an English pattern book when designing his house." Initially, the family nursery business took up much of the property near the residence, limiting the scope of Downing’s landscape design. However, after selling the nursery in 1846, he developed the landscape surrounding his home to resemble a picturesque English estate [Fig. 3].

Although he was not a trained architect, as his national reputation grew, Downing received requests to design private and public buildings. According to Schuyler, between 1846 and 1850, Downing usually passed these commissions on to Davis. However, there are at least three projects from this period on which Downing and Davis collaborated on the architectural design: Angier cottage in Medford, Massachusetts; the design for the proposed New York State Agricultural College; and the plans for the entrance gate and chapel for the Cemetery of the Evergreens in Brooklyn, New York.

While traveling in London in 1850, Downing met the young English architect Calvert Vaux (1825–1895) and convinced Vaux to move to Newburgh so that Downing could pursue additional architectural projects with his assistance. From September 1850 until July 1852, Vaux worked for Downing; after July 1852, the two formed a professional partnership, “Downing & Vaux, Architects.” Among their many projects, the commission to design Springside, Matthew Vassar’s (1792–1868) one-hundred-acre estate in Poughkeepsie, New York, is one of the few that survives largely intact.

Fig. 4, A. J. Downing, Plan Showing Proposed Method of Laying Out the Public Grounds at Washington, 1851.

Downing and Vaux’s most significant project, however, was the 1850–1851 plans for a Public Grounds in Washington, D.C., located in the area that now constitutes the National Mall. At the behest of Smithsonian Secretary Joseph Henry (1797–1878), financier William Wilson Corcoran (1798–1888), Mayor Walter Lenox (1817–1874), and Commissioner of Public Buildings Ignatius Mudd, President Millard Fillmore (1800–1874) invited Downing to undertake the commission to create a public park of approximately 150-acres, extending east-west between the foot of the United States Capitol Grounds and the Potomac River (then near the Washington Monument) and north-south between the river and the White House. Downing’s plan divided the Public Grounds into six sections [Fig. 4]. He proposed erecting a marble triumphal “President’s Arch” to connect the U.S. Capitol Grounds to the national Botanic Garden, located on the site of the former Columbian Institute. The Botanic Garden would connect with “Fountain Park” to the west, and then the “Smithsonian Pleasure Grounds,” “Evergreen Garden,” and “Monument Park” (the area surrounding the Washington Monument). A suspension bridge would cross the Tiber Canal, connecting the “Monument Park” to the circular lawn of the “Parade or President’s Park” and then the “President’s Grounds” located adjacent to the White House. With the exception of the” Evergreen Garden” and the “Parade or President’s Park,” the Public Grounds would be landscaped in the natural style, with curving walks and picturesque arrangement of trees and artificial lakes.

Part of Downing’s goals for the redevelopment of the National Mall were pedagogical, and he wrote that he hoped the Public Grounds would “become a Public School of Instruction in every thing [sic] that relates to the growth and culture of trees” (view text). While working on the plan for the Public Grounds, Downing adopted, according to Pauly, a more “eclectic approach” in his recommendations for using both exotic and native species, but, by 1852, “disillusioned by lack of congressional support for his Washington project and disturbed by the ongoing Irish invasion of New York in the wake of the Famine, Downing shifted positions again—to a strident horticultural nativism.”

President Fillmore approved the western portion of Downing’s plan in April 1851, and the clearing, draining, and grading of the area around the Smithsonian began almost immediately. However, Downing’s life and career were tragically cut short when, on July 28, 1852, the steamship Henry Clay, which Downing was riding between Newburgh and New York City, caught fire, and he drowned. The plans for the Public Grounds in Washington, D.C., were largely abandoned following Downing’s death, but, in memory of Downing, the so-called Downing Urn, designed by Vaux and sculpted in marble by Robert E. Launitz (1806–1870), was erected on the National Mall in 1856.

Through his writing and design projects, Downing left a legacy that continued to shape landscape design—and especially the urban park movement—in the United States long after his death. As designers of New York City’s Central Park, Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted (1822–1903) acknowledged that their 1857–1858 plan for the urban park was inspired by Downing’s design principles. In 1889 Vaux and Olmsted joined forces again to design the Andrew Jackson Downing Memorial Park, which was dedicated in Newburgh, New York, to the memory of their friend and collaborator.

--Lacey Baradel

Texts

• Downing, A. J., January 1837 (1837: 8)

“The branch of the art least understood and least practised in the United States is landscape gardening. The modern or picturesque style of laying out grounds is most generally attempted of late, and, we regret to see, in some cases where the geometric would be more in character with the country and the situations. The finest single example of landscape gardening, in the modern style, is at Dr. Hosack’s seat, Hyde Park, and the best specimens of the ancient or geometric style may probably be met with in the neighborhood of Philadelphia.”

