A Project of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art
History of Early American Landscape Design

Difference between revisions of "Meadow"

[http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/research/casva/research-projects.html A Project of the National Gallery of Art, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts ]
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==History==
 
==History==
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[[File:0601.jpg|thumb|left|Fig. 1, Anonymous, A plan of the section of land on which the Believers live in the state of Ohio, November 7, 1807. “Meadow” is noted in the center between the woods and cornfield.]]
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[[File:0676.jpg|thumb|Fig. 2, Anonymous, Garden Plan of “Newington” in Allegheny County, Pa, 1823, in Alice B. Lockwood, ''Gardens of Colony and State'' (1931), vol. 1, p. 380.]]
 +
According to lexicographer [[Noah Webster]] (1828), meadow referred “to the low ground on the banks of rivers . . . whether grassland, pasture, tillage, or [[wood]] land,” or low-lying lands that were particularly “appropriated to the culture of grass.” Both definitions of the term “meadow” were used in the American context.
 +
[[File:0972.jpg|thumb|left|Fig. 3, Pierre Pharoux, “General Map of the honorable Wm. frederic Baron of Steuben’s Mannor” [detail], c. 1793. The “60 acres of Meadow” is indicated at “j” in the four squares below the hemicycle.]]
  
[[File:0601.jpg|thumb|left|Fig. 1, Anonymous, A plan of the section of land on which the Believers live in the state of Ohio, Nov. 7, 1807. "Meadow" is noted in the center between the woods and cornfield.]]
+
18th-century maps of New York and Boston show “salt meadows” along rivers. Like [[kitchen garden]]s or [[orchard]]s, meadows played a key role in early American husbandry, and descriptive accounts of productive farms and estates often mention meadows, particularly when they gave the landscape a rich or well-cultivated appearance. Meadows ranged in size from the 12-acre meadow noted in a 1747 newspaper advertisement to the estimated 50 acres of meadow attached to an estate in Pennsylvania. In an 1807 plan of South Union, Ohio, a meadow was located in close proximity to the residences and between areas designated as [[wood]]s and a cornfield [Fig. 1]. Since meadows were largely covered with grass, they could provide sustenance for cattle. Indeed, [[A. J. Downing]], in describing the benefits of [[park]]s, frequently instructed homeowners to regard them as meadows where their cattle could graze. The cultivation of grass rendered “meadow” synonymous with “pasture,” which Webster defined as grounds covered with grass appropriated for the food of cattle, and hence these terms frequently were used interchangeably.  
  
[[File:0676.jpg|thumb|Fig. 2, Anonymous, Garden Plan of "Newington" in Allegheny County, Pa, 1823, in Alice B. Lockwood, ''Gardens of Colony and State'' (1931), vol. 1, p. 380.]]
+
Although meadows were primarily associated with agricultural production, they were often part of a consciously designed landscape, as at “Newington,” Pennsylvania [Fig. 2]. They were also included in plans for [[plantation]]s and ornamental farms (see [[Ferme ornée]]). 18th-century British gardening treatises, for example, endorsed the incorporation of agricultural features into ornamental contexts: [[Batty Langley]] (1728) recommended “Little [[Walk]]s by purling streams in Meadows” as “delightful Entertainments.”
  
According to lexicographer [[Noah Webster]] (1828), meadow referred “to the low ground on the banks of rivers . . . whether grassland, pasture, tillage, or [[wood]] land,” or low-lying lands that were particularly “appropriated to the culture of grass.” Both definitions of the term “meadow” were used in the American context.
+
In many instances, meadows accomplished the same aesthetic results as [[lawn]]s, including framing desired objects or [[view]]s. At the 18th-century estate of [[Westover]] on the James River in Virginia, for example, meadows watered by [[canal]]s lined the road leading to the mansion and signaled one’s arrival to the “improved grounds” surrounding the house. According to François-Alexandre-Frédéric duc de la Rochefoucauld Liancourt (1799), Dr. Baron of Charleston, South Carolina, wanted to buy an area of flat land between his garden and the river to convert it to a meadow that could frame views of the distant [[prospect]]. Pierre Pharoux, in his plan for Baron von Steuben’s estate in Mohawk Valley, New York, likewise used meadows carved out of [[wood]]s to ensure visual access to the [[prospect]] [Fig. 3].  
[[File:0972.jpg|thumb|left|Fig. 3, Pierre Pharoux, "General Map of the honorable Wm. frederic Baron of Steuben's Mannor" [detail], c. 1793. The "60 acres of Meadow" is indicated at "j" in the four squares below the hemicycle.]]
 
Eighteenth-century maps of New York and Boston show “salt meadows” along rivers. Like [[kitchen garden]]s or [[orchard]]s, meadows played a key role in early American husbandry, and descriptive accounts of productive farms and estates often mention meadows, particularly when they gave the landscape a rich or well-cultivated appearance. Meadows ranged in size from the 12-acre meadow noted in a 1747 newspaper advertisement to the estimated 50 acres of meadow attached to an estate in Pennsylvania. In an 1807 plan of South Union, Ohio, a meadow was located in close proximity to the residences and between areas designated as [[wood]]s and a cornfield [Fig. 1]. Since meadows were largely covered with grass, they could provide sustenance for cattle. Indeed, [[A. J. Downing]], in describing the benefits of [[park]]s, frequently instructed homeowners to regard them as meadows where their cattle could graze. The cultivation of grass rendered “meadow” synonymous with “pasture,” which Webster defined as grounds covered with grass appropriated for the food of cattle, and hence these terms frequently were used interchangeably.  
 
  
Although meadows were primarily associated with agricultural production, they were often part of a consciously designed landscape, as at “Newington,” Pa. [Fig. 2]. They were also included in plans for [[plantation]]s and ornamental farms (see [[Ferme ornée]]). Eighteenth-century British gardening treatises, for example, endorsed the incorporation of agricultural features into ornamental contexts: [[Batty Langley]] (1728) recommended “Little [[Walk]]s by purling streams in Meadows” as “delightful Entertainments.
+
Meadows were closely related to [[park]]s and [[lawn]]s; [[A. J. Downing|Downing]] on occasion referred to “meadow parks” and “meadow-[[lawn]]s”. Nevertheless, in at least one article in the ''Horticulturist'', he distinguished between [[lawn]]s and meadows, arguing that [[lawn]]s were composed of firm, close, and short grass, while coarser (and presumably taller) grasses with meadow flowers made up meadows. Moreover, [[lawn]]s were often trimmed and rolled to maintain their appearance, while the primary method of maintaining meadows was to allow animals to graze.  
  
In many instances, meadows accomplished the same aesthetic results as [[lawn]]s, including framing desired objects or [[view]]s. At the eighteenth-century estate of [[Westover]] on the James River in Virginia, for example, meadows watered by [[canal]]s lined the road leading to the mansion and signaled one’s arrival to the “improved grounds” surrounding the house. According to François-Alexandre-Frédéric duc de la Rochefoucauld Liancourt (1799), Dr. Baron of Charleston, S.C., wanted to buy an area of flat land between his garden and the river to convert it to a meadow that could frame views of the distant [[prospect]]. Pierre Pharoux, in his plan for Baron von Steuben’s estate in Mohawk Valley, N.Y., likewise used meadows carved out of [[wood]]s to ensure visual access to the [[prospect]] [Fig. 3].  
+
Like [[lawn]]s and [[bowling green]]s, the open grassy areas of meadows also provided space for sports and other leisure entertainments, as mentioned by a teacher in Salem, North Carolina, in 1817, who observed children playing round ball in the meadow of a tavern.  
  
Meadows were closely related to [[park]]s and [[lawn]]s; [[A. J. Downing|Downing]] on occasion referred to “meadow parks” and “meadow-[[lawn]]s”. Nevertheless, in at least one article in the ''Horticulturist'', he distinguished between [[lawn]]s and meadows, arguing that [[lawn]]s were composed of firm, close, and short grass, while coarser (and presumably taller) grasses with meadow flowers made up meadows. Moreover, [[lawn]]s were often trimmed and rolled to maintain their appearance, while the primary method of maintaining meadows was to allow animals to graze.
+
''Anne L. Helmreich''
  
Like [[lawn]]s and [[bowling green]]s, the open grassy areas of meadows also provided space for sports and other leisure entertainments, as mentioned by a teacher in Salem, N.C., in 1817, who observed children playing round ball in the meadow of a tavern.
+
<hr>
 
 
-- ''Anne L. Helmreich''
 
{{clear}}
 
  
 
==Texts==
 
==Texts==
 
 
===Usage===
 
===Usage===
 
+
*Anonymous, August 17, 1747, describing property for sale in Somerset County, NJ (''New York Gazette'')  
* Anonymous, 17 August 1747, describing property for sale in Somerset County, N.J. (''New York Gazette'')  
+
:“TO BE SOLD, A pleasant Country [[Seat]], fitting for a Gentleman or Store-keeper . . . containing about 90 Acres, including a piece of English '''Meadow''' about 12 Acres, and more may be made, about 40 Acres being clear, the remainder [[Wood]]-Land.”  
 
 
: “TO BE SOLD, A pleasant Country [[Seat]], fitting for a Gentleman or Store-keeper . . . containing about 90 Acres, including a piece of English '''Meadow''' about 12 Acres, and more may be made, about 40 Acres being clear, the remainder [[Wood]]-Land.”
 
 
 
 
 
* Kalm, Pehr, 4 October 1748, describing his journey from Philadelphia, Pa., to Wilmington, Del. (1937: 1:81–82) <ref>Pehr Kalm, ''The America of 1750: Peter Kalm’s Travels in North America. The English Version of 1770'', 2 vols (New York: Wilson-Erickson, 1937), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/94EZM2V4 view on Zotero].</ref>
 
 
 
: “I rode now through [[wood]]s of several sorts of trees and now over pieces of land which had been cleared of the [[wood]] and which at present were grain fields, '''meadows''' and pastures. The farmhouses stood single, sometimes near the roads, and sometimes at a little distance from them, so that the space between the road and the houses was taken up with small cultivated tracts and '''meadows'''. . . . The fields bore partly buckwheat, which was cut, partly corn, and partly wheat.”
 