• Downing, A. J., 1841, Preface to A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, Adapted to North America;... (1841: ii–iii) back up to history

"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.

"In the following pages I have attempted to trace out such principles, and to suggest practicable methods of embellishing our Rural Residences, on a scale commensurate to the views and means of our proprietors. While I have availed myself of the works of European authors, and especially those of Britain, where Landscape Gardening was first raised to the rank of a fine art, I have also endeavoured to adapt my suggestions especially to this country and to the peculiar wants of its inhabitants. . . .

"The love of country is inseparably connected with the love of home. Whatever, therefore, leads man to assemble the comforts and elegancies of life around his habitation, tends to increase local attachments, and render domestic life more delightful; thus not only augmenting his own enjoyment, but strengthening his patriotism and making him a better citizen. And there is no employment or recreation which affords the mind greater or more permanent satisfaction, than that of cultivating the earth and adorning our property."

• Downing, A. J., 1841, Excerpt from A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, Adapted to North America;... (1841: 34–35) back up to history

"A fac-simile imitation of nature in gardening, that is, a scene like wild nature, in which only wild trees, shrubs, and plants, are employed, and which is precisely like wild nature, produces pleasure only as it deceives us, and appears to be nature itself. An artistical imitation, affords pleasure to the mind, not only by the expressions of natural beauty which we discover in it, but by the more novel and choicer forms in which they are displayed, and by the tasteful art apparent in the arrangement. The relative merit of the two may be illustrated, by comparing the first, to the counterfeit of the human figure in wax, which at a short distance may be thought to be real, and the last, to the painted landscape or the marble statue. The two latter are no less imitations of nature, than the former, but they are expressive and elegant imitations only, which are never to be mistaken for the originals, as in the case of the wax figure.

"One of the chief elements of artistical imitation in Landscape Gardening, being a difference in the materials employed in the imitation of nature from those in nature herself, nothing can be more apparent, than the necessity of introducing largely, exotic ornamental trees, shrubs and plants, instead of those of indigenous growth. Thus, to take the simplest example, if we suppose a lawn of an acre, arranged with groups of trees, the groups composed of lindens, horse-chestnuts and magnolias, where the native forests are only filled with oak and ash trees, the variety of the foliage and blossoms alone, will at once suggest the recognition of art. Borders of rare flowers, and climbing plants,—gravel walks, in the place of common paths or roads,—smooth turf, instead of wild meadow,—elegant vases and architectural ornaments, with many other accessories, bespeaking the presence of tasteful and enlightened mind; all these are the essential characteristics of Landscape Gardening, considered as an art of imitation."

• Downing, A. J., 1842, Preface to Cottage Residences (1842: ii–iv) back up to history

"...I wish to inspire all persons with a love of beautiful forms and a desire to assemble them around their daily walks of life. I wish them to appreciate how superior is the charm of that home where we discover the tasteful cottage or villa, and the well designed and neatly kept garden or grounds, full of beauty and harmony, not the less beautiful and harmonious because simple and limited, and to become aware that these superior forms, and the higher and more refined enjoyment derived from them, may be had at the same cost and with the same labor as a clumsy dwelling, and its uncouth and ill designed accessories. . . .

"The relation between a country house and its 'surroundings,' have led me to consider, under the term Residences, both the architectural and the gardening designs. To constitute an agreeable whole, these should indeed have a harmonious correspondence one with the other; and although most of the following designs have not actually be carried into execution, yet it is believed that they will, either entirely or in part, be found adapted to many cases of every day occurrence, or at least, furnish hints for variations suitable for peculiar circumstances and situations."

• Downing, A. J., 1844, Excerpt from A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, Adapted to North America;... (1844: 59–60)

"Within the last five years, we think the picturesque is beginning to be preferred. It has, when a suitable locality offers, great advantage for us. The raw materials of wood, water, and surface, by the margin of many of our rivers and brooks, are at once appropriated with so much effect, and so little art, in the picturesque mode; the annual tax on the purse too, is so comparatively little, and the charm so great!

"On the other hand, the residences of a country of level plains, usually allow only, the beauty of simple, and graceful forms; and the larger desmesne, with its swelling hills and noble masses of wood, (may we not, prospectively, say the prairie too,) should always, in the hands of the man of wealth, be made to display all the freeness and beauty of the Graceful school.

"But there are many persons with small, cottage places, of little decided character, who have neither room, time, nor income, to attempt the improvement of their grounds fully, after either of those two schools. How shall they render their places tasteful and agreeable, in the easiest manner? We answer, by attempting only the simple and the natural; and the unfailing way to secure this, is by employing only trees and grass. A soft verdant lawn, and a few forest or ornamental trees, well grouped, give universal pleasure—they contain in themselves, in fact, the basis of all our agreeable sensations in a landscape garden—(natural beauty, and the recognition of art,) and they are the most enduring sources of enjoyment in any place."