 
 
 
 
* Brook, Elizabeth, 1756, describing Doughoregan Manor, seat of Charles Carroll (of Annapolis), Howard County, Md. (Maryland Historical Society, A. E. Carroll Papers)
 
 
 
: “This place . . . is greatly improved, a fine, flourishing [[orchard]] with a variety of choice fruit, the garden inlarged and a stone [[wall]] built around it, 2 fine '''meadows'''.”
 
 
 
 
 
* Alexiowitz, Iwan, 1769, describing [[Bartram Botanic Garden and Nursery]], vicinity of Philadelphia, Pa. (quoted in Darlington 1849: 50)
 
 
 
: “The whole store of nature’s kind luxuriance seemed to have been exhausted on these beautiful '''meadows'''; he made me count the amazing number of cattle and horses now feeding on solid bottoms, which but a few years before had been covered with water.”  
 
  
  
* Shippen, Thomas Lee, 31 December 1783, describing [[Westover]], seat of William Byrd III, on the James River, Va. (1952: n.p.) <ref>Thomas Lee Shippen, ''Westover Described in 1783: A Letter and Drawing Sent by Thomas Lee Shippen, Student of Law in Williamsburg, to His Parents in Philadelphia'' (Richmond, Va.: William Byrd Press, 1952), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/3IWWPMJ5 view on Zotero].</ref>
+
*Kalm, Pehr, October 4, 1748, describing his journey from Philadelphia to Wilmington, DE (1937: 1:81–82)<ref>Pehr Kalm, ''The America of 1750: Peter Kalm’s Travels in North America. The English Version of 1770'', 2 vols. (New York: Wilson-Erickson, 1937), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/94EZM2V4 view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“I rode now through [[wood]]s of several sorts of trees and now over pieces of land which had been cleared of the [[wood]] and which at present were grain fields, '''meadows''' and pastures. The farmhouses stood single, sometimes near the roads, and sometimes at a little distance from them, so that the space between the road and the houses was taken up with small cultivated tracts and '''meadows'''. . . . The fields bore partly buckwheat, which was cut, partly corn, and partly wheat.”
  
: “You pass thro’ two [[gate]]s, and from the second, which leads you into the improved grounds, may be seen a village of [[quarter]]s as they are called for negroes. The road you get into upon opening this gate is spacious and very level bounded on either side by a handsome ditch & [[fence]] which divide the road from fine '''meadows''' whose extent is greater than the eye can reach; and on one side you see the river through trees of different sorts. These '''meadows''' well watered with [[canal]]s, which communicate with each other across the road give occasion every 50 yards for a [[bridge]]; and between every two [[bridge]]s are two gates one on each side the road.”
 
  
 +
*Brook, Elizabeth, 1756, describing Doughoregan Manor, seat of Charles Carroll (of Annapolis), Howard County, MD (Maryland Historical Society, A. E. Carroll Papers)
 +
:“This place . . . is greatly improved, a fine, flourishing [[orchard]] with a variety of choice fruit, the garden inlarged and a stone [[wall]] built around it, 2 fine '''meadows'''.”
  
* La Rochefoucauld Liancourt, François Alexandre-Frédéric, duc de, 6 May 1795, describing Pottsgrove, Pa. (1800: 1:35) <ref name="Liancourt">François-Alexandre-Frédéric duc de La Rochefoucauld Liancourt, ''Travels through the United States of North America, the Country of the Iroquois, and Upper Canada, in the Years 1795, 1796, and 1797'', ed. by Brisson Dupont and Charles Ponges, trans. by H. Newman, 2nd edn, 4 vols (London: R. Philips, 1800), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/SRMDWJ2M view on Zotero].</ref>
 
  
: “The landscape is beautiful along this road, abounding with a great variety of fine [[view]]s, wonderfully enlivened by the verdure of the cornfields and '''meadows'''. . . . If agriculture were better understood in these parts; if the fields were well mowed and well fenced; and if some trees had been left standing in the middle or on the [[border]]s of the '''meadows''', the most beautiful parts of Europe could not be more pleasing.”  
+
*Alexiowitz, Iwan, 1769, describing [[Bartram Botanic Garden and Nursery]], vicinity of Philadelphia (quoted in Darlington 1849: 50)
 +
:“The whole store of nature’s kind luxuriance seemed to have been exhausted on these beautiful '''meadows'''; he made me count the amazing number of cattle and horses now feeding on solid bottoms, which but a few years before had been covered with water.”  
  
  
* La Rochefoucauld Liancourt, François Alexandre-Frédéric, duc de, 1795–97, describing an estate in Pennsylvania (1800: 1:101) <ref name="Liancourt"></ref>
+
*Shippen, Thomas Lee, December 31, 1783, describing [[Westover]], seat of William Byrd III, on the James River, VA(1952: n.p.)<ref>Thomas Lee Shippen, ''Westover Described in 1783: A Letter and Drawing Sent by Thomas Lee Shippen, Student of Law in Williamsburg, to His Parents in Philadelphia'' (Richmond, VA: William Byrd Press, 1952), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/3IWWPMJ5 view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“You pass thro’ two [[gate]]s, and from the second, which leads you into the improved grounds, may be seen a village of [[quarter]]s as they are called for negroes. The road you get into upon opening this gate is spacious and very level bounded on either side by a handsome ditch & [[fence]] which divide the road from fine '''meadows''' whose extent is greater than the eye can reach; and on one side you see the river through trees of different sorts. These '''meadows''' well watered with [[canal]]s, which communicate with each other across the road give occasion every 50 yards for a [[bridge]]; and between every two [[bridge]]s are two gates one on each side the road.”
  
: “The cultivated ground amounts in the whole to one hundred and twenty acres, fifty of which are laid out in artificial '''meadows''', and thirty-six in [[orchard]]s for apple and peach-trees. The '''meadows''' are beautiful, and the fields in good order.”
 
  
 +
*La Rochefoucauld Liancourt, François Alexandre-Frédéric, duc de, May 6, 1795, describing Pottsgrove, PA (1800: 1:35)<ref name="Liancourt">François-Alexandre-Frédéric duc de La Rochefoucauld Liancourt, ''Travels through the United States of North America, the Country of the Iroquois, and Upper Canada, in the Years 1795, 1796, and 1797'', ed. Brisson Dupont and Charles Ponges, trans. H. Newman, 2nd ed., 4 vols. (London: R. Philips, 1800), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/SRMDWJ2M view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“The landscape is beautiful along this road, abounding with a great variety of fine [[view]]s, wonderfully enlivened by the verdure of the cornfields and '''meadows'''. . . . If agriculture were better understood in these parts; if the fields were well mowed and well fenced; and if some trees had been left standing in the middle or on the [[border]]s of the '''meadows''', the most beautiful parts of Europe could not be more pleasing.”
  
* [[Dwight, Timothy]], 1796, describing New England (1821: 1:18, 2:335) <ref>Timothy Dwight, ''Travels in New England and New York'', 4 vols (New Haven, Conn.: Timothy Dwight, 1821), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/KHT2AUCG view on Zotero].</ref>
 
  
: “[vol. 1] . . . A succession of New-England villages, composed of neat houses, surrounding neat school-houses and churches, adorned with gardens, '''meadows''' and [[orchard]]s, and exhibiting the universally easy circumstances of the inhabitants, is, at least in my own opinon, one of the most delightful [[prospect]]s, which this world can afford. . . .
+
*La Rochefoucauld Liancourt, François Alexandre-Frédéric, duc de, 1795–97, describing an estate in Pennsylvania (1800: 1:101)<ref name="Liancourt"></ref>
: “[vol. 2] New England villages . . . are built in the following manner. . . .
+
:“The cultivated ground amounts in the whole to one hundred and twenty acres, fifty of which are laid out in artificial '''meadows''', and thirty-six in [[orchard]]s for apple and peach-trees. The '''meadows''' are beautiful, and the fields in good order.”  
: “The lot, on which the house stands, universally styled the home lot, is almost of course a '''meadow''', richly cultivated, covered during the pleasant season with verdure, and containing generally a thrifty [[orchard]]. It is hardly necessary to observe, that these appendages spread a singular cheerfulness, and beauty, over a New-England village; or that they contribute largely to render the house a delightful residence.”  
 
  
  
* Parkinson, Richard, 1798–1800, describing Orange Hill, near Baltimore, Md. (1805: 1:163–64) <ref>Richard Parkinson, ''A Tour in America, 1798, 1799, and 1800: Exhibiting Sketches of Society and Manners, and a Particular Account of the American System of Agriculture, with Its Recent Improvements'', 2 vols (London: J. Harding, 1805), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/J8PV5PS4/ view on Zotero].</ref>
+
*[[Timothy Dwight|Dwight, Timothy]], 1796, describing New England (1821: 1:18, 2:335)<ref>Timothy Dwight, ''Travels in New England and New York'', 4 vols. (New Haven, CT: Timothy Dwight, 1821), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/KHT2AUCG view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“[vol. 1] . . . A succession of New-England villages, composed of neat houses, surrounding neat school-houses and churches, adorned with gardens, '''meadows''' and [[orchard]]s, and exhibiting the universally easy circumstances of the inhabitants, is, at least in my own opinon, one of the most delightful [[prospect]]s, which this world can afford. . . .
 +
:“[vol. 2] New England villages . . . are built in the following manner. . . .
 +
:“The lot, on which the house stands, universally styled the home lot, is almost of course a '''meadow''', richly cultivated, covered during the pleasant season with verdure, and containing generally a thrifty [[orchard]]. It is hardly necessary to observe, that these appendages spread a singular cheerfulness, and beauty, over a New-England village; or that they contribute largely to render the house a delightful residence.”
  
: “My first work on the farm was to dress the '''meadows'''; which were called fine; though the greater part of them in England would not have been thought worthy of being called '''meadows''' at all, being overrun with briars and weeds of different description. Their state indeed was such, that when I mowed them, I sometimes in making hay did not know whether it was worth putting together, or not.”
 
  
 +
*Parkinson, Richard, 1798–1800, describing Orange Hill, near Baltimore, MD (1805: 1:163–64)<ref>Richard Parkinson, ''A Tour in America, 1798, 1799, and 1800: Exhibiting Sketches of Society and Manners, and a Particular Account of the American System of Agriculture, with Its Recent Improvements'', 2 vols. (London: J. Harding, 1805), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/J8PV5PS4/ view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“My first work on the farm was to dress the '''meadows'''; which were called fine; though the greater part of them in England would not have been thought worthy of being called '''meadows''' at all, being overrun with briars and weeds of different description. Their state indeed was such, that when I mowed them, I sometimes in making hay did not know whether it was worth putting together, or not.”
  
* La Rochefoucauld Liancourt, François Alexandre-Frédéric, duc de, 1799, describing Fitterasso, estate of Dr. Baron, Charleston, S.C. (1800: 2:435–36) <ref name="Liancourt"></ref>
 
  
: “This small [[plantation]], named Fitterasso, consists of four hundred acres, and cost him four thousand two hundred and eighty dollars; it is situated on a small [[eminence]] near the river. The site for the house, for none has hitherto been built, is the most pleasant spot which could be chosen in this flat, level country, where the tedious sameness of the [[wood]]s is scarcely variegated by some houses, thinly scattered, and where it is hardly possible to meet with a pleasant landscape. His garden is separated from the river by a morass, nearly drained; the whole extent of the northern bank of the river is nearly of the same description. Dr. Baron intends to purchase this intervening space, and to convert it into '''meadow'''-ground. This alteration will improve the [[prospect]], without rendering it a charming [[vista]].”  
+
*La Rochefoucauld Liancourt, François Alexandre-Frédéric, duc de, 1799, describing Fitterasso, estate of Dr. Baron, Charleston, SC (1800: 2:435–36)<ref name="Liancourt"></ref>
 +
:“This small [[plantation]], named Fitterasso, consists of four hundred acres, and cost him four thousand two hundred and eighty dollars; it is situated on a small [[eminence]] near the river. The site for the house, for none has hitherto been built, is the most pleasant spot which could be chosen in this flat, level country, where the tedious sameness of the [[wood]]s is scarcely variegated by some houses, thinly scattered, and where it is hardly possible to meet with a pleasant landscape. His garden is separated from the river by a morass, nearly drained; the whole extent of the northern bank of the river is nearly of the same description. Dr. Baron intends to purchase this intervening space, and to convert it into '''meadow'''-ground. This alteration will improve the [[prospect]], without rendering it a charming [[vista]].”  
  
  
* Ogden, John Cosens, 1800, describing Bethlehem, Pa. (p. 13) <ref>John C. Ogden, ''An Excursion into Bethlehem & Nazareth, in Pennsylvania, in the Year 1799'' (Philadelphia: Charles Cist, 1800), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/U5CTTBGB view on Zotero].</ref>
+
*Ogden, John Cosens, 1800, describing Bethlehem, PA (1800: 13)<ref>John C. Ogden, ''An Excursion into Bethlehem & Nazareth, in Pennsylvania, in the Year 1799'' (Philadelphia: Charles Cist, 1800), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/U5CTTBGB view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“The variety of [[walk]]s, rows of trees, and the plenty with which the gardens and '''meadows''' were stored, displayed taste, industry and economy.”
  
: “The variety of [[walk]]s, rows of trees, and the plenty with which the gardens and '''meadows''' were stored, displayed taste, industry and economy.”
 
  
 +
*Martin, William Dickinson, 1809, describing the pleasure grounds at Salem Academy, Salem, NC (quoted in Bynum 1979: 29)<ref name="Bynum">Flora Ann L. Bynum, ''Old Salem Garden Guide'' (Winston-Salem, NC: Old Salem, 1979), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/TJB9XNMF view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“‘Next, I visited a [[flower garden]] belonging to the female department. . . . But it is situated on a hill, the East end of which is high & abrupt. . . .
 +
:“‘From the extremity of this place descended in different directions, two rows of steps, & joined again at the bottom, of the hill, where was a beautiful spring, from which issued a brisk current, winding in a serpentine course through a handsome '''meadow''', ’til it reached a brook about a quarter of a mile distant. This place was designed for literary repast, & evening amusement—is certainly well adapted for either or both.’”
  
* Martin, William Dickinson, 1809, describing the pleasure grounds at Salem Academy, Salem, N.C. (quoted in Bynum 1979: 29) <ref name="Bynum">Flora Ann L. Bynum, ''Old Salem Garden Guide'' (Winston-Salem, N.C.: Old Salem, 1979), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/TJB9XNMF view on Zotero].</ref>
 
  
: “‘Next, I visited a [[flower garden]] belonging to the female department. . . . But it is situated on a hill, the East end of which is high & abrupt. . . .
+
*[[Charles Willson|Peale, Charles Willson]], 1810, in a letter to his son, Rembrandt Peale, describing Belfield, estate of [[Charles Willson Peale]], Germantown, PA (quoted in Rudnytzky 1986: 42)<ref>Kateryna A. Rudnytzky, “The Union of Landscape and Art: Peale’s Garden at Belfield” (Honors thesis, LaSalle University, 1986), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/KJK46QBZ view on Zotero].</ref>
: “‘From the extremity of this place descended in different directions, two rows of steps, & joined again at the bottom, of the hill, where was a beautiful spring, from which issued a brisk current, winding in a serpentine course through a handsome '''meadow''', ’til it reached a brook about a quarter of a mile distant. This place was designed for literary repast, & evening amusement—is certainly well adapted for either or both.’”
+
:“I am often pleased with the solemn [[grove]]s skirting my '''meadows''' in mahestic [''sic''] silence and cool appearance.”  
 
 
 
 
* [[Peale, Charles Willson]], 1810, in a letter to his son, Rembrandt Peale, describing Belfield, estate of Charles Willson Peale, Germantown, Pa. (quoted in Rudnytzky 1986: 42) <ref>Kateryna A. Rudnytzky, "The Union of Landscape and Art: Peale’s Garden at Belfield" (unpublished Honors thesis, LaSalle University, 1986), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/KJK46QBZ view on Zotero].</ref>
 
 
 
: “I am often pleased with the solemn [[grove]]s skirting my '''meadows''' in mahestic [''sic''] silence and cool appearance.”  
 
  
  
 
[[File:0116.jpg|thumb|right|Fig. 4, [[Charles Willson Peale]], Sketches of Belfield, 1810.]]
 
[[File:0116.jpg|thumb|right|Fig. 4, [[Charles Willson Peale]], Sketches of Belfield, 1810.]]
* [[Peale, Charles Willson]], 1810, describing [[Belfield]], estate of Charles Willson Peale, Germantown, Pa. (quoted in Miller and Ward 1991: fig. 87) <ref>Lillian B. Miller et al, eds., ''The Selected Papers of Charles Willson Peale and His Family: Charles Willson Peale: Artist in Revolutionary America, 1735-1791. Vol. 1; Charles Willson Peale, Artist as Museum Keeper, 1791-1810. Vol 2, Pts. 1-2; The Belfield Farm Years, 1810-1820. Vol. 3; The Autobiography of Charles Willson Peale. Vol. 5.'' (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1983–2000), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/IZAKPCBG view on Zotero].</ref>
+
*[[Charles Willson|Peale, Charles Willson]], 1810, describing [[Belfield]], estate of [[Charles Willson Peale]], Germantown, PA (quoted in Miller and Ward 1991: fig. 87)<ref>Lillian B. Miller et al, eds., ''The Selected Papers of Charles Willson Peale and His Family'', 5 vols. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983–2000), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/IZAKPCBG view on Zotero].</ref>
 
+
:“In this [[view]] imagine that you see a beautiful '''Meadow''' on the right. . . . The [[Common]] water course is on the edge of the '''Meadow''' on the right and the doted [''sic''] line is a ditch to which I have a flood-[[gate]] to let water on the '''Meadow''' at Pleasure.” [Fig. 4]  
: “In this [[view]] imagine that you see a beautiful '''Meadow''' on the right. . . . The [[Common]] water course is on the edge of the '''Meadow''' on the right and the doted [''sic''] line is a ditch to which I have a flood-[[gate]] to let water on the '''Meadow''' at Pleasure.” [Fig. 4]  
 
 
 
 
 
* Pursh, Frederick, 1814, describing the plants of North America (p. v) <ref>Frederick Pursh, ''Flora Americae Septentrionalis; Or, a Systematic Arrangement and Description of the Plants of North America'', 2 vols (London: White, Cochrane, & Co., 1814), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/KVNMM4KM view on Zotero].</ref>
 
 
 
: “Her [America] forests produce an endless variety of useful and stately timber trees; her [[wood]]s and [[hedge]]s the most ornamental flowering [[shrub]]s, so much admired in our [[pleasure ground]]s; and her fields and '''meadows''' a number of exceedingly handsome and singular flowers (many of them possessing valuable medicinal virtues), different from those of other countries.”
 
  
  
* Teacher at Moravian Boys School, 1817, describing Salem, N.C. (quoted in Bynum 1979: 52) <ref name="Bynum"></ref>
+
*Pursh, Frederick, 1814, describing the plants of North America (1814: 1:v)<ref>Frederick Pursh, ''Flora Americae Septentrionalis; Or, a Systematic Arrangement and Description of the Plants of North America'', 2 vols. (London: White, Cochrane, & Co., 1814), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/KVNMM4KM view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“Her [America] forests produce an endless variety of useful and stately timber trees; her [[wood]]s and [[hedge]]s the most ornamental flowering [[shrub]]s, so much admired in our [[pleasure ground]]s; and her fields and '''meadows''' a number of exceedingly handsome and singular flowers (many of them possessing valuable medicinal virtues), different from those of other countries.”
  
: “This afternoon I went with the children. . . . I took them to the tavern '''meadow''', where they played a little ''round ball''.”
 
  
 +
*Teacher at Moravian Boys School, 1817, describing Salem, NC (quoted in Bynum 1979: 52)<ref name="Bynum"></ref>
 +
:“This afternoon I went with the children. . . . I took them to the tavern '''meadow''', where they played a little ''round ball''.”
  