• Downing, A. J., April 1847 (1847: 443–444)

"...our own taste leads us to prefer the modern English style of laying out flower gardens upon a ground work of grass or turf, kept scrupulously short. Its advantage over a flower garden composed only of beds with a narrow edging and gravel walks, consists in the greater softness, freshness and verdure of the green turf, which serves as a setting to the flower beds, and heightens the brilliancy of the flowers themselves. Still, both these modes have their merits, and each is best adapted to certain situations, and harmonizes best with its appropriate scenery.

"There are two other defects in many of our flower gardens, easily remedied, and about which we must say a word or two in passing.

"One of these is the common practice, brought over here by gardeners from England, of forming raised convex beds for flowering plants. This is a very unmeaning and injurious practice in this country, as a moment's reference to the philosophy of the thing will convince any one. In a damp climate, like that of England, a bed with a high convex surface . . . by throwing off the superfluous water, keeps the plants from suffering by excess of wet, and the form is an excellent one. In this country, where most frequently our flower gardens fail from drouth, what sound reason can be given for forming the beds with a raised and rounded surface of six inches in every three feet, so as to throw off four-fifths of every shower? The true mode, as a little reflection and experience will convince any one, is to form the surface of the bed nearly level . . . so that it may retain its due proportion of all the rains that fall."

• Downing, A. J., October 1848, "A Talk about Public Parks and Gardens" (1853: 146)

"...what an important influence these public resorts, of a rational and refined character, must exert in elevating the national character, and softening the many little jealousies of social life by a community of enjoyments. A people will have its pleasures, as certainly as its religion or laws; and whether these pleasures are poisonous and hurtful, or innocent and salutary, must greatly depend on the interest taken in them by the directing minds of the age. Get some country town of the first class to set the example by making a public park or garden of this kind. Let our people once see for themselves the influence for good which it would effect, no less than the healthful enjoyment it will afford, and I feel confident that the taste for public pleasure-grounds, in the United States, will spread as rapidly as that for cemeteries has done. If my own observation of the effect of these places in Germany is worth any thing, you may take my word for it that they will be better preachers of temperance than temperance societies, better refiners of national manners than dancing-schools, and better promoters of general good feeling than any lectures on the philosophy of happiness ever delivered in the lecture-room. In short, I am in earnest about the matter, and must therefore talk, write, preach, do all I can about it, and beg the assistance of all those who have public influence, till some good experiment of the kind is fairly tried in this country."

• Downing, A. J., August 1849, "The Philosophy of Rural Taste" (1853: 105)

"The corollary to be drawn from this learned and curious investigation of the history of national sensibility and taste, is a very clear and satisfactory one, viz., that as success, in 'the art of composing a landscape' (as Humboldt significantly calls landscape-gardening), depends on appreciation of nature, the taste of the individual as well as that of a nation, will be in direct proportion to the profound sensibility with which he perceives the Beautiful in natural scenery."

• Downing, A. J., 1850, Preface to The Architecture of Country Houses (1850: v–vi) back up to history

"There are three excellent reasons why my countrymen should have good houses.

"The first, is because a good house (and by this I mean a fitting, tasteful, and significant dwelling) is a powerful means of civilization. A nation, whose rural population is content to live in mean huts and miserable hovels, is certain to be behind its neighbors in education, the arts, and all that makes up the external signs of progress. With the perception of proportion, symmetry, order and beauty, awakens the desire for possession, and with them comes that refinement of manners which distinguishes a civilized from a coarse and brutal people. So long as men are forced to dwell in log huts and follow a hunter's life, we must not be surprised at lynch law and the use of the bowie knife. But, when smiling lawns and tasteful cottages begin to embellish the country, we know that order and culture are established. And, as the first incentive towards this change is awakened in the minds of most men by the perception of beauty and superiority in external objects, it must follow that the interest manifested in the Rural Architecture of a country like this, has much to do with the progress of its civilization.

"The second reason is, because the individual home has a great social value for a people. Whatever new systems may be needed for the regeneration of an old and enfeebled nation, we are persuaded that, in America, not only is the distinct family the best social form, but those elementary forces which give rise to the highest genius and the finest character may, for the most part, be traced back to the farm-house and the rural cottage. It is the solitude and freedom of the family home in the country which constantly preserves the purity of the nation, and invigorates its intellectual powers. The battle of life, carried on in cities, gives a sharper edge to the weapon of character, but its temper is, for the most part, fixed amid those communings with nature and the family, where individuality takes its most natural and strongest development.

"The third reason is, because there is a moral influence in a country house—when, among an educated, truthful, and refined people, it is an echo of their character—which is more powerful than any mere oral teachings of virtue and morality. . . .