* du Pont, Sophie Madeleine, 21 July 1837, describing her visit to a meadow (quoted in Low and Hinsley 1987: 178) <ref>Betty-Bright Low and Jacqueline Hinsley, ''Sophie Du Pont, A Young Lady in America: Sketches, Diaries, & Letters, 1823-1833'' (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1987), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/U2EJBX3K view on Zotero].</ref>
 
  
: “They were making hay in the undulating '''meadow''', which added to the [[picturesque]] effect of the scenery [''sic''] There is here a very convenient chaise a ''porteur'' in which I am carried, or the ''blackies'' here express it, ''toted'', from one place to another—”  
+
*du Pont, Sophie Madeleine, July 21, 1837, describing her visit to a meadow (quoted in Low and Hinsley 1987: 178)<ref>Betty-Bright Low and Jacqueline Hinsley, ''Sophie Du Pont, A Young Lady in America: Sketches, Diaries, & Letters, 1823–1833'' (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1987), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/U2EJBX3K view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“They were making hay in the undulating '''meadow''', which added to the [[picturesque]] effect of the scenery [''sic''] There is here a very convenient chaise a ''porteur'' in which I am carried, or the ''blackies'' here express it, ''toted'', from one place to another—”  
  
  
* Lyell, Sir Charles, 22 September 1845, describing Boston, Mass. (1849: 1:30) <ref>Sir Charles Lyell, ''A Second Visit to the United States of North America'', 2 vols (New York: Harper, 1849), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/DU6NKKZ5 view on Zotero].</ref>
+
*Lyell, Sir Charles, September 22, 1845, describing Boston, MA (1849: 1:30)<ref>Sir Charles Lyell, ''A Second Visit to the United States of North America'', 2 vols. (New York: Harper, 1849), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/DU6NKKZ5 view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“The extreme heat of summer does not allow of the green '''meadows''' and verdant [[lawn]]s of England, but there are some well-kept gardens here—a costly luxury where the wages of labor are so high.”
  
: “The extreme heat of summer does not allow of the green '''meadows''' and verdant [[lawn]]s of England, but there are some well-kept gardens here—a costly luxury where the wages of labor are so high.”
 
  
 +
[[File:0363.jpg|thumb|right|Fig. 5, Anonymous, “View in the Meadow Park at Geneseo,” in [[A. J. Downing]], ed., ''Horticulturist'' 3, no. 4 (October 1848): pl. opp. 153.]]
 +
*[[A. J. Downing|Downing, A. J.]], October 1848, describing [[Geneseo]], seat of James S. Wadsworth, Genesee River Valley, NY (''Horticulturist'' 3: 163–65)
 +
:“The great agricultural estate of the WADSWORTH family, is the pride and centre of this precious family. That magnificent tract, of thousands of acres of the finest land, which surpasses in extent and value many principalities of the old world; those broad '''meadows''', where herds of the finest cattle crop the richest herbage, or rest under the deep shade of giant trees. . . .
 +
:“And what a [[prospect]]! The whole of that part of the valley embraced by the eye-say a thousand acres—is a [[park]], full of the finest oaks,—and such oaks as you may have dreamed of, (if you love trees,) or, perhaps, have seen in pictures by CLAUDE LORRAINE, or our own DURAND; but not in the least like those which you meet every day in your [[wood]]land [[walk]]s through the country at large. Or rather, there are thousands of such as you may have seen half a dozen examples of in your own country. . . .
 +
:“No underwood, no bushes, no [[thicket]]s; nothing but single specimens or groups of giant old oaks, (mingled with, here and there, an elm,) with level glades of broad '''meadow''' beneath them! An Englishman will hardly be convinced that it is not a [[park]], planted by the skilful hand of man hundreds of years ago.
 +
:“This great '''meadow''' [[park]] is filled with herds of the finest cattle—the pride of the home—farm.” [Fig. 5]
  
[[File:0363.jpg|thumb|right|Fig. 5, Anonymous, "View in the Meadow Park at Geneseo," in [[A. J. Downing]], ed., ''Horticulturist'' 3, no. 4 (October 1848): pl. opp. p. 153.]]
 
* [[Downing, A. J.]], October 1848, describing [[Geneseo]], seat of James S. Wadsworth, Genesee River Valley, N.Y. (''Horticulturist'' 3: 163–65)
 
  
: “The great agricultural estate of the WADSWORTH family, is the pride and centre of this precious family. That magnificent tract, of thousands of acres of the finest land, which surpasses in extent and value many principalities of the old world; those broad '''meadows''', where herds of the finest cattle crop the richest herbage, or rest under the deep shade of giant trees. ...  
+
[[File:1001.jpg|thumb|right|Fig. 6, Anonymous, “Mount Fordham—the Country Seat of Lewis G. Morris, Esq.,in [[A. J. Downing]], ed., ''Horticulturist'' 6, no. 8 (August 1851): pl. opp. 345.]]
: “And what a [[prospect]]! The whole of that part of the valley embraced by the eye-say a thousand acres—is a [[park]], full of the finest oaks,—and such oaks as you may have dreamed of, (if you love trees,) or, perhaps, have seen in pictures by CLAUDE LORRAINE, or our own DURAND; but not in the least like those which you meet every day in your [[wood]]land [[walk]]s through the country at large. Or rather, there are thousands of such as you may have seen half a dozen examples of in your own country. . . . “No underwood, no bushes, no [[thicket]]s; nothing but single specimens or groups of giant old oaks, (mingled with, here and there, an elm,) with level glades of broad '''meadow''' beneath them! An Englishman will hardly be convinced that it is not a [[park]], planted by the skilful hand of man hundreds of years ago.
+
*[[A. J. Downing|Downing, A. J.]], August 1851, “The Annual Cattle Sale at Mount Fordham,” describing Mount Fordham, seat of Lewis G. Morris, New York, NY (''Horticulturist'' 6: 372)
: “This great '''meadow''' [[park]] is filled with herds of the finest cattle—the pride of the home—farm.” [Fig. 5]  
+
:“Around the house at Mount Fordham, extends on all sides a kind of '''meadow'''-[[lawn]], enclosed and divided by pretty wire [[fence]]s of various patterns. This [[lawn]] is kept short by the grazing of improved dairy stock, and we were glad to see successfully practiced what we have been commending so strongly of late to our readers, as the most available point of English country places, that we saw on the other side of the Atlantic—that is the maintenance of a neat and handsome [[lawn]] about a country house, not only without the expense of mowing, but with united profit and beauty—the profit of grazing the grass and the beauty—the real pastoral beauty—of fine cattle, soft turf, and pleasant groups of trees, as the home landscape of our country places generally. By adopting this course, the ''hay-field'' aspect of many so-called gentlemen’s country-[[seat]]s, would disappear, and a more complete and satisfactory [[lawn]] or [[park]] be acquired, with no loss of money, and the attainment of a higher species of keeping to one’s country home.” [Fig. 6]
  
 
[[File:1001.jpg|thumb|right|Fig. 6, Anonymous, "Mount Fordham—the Country Seat of Lewis G. Morris, Esq.," in [[A. J. Downing]], ed., ''Horticulturist'' 6, no. 8 (Aug. 1, 1851): pl. opp. p. 345.]]
 
* [[Downing, A. J.]], August 1851, “The Annual Cattle Sale at Mount Fordham,” describing Mount Fordham, seat of Lewis G. Morris, New York, N.Y. (''Horticulturist'' 6: 372)
 
 
: “Around the house at Mount Fordham, extends on all sides a kind of '''meadow'''-[[lawn]], enclosed and divided by pretty wire [[fence]]s of various patterns. This [[lawn]] is kept short by the grazing of improved dairy stock, and we were glad to see successfully practiced what we have been commending so strongly of late to our readers, as the most available point of English country places, that we saw on the other side of the Atlantic—that is the maintenance of a neat and handsome [[lawn]] about a country house, not only without the expense of mowing, but with united profit and beauty—the profit of grazing the grass and the beauty—the real pastoral beauty—of fine cattle, soft turf, and pleasant groups of trees, as the home landscape of our country places generally. By adopting this course, the ''hay-field'' aspect of many so-called gentlemen’s country-[[seat]]s, would disappear, and a more complete and satisfactory [[lawn]] or [[park]] be acquired, with no loss of money, and the attainment of a higher species of keeping to one’s country home.” [Fig. 6]
 
{{break}}
 
  
 
===Citations===
 
===Citations===
 +
*[[Batty Langley|Langley, Batty]], 1728, ''New Principles of Gardening'' (1728; repr., 1982: 195–201)<ref>Batty Langley, ''New Principles of Gardening, or The Laying out and Planting Parterres, Groves, Wildernesses, Labyrinths, Avenues, Parks, &c.'' (London: A. Bettesworth and J. Batley, etc., 1728; repr., New York: Garland, 1982), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/MRDTAEKC view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“General DIRECTIONS, &c. . . .
 +
:“XIX. That in those serpentine Meanders, be placed at proper Distances, large Openings, which you surprizingly come to; and in the first are entertain’d with a pretty Fruit-Garden, or Paradice-Stocks . . . from which you are insensibly led through the pleasant Meanders of a shady delightful [[Plantation]]; first, into an oven [''sic''] Plain environ’d with lofty Pines . . . secondly, into a [[Flower-Garden]] . . . and from thence through small Inclosures of Corn, open Plains, or small '''Meadows'''. . . .
 +
:“XXVIII. Distant Hills in [[Park]]s, &c. are beautiful Objects, when planted with little [[Wood]]s; as also are Valleys, when intermix’d with Water, and large Plains; and a rude [[Coppice]] in the Middle of a fine ''Meadow'', is a delightful Object.
 +
:“XXIX. Little [[Walk]]s by purling streams in '''Meadows''', and through Corn-Fields, [[Thicket]]s, &c. are delightful Entertainments.”
  
*[[Batty Langley|Langley, Batty]], 1728, ''New Principles of Gardening'', ([1728] 1982: 195–201) <ref>Batty Langley, ''New Principles of Gardening, or The Laying out and Planting Parterres, Groves, Wildernesses, Labyrinths, Avenues, Parks, &c.'' (Originally published London: A. Bettesworth and J. Batley, etc., 1982), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/MRDTAEKC view on Zotero].</ref>
 
  
: “General DIRECTIONS, &c....
+
*[[Samuel Johnson|Johnson, Samuel]], 1755, ''A Dictionary of the English Language'' (1755: 2:n.p.)<ref>Samuel Johnson, ''A Dictionary of the English Language: In Which the Words Are Deduced from the Originals and Illustrated in the Different Significations by Examples from the Best Writers,'' 2 vols. (London: W. Strahan for J. and P. Knapton, 1755), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/GE2JPJR3 view on Zotero].</ref>
: “XIX. That in those serpentine Meanders, be placed at proper Distances, large Openings, which you surprizingly come to; and in the first are entertain’d with a pretty Fruit-Garden, or Paradice-Stocks . . . from which you are insensibly led through the pleasant Meanders of a shady delightful [[Plantation]]; first, into an oven [''sic''] Plain environ’d with lofty Pines . . . secondly, into a [[Flower-Garden]] . . . and from thence through small Inclosures of Corn, open Plains, or small '''Meadows'''....
+
:“MEAD. ''n.s.'' [meade, Sax.] Ground somewhat watery, not plowed, but covered with grass and flowers.  
: “XXVIII. Distant Hills in [[Park]]s, &c. are beautiful Objects, when planted with little [[Wood]]s; as also are Valleys, when intermix’d with Water, and large Plains; and a rude [[Coppice]] in the Middle of a fine ''Meadow'', is a delightful Object.  
+
:'''ME’ADOW'''.”  
: “XXIX. Little [[Walk]]s by purling streams in '''Meadows''', and through Corn-Fields, [[Thicket]]s, &c. are delightful Entertainments.”  
 
  
  
*[[Samuel Johnson|Johnson, Samuel]], 1755, ''A Dictionary of the English Language'' (2:n.p.) <ref>Samuel Johnson, ''A Dictionary of the English Language: In Which the Words Are Deduced from the Originals and Illustrated in the Different Significations by Examples from the Best Writers,'' 2 vols (London: W. Strahan for J. and P. Knapton, 1755), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/GE2JPJR3 view on Zotero].</ref>
+
*Ware, Isaac, 1756, ''A Complete Body of Architecture'' (1756: 645, 651)<ref>Isaac Ware, ''A Complete Body of Architecture'' (London: T. Osborne and J. Shipton, 1756), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/2EK2USKV view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“A '''meadow''' and its [[hedge]] excelled all the beauty of our former gardens; because the [[parterre]] there afforded only the ill fruits of labour, and the [[hedge]] lost the very vegetable character. . ..
 +
:“Let us lead such as still prefer it [[[geometric style|geometric]] flower [[bed]]s] to more free dispositions, into a May '''meadow''', full of the common weedy flowers of that healthy season, and terminated by a hawthorn [[hedge]] in bloom. . . .”
  
: “MEAD. ''n.s.'' [meade, Sax.] Ground somewhat watery, not plowed, but covered with grass and flowers.
 
: “'''ME’ADOW'''.”
 
  
 +
*[[Philip Miller|Miller, Philip]], 1759, ''The Gardeners Dictionary'' (1759: n.p.)<ref>Philip Miller, ''The Gardeners Dictionary: Containing the Methods of Cultivation and Improving the Kitchen, Fruit, and Flower Garden'', 7th ed. (London: Philip Miller, 1759), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/4XH23U3R view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“Under the general title of '''Meadow''', is commonly comprehended all Pasture land, or at least all Grass Land, which is mown for Hay; but I choose rather to distinguish such land only by this Apellation, which is so low, as to be too moist for Cattle to graze upon them in winter, being too wet to admit heavy cattle, without poaching & spoiling the Sward, and those grass lands which I shall distinguish by the title of pasture.”
  
* Ware, Isaac, 1756, ''A Complete Body of Architecture'' (pp. 645, 651) <ref>Isaac Ware, ''A Complete Body of Architecture'' (London: T. Osborne and J. Shipton, 1756), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/2EK2USKV view on Zotero].</ref>
 
  
: “A '''meadow''' and its [[hedge]] excelled all the beauty of our former gardens; because the [[parterre]] there afforded only the ill fruits of labour, and the [[hedge]] lost the very vegetable character. . ..  
+
*Sheridan, Thomas, 1789, ''A Complete Dictionary of the English Language'' (1789: n.p.)<ref>Thomas A. Sheridan, ''A Complete Dictionary of the English Language, Carefully Revised and Corrected by John Andrews . . .'', 5th ed. (Philadelphia: William Young, 1789), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/T5GU4CBQ/ view on Zotero].</ref>
: “Let us lead such as still prefer it [[[geometric style|geometric]] flower [[bed]]s] to more free dispositions, into a May '''meadow''', full of the common weedy flowers of that healthy season, and terminated by a hawthorn [[hedge]] in bloom. ...”  
+
:“'''MEADOW''', med’-do. s. A rich pasture ground, from which hay is made.”  
  
  
*[[Philip Miller|Miller, Philip]], 1759, ''The Gardeners Dictionary'' (n.p.) <ref>Philip Miller, ''The Gardeners Dictionary: Containing the Methods of Cultivation and Improving the Kitchen, Fruit, and Flower Garden. As Also, the Physick Garden, Wilderness, Conservatory, and Vineyard... Interspers’d with the History of the Plants, the Characters of Each Genus and the Names of All the Particular Species, in Latin and English; and an Explanation of All the Terms Used in Botany and Gardening, Etc.'', 7th edn (London: Philip Miller, 1759), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/4XH23U3R view on Zotero].</ref>
+
*[[Noah Webster|Webster, Noah]], 1828, ''An American Dictionary of the English Language'' (1828: 2:n.p.)<ref>Noah Webster, ''An American Dictionary of the English Language'', 2 vols. (New York: S. Converse, 1828), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/N7BSU467 view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“MEAD, '''MEADOW''', ''n. meed'', ''med’o''. [Sax. ''moede'', ''moedewe''; G. ''matte'', a mat, and a '''meadow'''; Ir. ''madh''. The sense is extended or flat depressed land. It is supposed that this word enters into the name ''Mediolanum'', now ''Milan'', in Italy; that is, ''mead-land''.]
 +
:“A tract of low land. In America, the word is applied particularly to the low ground on the banks of rivers, consisting of a rich mold or an alluvial soil, whether grass land, pasture, tillage, or [[wood]] land; as the '''''meadows''''' on the banks of the Connecticut. The word with us does not necessarily imply wet land. This species of land is called, in the western states, ''bottoms'', or ''bottom land''. The word is also used for other low or flat lands, particularly lands appropriated to the culture of grass.
 +
:“The word is said to be applied in Great Britain to land somewhat watery, but covered with grass. [[Samuel Johnson|''Johnson'']].
 +
:“'''Meadow''' means pasture or grass land, annually mown for hay; but more particularly, land too moist for cattle to graze on in winter, without spoiling the sward. ''Encyc. Cyc''.
 +
:“[''Mead'' is used chiefly in poetry.]”
  
: “Under the general title of '''Meadow''', is commonly comprehended all Pasture land, or at least all Grass Land, which is mown for Hay; but I choose rather to distinguish such land only by this Apellation, which is so low, as to be too moist for Cattle to graze upon them in winter, being too wet to admit heavy cattle, without poaching & spoiling the Sward, and those grass lands which I shall distinguish by the title of pasture.”
 
  
 +
*[[A. J. Downing|Downing, A. J.]], November 1846, “A Chapter on Lawns” (''Horticulturist'' 1: 204)
 +
:“After your [[lawn]] is once fairly established, there are but two secrets in keeping it perfect— frequent mowing and rolling. Without the first, it will soon degenerate into a coarse '''meadow'''; the latter will render it firmer, closer, shorter, and finer every time it is repeated.”
  
* Sheridan, Thomas, 1789, ''A Complete Dictionary of the English Language'' (n.p.) <ref>Thomas A. Sheridan, ''A Complete Dictionary of the English Language, Carefully Revised and Corrected by John Andrews....'', 5th edn (Philadelphia: William Young, 1789), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/T5GU4CBQ/ view on Zotero].</ref>
 
  
: '''MEADOW''', med’-do. s. A rich pasture ground, from which hay is made.”  
+
*[[A. J. Downing|Downing, A. J.]], March 1851, “The Management of Large Country Places” (''Horticulturist'' 6: 106)
 +
:“Considerable familiarity with the country-[[seat]]s on the Hudson, enables us to state that for the most part, few persons keep up a fine country place. . . .
 +
:“The remedy for this unsatisfactory condition of the large country places is, we think, a very simple one—that of turning a large part of their areas into park '''meadow''', and ''feeding'' it, instead of mowing and cultivating it.  
 +
:“The great and distinguishing beauty of England, as every one knows, is its [[park]]s. And yet the English parks are only very large '''meadows''', studded with great oaks and elms—and grazed—''profitably grazed'', by deer, cattle and sheep.”
  
  
* [[Webster, Noah]], 1828, ''An American Dictionary of the English Language'' (n.p.) <ref>Noah Webster, ''An American Dictionary of the English Language'', 2 vols (New York: S. Converse, 1828), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/N7BSU467 view on Zotero].</ref>
+
<hr>
 
 
: “MEAD, '''MEADOW''', ''n. meed'', ''med’o''. [Sax. ''moede'', ''moedewe''; G. ''matte'', a mat, and a '''meadow'''; Ir. ''madh''. The sense is extended or flat depressed land. It is supposed that this word enters into the name ''Mediolanum'', now ''Milan'', in Italy; that is, ''mead-land''.]
 