"After the volumes I have previously written on this subject, it is needless for me to add more on the purpose of this work. But it is, perhaps, proper that I should say, that it is rather intended to develop the growing taste of the people, than as a scientific work on art. Rural Architecture is, indeed, so much more a sentiment, and so much less a science, than Civil Architecture, that the majority of persons will always build for themselves, and, unconsciously, throw something of their own character into their dwellings. To do this well and gracefully, and not awkwardly and clumsily, is always found more difficult than is supposed. I have, therefore, written this volume, in the hope that it may be of some little assistance to the popular taste. For the same reason, I have endeavored to explain the whole subject in so familiar a manner, as to interest all classes of readers who can find anything interesting in beauty, convenience or fitness of a house in the country."

• Downing, A. J., June 1850 (1850: 540)

"The indispensable desiderata in rural villages of this kind [newly planned in the suburbs of a great city], are the following: 1st, a large open space, common, or park, situated in the middle of the village—not less than 20 acres; and better, if 50 or more in extent. This should be well planted with groups of trees, and kept as a lawn. The expense of mowing it would be paid by the grass in some cases; and in others a considerable part of the space might be enclosed with a wire fence, and fed by sheep or cows, like many of the public parks in England.

"This park would be the nucleus or heart of the village, and would give it an essentially rural character. Around it should be grouped all the best cottages and residences of the place; and this would be secured by selling no lots fronting upon it of less than one-fourth of an acre in extent."

• Downing, A. J., 1851, describing plans for improving the Public Grounds in Washington, D.C. (quoted in Washburn 1967: 54, 55)

"My object in this Plan has been three-fold:

"1st: To form a national Park, which should be an ornament to the Capital of the United States; 2nd: To give an example of the natural style of Landscape Gardening which may have an influence on the general taste of the Country; 3rd: To form a collection of all the trees that will grown in the climate of Washington, and, by having these trees plainly labelled with their popular and scientific names, to form a public museum of living trees and shrubs where every person visiting Washington could become familiar with the habits and growth of all the hardy trees. . . .

“A national Park like this, laid out and planted in a thorough manner, would exercise as much influence on the public taste as Mount Auburn Cemetery near Boston, has done. Though only twenty years have elapsed since that spot was laid out, the lesson there taught has been so largely influential that at the present moment the United States, while they have no public parks, are acknowledged to possess the finest rural cemeteries in the world. The Public Grounds at Washington treated in the manner I have here suggested, would undoubtedly become a Public School of Instruction in every thing that relates to the tasteful arrangement of parks and grounds, and the growth and culture of trees, while they would serve, more than anything else that could be devised, to embellish and give interest to the Capital. The straight lines and broad Avenues of the streets of Washington would be pleasantly relieved and contrasted by the beauty of curved lines and natural groups of trees in the various parks. By its numerous public buildings and broad Avenues, Washington will one day command the attention of every stranger, and if its un-improved public grounds are tastefully improved they will form the most perfect background or setting to the City, concealing many of its defects and heightening all its beauties.”

• Anonymous, September 1852 (1852: 394–395)

"In the editorship of the HORTICULTURIST, he has shown, perhaps, better than in his other writings, the peculiar fitness of his talents to educate the popular taste for the beautiful in nature and art. The success which has attended this periodical, and the increased attention which is being paid to Landscape Gardening, Horticulture and Rural Decoration, are proof of the beneficial influence of his labors. . . . Mr. Downing was not by eminance a theorist. It was not his aim to build castles too grand and lofty for human realization, or to show the power of his intellect by forming conceptions, which imagination only could give being to. The great question with him, was, how much of the really beautiful can be made subservient to the public good? how far can elegance and utility be combined? how much of the spirit of the amateur can be infused into the mass of the rural population? He has answered these questions by his deeds."

• Anonymous, September 1852, obituaries for A. J. Downing (1852: 430)

"[From the New York Evening Post]

"These publications of Mr. Downing, more than any other agency, had worked a change in our style of building, and created a general improvement in taste. He was commissioned, by a large number of gentlemen about to construct private residences, to prepare the designs and lay out the grounds. The evidence of his fine professional accomplishments now meet us in all parts of the country, and his loss is one that will be felt far beyond the bereaved circle of which he was the ornament and pride."

Images

• 

  Anonymous, Ground Plan of a portion of Downing’s Botanic Gardens and Nurseries, in C. M. Hovey, ed. The Magazine of Horticulture 7 (1841), p. 404.

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  A. J. Downing, Plan Showing Proposed Method of Laying Out the Public Grounds at Washington, 1851.

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  A. J. Downing, Plan Showing Proposed Method of Laying Out the Public Grounds at Washington, 1851. Manuscript copy by Nathaniel Michler, 1867.

Other Resources

Library of Congress Authority File

The Cultural Landscape Foundation

American National Biography

Smithsonian Gardens - The Downing Urn

Columbia University Libraries Online - A. J. Downing & His Legacy