: “A tract of low land. In America, the word is applied particularly to the low ground on the banks of rivers, consisting of a rich mold or an alluvial soil, whether grass land, pasture, tillage, or [[wood]] land; as the '''''meadows''''' on the banks of the Connecticut. The word with us does not necessarily imply wet land. This species of land is called, in the western states, ''bottoms'', or ''bottom land''. The word is also used for other low or flat lands, particularly lands appropriated to the culture of grass.
 
: “The word is said to be applied in Great Britain to land somewhat watery, but covered with grass. [[Samuel Johnson|''Johnson'']].
 
: “'''Meadow''' means pasture or grass land, annually mown for hay; but more particularly, land too moist for cattle to graze on in winter, without spoiling the sward. ''Encyc. Cyc''.
 
: “[''Mead'' is used chiefly in poetry.]”
 
 
 
 
 
* [[Downing, A. J.]], November 1846, “A Chapter on Lawns” (''Horticulturist'' 1: 204)
 
 
 
: “After your [[lawn]] is once fairly established, there are but two secrets in keeping it perfect— frequent mowing and rolling. Without the first, it will soon degenerate into a coarse '''meadow'''; the latter will render it firmer, closer, shorter, and finer every time it is repeated.”
 
 
 
 
 
* [[Downing, A. J.]], March 1851, “The Management of Large Country Places” (''Horticulturist'' 6: 106)
 
 
 
: “Considerable familiarity with the country-[[seat]]s on the Hudson, enables us to state that for the most part, few persons keep up a fine country place. ...
 
: “The remedy for this unsatisfactory condition of the large country places is, we think, a very simple one—that of turning a large part of their areas into park '''meadow''', and ''feeding'' it, instead of mowing and cultivating it.
 
: “The great and distinguishing beauty of England, as every one knows, is its [[park]]s. And yet the English parks are only very large '''meadows''', studded with great oaks and elms—and grazed—''profitably grazed'', by deer, cattle and sheep.”
 
  
 
==Images==
 
==Images==
 
 
===Inscribed===
 
===Inscribed===
 
 
<gallery widths="170px" heights="170px" perrow="7">
 
<gallery widths="170px" heights="170px" perrow="7">
 
File:0993.jpg|Unknown, Map showing the Bowery Lane area of Manhattan, c. 1760.  
 
File:0993.jpg|Unknown, Map showing the Bowery Lane area of Manhattan, c. 1760.  
Line 195: Line 165:
 
File:0799.jpg|Bernard Ratzer, Plan of the city of New York, c. 1767.  
 
File:0799.jpg|Bernard Ratzer, Plan of the city of New York, c. 1767.  
  
File:0972.jpg|Pierre Pharoux, "General Map of the honorable Wm. frederic Baron of Steuben's Mannor" [detail], c. 1793. The "60 acres of Meadow" is indicated at "j" in the four squares below the hemicycle.
+
File:0972.jpg|Pierre Pharoux, “General Map of the honorable Wm. frederic Baron of Steuben’s Mannor” [detail], c. 1793. The “60 acres of Meadow” is indicated at “j” in the four squares below the hemicycle.
 
 
File:0728.jpg|[[William Russell Birch]], ''Plan of Springland'', c. 1800, in Emily T. Cooperman and Lea Carson Sherk, ''William Birch: Picturing the American Scene'' (2011), p. 206, fig. 117.
 
  
File:0601.jpg|Anonymous, A plan of the section of land on which the Believers live in the state of Ohio, Nov. 7, 1807. "Meadow" is noted in the center between the woods and cornfield.  
+
File:0601.jpg|Anonymous, A plan of the section of land on which the Believers live in the state of Ohio, Nov. 7, 1807. “Meadow” is noted in the center between the woods and cornfield.  
  
 
File:0116.jpg|[[Charles Willson Peale]], Sketches of Belfield, 1810.
 
File:0116.jpg|[[Charles Willson Peale]], Sketches of Belfield, 1810.
  
File:0676.jpg|Anonymous, Garden Plan of "Newington" in Allegheny County, Pa, 1823, in Alice B. Lockwood, ''Gardens of Colony and State'' (1931), vol. 1, p. 380. "Meadow" is indicated in the lower right quadrant.
+
File:0572.jpg|Georges-Henri-Victor Collot, ''Plan of Fort Niagara'', in ''Voyage dans l'Amérique Septentrionale'' (1826).
 
 
File:0572.jpg|Georges-Henri-Victor Collot, ''Plan of Fort Niagara'', in ''Voyage dans l'Amérique Septentrionale'' (Paris: A. Bertrand, 1826).
 
  
File:0591.jpg|George Kendall, after Isaac Newton Youngs, ''Sketches of the Various Situations at Union Village'', in ''Sketches of the various Societies of Belivers in the states of Ohio & Kentucky'', July 1835.
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File:0591.jpg|George Kendall, after Isaac Newton Youngs, ''Sketches of the Various Situations at Union Village'', in ''Sketches of the various Societies of Believers in the states of Ohio & Kentucky'', July 1835.
  
 
File:0823.jpg|Joshua Barney, ''Map of Hampton'', 1843.  
 
File:0823.jpg|Joshua Barney, ''Map of Hampton'', 1843.  
  
File:0363.jpg|Anonymous, "View in the Meadow Park at Geneseo," in [[A. J. Downing]], ed., ''Horticulturist'' 3, no. 4 (October 1848): pl. opp. p. 153.
+
File:0363.jpg|Anonymous, “View in the Meadow Park at Geneseo,in [[A. J. Downing]], ed., ''Horticulturist'' 3, no. 4 (October 1848): pl. opp. 153.
  
 
File:1111.jpg|Henry Clay Blinn, ''Plan of Canterbury'', 1848. See detail.  
 
File:1111.jpg|Henry Clay Blinn, ''Plan of Canterbury'', 1848. See detail.  
 
 
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<gallery widths="170px" heights="170px" perrow="7">
 
<gallery widths="170px" heights="170px" perrow="7">
 
File:0560.jpg|[[Charles Willson Peale]], Ground plot of Belfield, 1810.  
 
File:0560.jpg|[[Charles Willson Peale]], Ground plot of Belfield, 1810.  
File:0608.jpg|W. Weingartner, Map of Harmony, Ind., 1832.  
+
 
File:0607.jpg|W. Weingartner, Map of Harmony, Pa., 1833
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File:0608.jpg|W. Weingartner, Map of Harmony, IN, 1832.  
File:0361.jpg|Anonymous, "Beaverwyck, the Seat of Wm. P. Van Rensselaer, Esq.," in [[A. J. Downing]], ''A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening'' (1849), pl. opp. p. 51, fig. 7.  
+
 
File:1001.jpg|Anonymous, "Mount Fordham—the Country Seat of Lewis G. Morris, Esq.," in [[A. J. Downing]], ed., ''Horticulturist'' 6, no. 8 (Aug. 1, 1851): pl. opp. p. 345.  
+
File:0607.jpg|W. Weingartner, Map of Harmony, PA, 1833
 +
 
 +
File:0361.jpg|Anonymous, “Beaverwyck, the Seat of Wm. P. Van Rensselaer, Esq.,in [[A. J. Downing]], ''A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening'', 4th ed. (1849), pl. opp. 51, fig. 7.  
 +
 
 +
File:1001.jpg|Anonymous, “Mount Fordham—the Country Seat of Lewis G. Morris, Esq.,in [[A. J. Downing]], ed., ''Horticulturist'' 6, no. 8 (August 1851): pl. opp. 345.  
 
</gallery>
 
</gallery>
  
 
===Attributed===
 
===Attributed===
 +
<gallery widths="170px" heights="170px" perrow="7">
  
<gallery widths="170px" heights="170px" perrow="7">
 
 
File:0201.jpg|Anonymous, ''Perry Hall, Home of Harry Dorsey Gough'', n.d.
 
File:0201.jpg|Anonymous, ''Perry Hall, Home of Harry Dorsey Gough'', n.d.
File:0285.jpg|Nicholas Garrison, ''A View of Bethlehem, one of the Brethren's Principal Settlements, in Pennsylvania, North America'', 1757.  
+
 
File:0991.jpg|Samuel Hill, "View of the seat of the Hon. Moses Gill Esq. at Princeton, in the County of Worcester, Massa.ts," in ''The Massachusetts Magazine'' 4, no. 11 (November 1792): pl. 18, opp p. 648.  
+
File:0285.jpg|Nicholas Garrison, ''A View of Bethlehem, one of the Brethren’s Principal Settlements, in Pennsylvania, North America'', 1757.  
 +
 
 +
File:0991.jpg|Samuel Hill, “View of the seat of the Hon. Moses Gill Esq. at Princeton, in the County of Worcester, Massa.ts,in ''The Massachusetts Magazine'' 4, no. 11 (November 1792): pl. 18, opp. 648.  
 +
 
 
File:0263.jpg|John Brewster, ''Mother with Son (Lucy Knapp Mygatt and George Mygatt)'', 1799
 
File:0263.jpg|John Brewster, ''Mother with Son (Lucy Knapp Mygatt and George Mygatt)'', 1799
 +
 
File:0202.jpg|Francis Guy, ''Perry Hall, Slave Quarters with Field Hands at Work'', c. 1805.
 
File:0202.jpg|Francis Guy, ''Perry Hall, Slave Quarters with Field Hands at Work'', c. 1805.
 +
 
File:0152.jpg|George Hayward after J. Anderson, ''View of The Belvedere Club House, 1794'', 1828.
 
File:0152.jpg|George Hayward after J. Anderson, ''View of The Belvedere Club House, 1794'', 1828.
 +
 
File:0133.jpg|Rufus Porter, Landscape mural from Howe House, 1838.  
 
File:0133.jpg|Rufus Porter, Landscape mural from Howe House, 1838.  
 +
 
File:0435.jpg|Edward Hicks, ''The Cornell Farm'', 1848.
 
File:0435.jpg|Edward Hicks, ''The Cornell Farm'', 1848.
 +
</gallery>
  
 
+
<hr>
</gallery>
 
  
 
==Notes==
 
==Notes==
 
 
<references></references>
 
<references></references>
  
 
[[Category: Keywords]]
 
[[Category: Keywords]]
 
[[Category: Topographic Features]]
 
[[Category: Topographic Features]]

Revision as of 14:13, May 2, 2018

See also: Lawn

History

Fig. 1, Anonymous, A plan of the section of land on which the Believers live in the state of Ohio, November 7, 1807. “Meadow” is noted in the center between the woods and cornfield.
Fig. 2, Anonymous, Garden Plan of “Newington” in Allegheny County, Pa, 1823, in Alice B. Lockwood, Gardens of Colony and State (1931), vol. 1, p. 380.

According to lexicographer Noah Webster (1828), meadow referred “to the low ground on the banks of rivers . . . whether grassland, pasture, tillage, or wood land,” or low-lying lands that were particularly “appropriated to the culture of grass.” Both definitions of the term “meadow” were used in the American context.

Fig. 3, Pierre Pharoux, “General Map of the honorable Wm. frederic Baron of Steuben’s Mannor” [detail], c. 1793. The “60 acres of Meadow” is indicated at “j” in the four squares below the hemicycle.

18th-century maps of New York and Boston show “salt meadows” along rivers. Like kitchen gardens or orchards, meadows played a key role in early American husbandry, and descriptive accounts of productive farms and estates often mention meadows, particularly when they gave the landscape a rich or well-cultivated appearance. Meadows ranged in size from the 12-acre meadow noted in a 1747 newspaper advertisement to the estimated 50 acres of meadow attached to an estate in Pennsylvania. In an 1807 plan of South Union, Ohio, a meadow was located in close proximity to the residences and between areas designated as woods and a cornfield [Fig. 1]. Since meadows were largely covered with grass, they could provide sustenance for cattle. Indeed, A. J. Downing, in describing the benefits of parks, frequently instructed homeowners to regard them as meadows where their cattle could graze. The cultivation of grass rendered “meadow” synonymous with “pasture,” which Webster defined as grounds covered with grass appropriated for the food of cattle, and hence these terms frequently were used interchangeably.

Although meadows were primarily associated with agricultural production, they were often part of a consciously designed landscape, as at “Newington,” Pennsylvania [Fig. 2]. They were also included in plans for plantations and ornamental farms (see Ferme ornée). 18th-century British gardening treatises, for example, endorsed the incorporation of agricultural features into ornamental contexts: Batty Langley (1728) recommended “Little Walks by purling streams in Meadows” as “delightful Entertainments.”

In many instances, meadows accomplished the same aesthetic results as lawns, including framing desired objects or views. At the 18th-century estate of Westover on the James River in Virginia, for example, meadows watered by canals lined the road leading to the mansion and signaled one’s arrival to the “improved grounds” surrounding the house. According to François-Alexandre-Frédéric duc de la Rochefoucauld Liancourt (1799), Dr. Baron of Charleston, South Carolina, wanted to buy an area of flat land between his garden and the river to convert it to a meadow that could frame views of the distant prospect. Pierre Pharoux, in his plan for Baron von Steuben’s estate in Mohawk Valley, New York, likewise used meadows carved out of woods to ensure visual access to the prospect [Fig. 3].

Meadows were closely related to parks and lawns; Downing on occasion referred to “meadow parks” and “meadow-lawns”. Nevertheless, in at least one article in the Horticulturist, he distinguished between lawns and meadows, arguing that lawns were composed of firm, close, and short grass, while coarser (and presumably taller) grasses with meadow flowers made up meadows. Moreover, lawns were often trimmed and rolled to maintain their appearance, while the primary method of maintaining meadows was to allow animals to graze.

Like lawns and bowling greens, the open grassy areas of meadows also provided space for sports and other leisure entertainments, as mentioned by a teacher in Salem, North Carolina, in 1817, who observed children playing round ball in the meadow of a tavern.

Anne L. Helmreich


Texts

Usage

  • Anonymous, August 17, 1747, describing property for sale in Somerset County, NJ (New York Gazette)
“TO BE SOLD, A pleasant Country Seat, fitting for a Gentleman or Store-keeper . . . containing about 90 Acres, including a piece of English Meadow about 12 Acres, and more may be made, about 40 Acres being clear, the remainder Wood-Land.”


  • Kalm, Pehr, October 4, 1748, describing his journey from Philadelphia to Wilmington, DE (1937: 1:81–82)[1]
“I rode now through woods of several sorts of trees and now over pieces of land which had been cleared of the wood and which at present were grain fields, meadows and pastures. The farmhouses stood single, sometimes near the roads, and sometimes at a little distance from them, so that the space between the road and the houses was taken up with small cultivated tracts and meadows. . . . The fields bore partly buckwheat, which was cut, partly corn, and partly wheat.”


  • Brook, Elizabeth, 1756, describing Doughoregan Manor, seat of Charles Carroll (of Annapolis), Howard County, MD (Maryland Historical Society, A. E. Carroll Papers)
“This place . . . is greatly improved, a fine, flourishing orchard with a variety of choice fruit, the garden inlarged and a stone wall built around it, 2 fine meadows.”


“The whole store of nature’s kind luxuriance seemed to have been exhausted on these beautiful meadows; he made me count the amazing number of cattle and horses now feeding on solid bottoms, which but a few years before had been covered with water.”


  • Shippen, Thomas Lee, December 31, 1783, describing Westover, seat of William Byrd III, on the James River, VA(1952: n.p.)[2]
“You pass thro’ two gates, and from the second, which leads you into the improved grounds, may be seen a village of quarters as they are called for negroes. The road you get into upon opening this gate is spacious and very level bounded on either side by a handsome ditch & fence which divide the road from fine meadows whose extent is greater than the eye can reach; and on one side you see the river through trees of different sorts. These meadows well watered with canals, which communicate with each other across the road give occasion every 50 yards for a bridge; and between every two bridges are two gates one on each side the road.”


  • La Rochefoucauld Liancourt, François Alexandre-Frédéric, duc de, May 6, 1795, describing Pottsgrove, PA (1800: 1:35)[3]
“The landscape is beautiful along this road, abounding with a great variety of fine views, wonderfully enlivened by the verdure of the cornfields and meadows. . . . If agriculture were better understood in these parts; if the fields were well mowed and well fenced; and if some trees had been left standing in the middle or on the borders of the meadows, the most beautiful parts of Europe could not be more pleasing.”


  • La Rochefoucauld Liancourt, François Alexandre-Frédéric, duc de, 1795–97, describing an estate in Pennsylvania (1800: 1:101)[3]
“The cultivated ground amounts in the whole to one hundred and twenty acres, fifty of which are laid out in artificial meadows, and thirty-six in orchards for apple and peach-trees. The meadows are beautiful, and the fields in good order.”


“[vol. 1] . . . A succession of New-England villages, composed of neat houses, surrounding neat school-houses and churches, adorned with gardens, meadows and orchards, and exhibiting the universally easy circumstances of the inhabitants, is, at least in my own opinon, one of the most delightful prospects, which this world can afford. . . .
“[vol. 2] New England villages . . . are built in the following manner. . . .
“The lot, on which the house stands, universally styled the home lot, is almost of course a meadow, richly cultivated, covered during the pleasant season with verdure, and containing generally a thrifty orchard. It is hardly necessary to observe, that these appendages spread a singular cheerfulness, and beauty, over a New-England village; or that they contribute largely to render the house a delightful residence.”


  • Parkinson, Richard, 1798–1800, describing Orange Hill, near Baltimore, MD (1805: 1:163–64)[5]
“My first work on the farm was to dress the meadows; which were called fine; though the greater part of them in England would not have been thought worthy of being called meadows at all, being overrun with briars and weeds of different description. Their state indeed was such, that when I mowed them, I sometimes in making hay did not know whether it was worth putting together, or not.”


  • La Rochefoucauld Liancourt, François Alexandre-Frédéric, duc de, 1799, describing Fitterasso, estate of Dr. Baron, Charleston, SC (1800: 2:435–36)[3]
“This small plantation, named Fitterasso, consists of four hundred acres, and cost him four thousand two hundred and eighty dollars; it is situated on a small eminence near the river. The site for the house, for none has hitherto been built, is the most pleasant spot which could be chosen in this flat, level country, where the tedious sameness of the woods is scarcely variegated by some houses, thinly scattered, and where it is hardly possible to meet with a pleasant landscape. His garden is separated from the river by a morass, nearly drained; the whole extent of the northern bank of the river is nearly of the same description. Dr. Baron intends to purchase this intervening space, and to convert it into meadow-ground. This alteration will improve the prospect, without rendering it a charming vista.”


  • Ogden, John Cosens, 1800, describing Bethlehem, PA (1800: 13)[6]
“The variety of walks, rows of trees, and the plenty with which the gardens and meadows were stored, displayed taste, industry and economy.”


  • Martin, William Dickinson, 1809, describing the pleasure grounds at Salem Academy, Salem, NC (quoted in Bynum 1979: 29)[7]
“‘Next, I visited a flower garden belonging to the female department. . . . But it is situated on a hill, the East end of which is high & abrupt. . . .
“‘From the extremity of this place descended in different directions, two rows of steps, & joined again at the bottom, of the hill, where was a beautiful spring, from which issued a brisk current, winding in a serpentine course through a handsome meadow, ’til it reached a brook about a quarter of a mile distant. This place was designed for literary repast, & evening amusement—is certainly well adapted for either or both.’”


“I am often pleased with the solemn groves skirting my meadows in mahestic [sic] silence and cool appearance.”


Fig. 4, Charles Willson Peale, Sketches of Belfield, 1810.
“In this view imagine that you see a beautiful Meadow on the right. . . . The Common water course is on the edge of the Meadow on the right and the doted [sic] line is a ditch to which I have a flood-gate to let water on the Meadow at Pleasure.” [Fig. 4]


  • Pursh, Frederick, 1814, describing the plants of North America (1814: 1:v)[10]
“Her [America] forests produce an endless variety of useful and stately timber trees; her woods and hedges the most ornamental flowering shrubs, so much admired in our pleasure grounds; and her fields and meadows a number of exceedingly handsome and singular flowers (many of them possessing valuable medicinal virtues), different from those of other countries.”


  • Teacher at Moravian Boys School, 1817, describing Salem, NC (quoted in Bynum 1979: 52)[7]
“This afternoon I went with the children. . . . I took them to the tavern meadow, where they played a little round ball.”


  • du Pont, Sophie Madeleine, July 21, 1837, describing her visit to a meadow (quoted in Low and Hinsley 1987: 178)[11]
“They were making hay in the undulating meadow, which added to the picturesque effect of the scenery [sic] There is here a very convenient chaise a porteur in which I am carried, or the blackies here express it, toted, from one place to another—”


  • Lyell, Sir Charles, September 22, 1845, describing Boston, MA (1849: 1:30)[12]
“The extreme heat of summer does not allow of the green meadows and verdant lawns of England, but there are some well-kept gardens here—a costly luxury where the wages of labor are so high.”


Fig. 5, Anonymous, “View in the Meadow Park at Geneseo,” in A. J. Downing, ed., Horticulturist 3, no. 4 (October 1848): pl. opp. 153.
  • Downing, A. J., October 1848, describing Geneseo, seat of James S. Wadsworth, Genesee River Valley, NY (Horticulturist 3: 163–65)
“The great agricultural estate of the WADSWORTH family, is the pride and centre of this precious family. That magnificent tract, of thousands of acres of the finest land, which surpasses in extent and value many principalities of the old world; those broad meadows, where herds of the finest cattle crop the richest herbage, or rest under the deep shade of giant trees. . . .
“And what a prospect! The whole of that part of the valley embraced by the eye-say a thousand acres—is a park, full of the finest oaks,—and such oaks as you may have dreamed of, (if you love trees,) or, perhaps, have seen in pictures by CLAUDE LORRAINE, or our own DURAND; but not in the least like those which you meet every day in your woodland walks through the country at large. Or rather, there are thousands of such as you may have seen half a dozen examples of in your own country. . . .
“No underwood, no bushes, no thickets; nothing but single specimens or groups of giant old oaks, (mingled with, here and there, an elm,) with level glades of broad meadow beneath them! An Englishman will hardly be convinced that it is not a park, planted by the skilful hand of man hundreds of years ago.
“This great meadow park is filled with herds of the finest cattle—the pride of the home—farm.” [Fig. 5]


Fig. 6, Anonymous, “Mount Fordham—the Country Seat of Lewis G. Morris, Esq.,” in A. J. Downing, ed., Horticulturist 6, no. 8 (August 1851): pl. opp. 345.
  • Downing, A. J., August 1851, “The Annual Cattle Sale at Mount Fordham,” describing Mount Fordham, seat of Lewis G. Morris, New York, NY (Horticulturist 6: 372)
“Around the house at Mount Fordham, extends on all sides a kind of meadow-lawn, enclosed and divided by pretty wire fences of various patterns. This lawn is kept short by the grazing of improved dairy stock, and we were glad to see successfully practiced what we have been commending so strongly of late to our readers, as the most available point of English country places, that we saw on the other side of the Atlantic—that is the maintenance of a neat and handsome lawn about a country house, not only without the expense of mowing, but with united profit and beauty—the profit of grazing the grass and the beauty—the real pastoral beauty—of fine cattle, soft turf, and pleasant groups of trees, as the home landscape of our country places generally. By adopting this course, the hay-field aspect of many so-called gentlemen’s country-seats, would disappear, and a more complete and satisfactory lawn or park be acquired, with no loss of money, and the attainment of a higher species of keeping to one’s country home.” [Fig. 6]


Citations

“General DIRECTIONS, &c. . . .
“XIX. That in those serpentine Meanders, be placed at proper Distances, large Openings, which you surprizingly come to; and in the first are entertain’d with a pretty Fruit-Garden, or Paradice-Stocks . . . from which you are insensibly led through the pleasant Meanders of a shady delightful Plantation; first, into an oven [sic] Plain environ’d with lofty Pines . . . secondly, into a Flower-Garden . . . and from thence through small Inclosures of Corn, open Plains, or small Meadows. . . .
“XXVIII. Distant Hills in Parks, &c. are beautiful Objects, when planted with little Woods; as also are Valleys, when intermix’d with Water, and large Plains; and a rude Coppice in the Middle of a fine Meadow, is a delightful Object.
“XXIX. Little Walks by purling streams in Meadows, and through Corn-Fields, Thickets, &c. are delightful Entertainments.”


“MEAD. n.s. [meade, Sax.] Ground somewhat watery, not plowed, but covered with grass and flowers.
ME’ADOW.”


  • Ware, Isaac, 1756, A Complete Body of Architecture (1756: 645, 651)[15]
“A meadow and its hedge excelled all the beauty of our former gardens; because the parterre there afforded only the ill fruits of labour, and the hedge lost the very vegetable character. . ..
“Let us lead such as still prefer it [[[geometric style|geometric]] flower beds] to more free dispositions, into a May meadow, full of the common weedy flowers of that healthy season, and terminated by a hawthorn hedge in bloom. . . .”


“Under the general title of Meadow, is commonly comprehended all Pasture land, or at least all Grass Land, which is mown for Hay; but I choose rather to distinguish such land only by this Apellation, which is so low, as to be too moist for Cattle to graze upon them in winter, being too wet to admit heavy cattle, without poaching & spoiling the Sward, and those grass lands which I shall distinguish by the title of pasture.”


  • Sheridan, Thomas, 1789, A Complete Dictionary of the English Language (1789: n.p.)[17]
MEADOW, med’-do. s. A rich pasture ground, from which hay is made.”


  • Webster, Noah, 1828, An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828: 2:n.p.)[18]
“MEAD, MEADOW, n. meed, med’o. [Sax. moede, moedewe; G. matte, a mat, and a meadow; Ir. madh. The sense is extended or flat depressed land. It is supposed that this word enters into the name Mediolanum, now Milan, in Italy; that is, mead-land.]
“A tract of low land. In America, the word is applied particularly to the low ground on the banks of rivers, consisting of a rich mold or an alluvial soil, whether grass land, pasture, tillage, or wood land; as the meadows on the banks of the Connecticut. The word with us does not necessarily imply wet land. This species of land is called, in the western states, bottoms, or bottom land. The word is also used for other low or flat lands, particularly lands appropriated to the culture of grass.
“The word is said to be applied in Great Britain to land somewhat watery, but covered with grass. Johnson.
Meadow means pasture or grass land, annually mown for hay; but more particularly, land too moist for cattle to graze on in winter, without spoiling the sward. Encyc. Cyc.
“[Mead is used chiefly in poetry.]”


  • Downing, A. J., November 1846, “A Chapter on Lawns” (Horticulturist 1: 204)
“After your lawn is once fairly established, there are but two secrets in keeping it perfect— frequent mowing and rolling. Without the first, it will soon degenerate into a coarse meadow; the latter will render it firmer, closer, shorter, and finer every time it is repeated.”


  • Downing, A. J., March 1851, “The Management of Large Country Places” (Horticulturist 6: 106)
“Considerable familiarity with the country-seats on the Hudson, enables us to state that for the most part, few persons keep up a fine country place. . . .
“The remedy for this unsatisfactory condition of the large country places is, we think, a very simple one—that of turning a large part of their areas into park meadow, and feeding it, instead of mowing and cultivating it.
“The great and distinguishing beauty of England, as every one knows, is its parks. And yet the English parks are only very large meadows, studded with great oaks and elms—and grazed—profitably grazed, by deer, cattle and sheep.”



Images

Inscribed

Associated

Attributed


Notes

  1. Pehr Kalm, The America of 1750: Peter Kalm’s Travels in North America. The English Version of 1770, 2 vols. (New York: Wilson-Erickson, 1937), view on Zotero.
  2. Thomas Lee Shippen, Westover Described in 1783: A Letter and Drawing Sent by Thomas Lee Shippen, Student of Law in Williamsburg, to His Parents in Philadelphia (Richmond, VA: William Byrd Press, 1952), view on Zotero.
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 François-Alexandre-Frédéric duc de La Rochefoucauld Liancourt, Travels through the United States of North America, the Country of the Iroquois, and Upper Canada, in the Years 1795, 1796, and 1797, ed. Brisson Dupont and Charles Ponges, trans. H. Newman, 2nd ed., 4 vols. (London: R. Philips, 1800), view on Zotero.
  4. Timothy Dwight, Travels in New England and New York, 4 vols. (New Haven, CT: Timothy Dwight, 1821), view on Zotero.
  5. Richard Parkinson, A Tour in America, 1798, 1799, and 1800: Exhibiting Sketches of Society and Manners, and a Particular Account of the American System of Agriculture, with Its Recent Improvements, 2 vols. (London: J. Harding, 1805), view on Zotero.
  6. John C. Ogden, An Excursion into Bethlehem & Nazareth, in Pennsylvania, in the Year 1799 (Philadelphia: Charles Cist, 1800), view on Zotero.
  7. 7.0 7.1 Flora Ann L. Bynum, Old Salem Garden Guide (Winston-Salem, NC: Old Salem, 1979), view on Zotero.
  8. Kateryna A. Rudnytzky, “The Union of Landscape and Art: Peale’s Garden at Belfield” (Honors thesis, LaSalle University, 1986), view on Zotero.
  9. Lillian B. Miller et al, eds., The Selected Papers of Charles Willson Peale and His Family, 5 vols. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983–2000), view on Zotero.
  10. Frederick Pursh, Flora Americae Septentrionalis; Or, a Systematic Arrangement and Description of the Plants of North America, 2 vols. (London: White, Cochrane, & Co., 1814), view on Zotero.
  11. Betty-Bright Low and Jacqueline Hinsley, Sophie Du Pont, A Young Lady in America: Sketches, Diaries, & Letters, 1823–1833 (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1987), view on Zotero.
  12. Sir Charles Lyell, A Second Visit to the United States of North America, 2 vols. (New York: Harper, 1849), view on Zotero.
  13. Batty Langley, New Principles of Gardening, or The Laying out and Planting Parterres, Groves, Wildernesses, Labyrinths, Avenues, Parks, &c. (London: A. Bettesworth and J. Batley, etc., 1728; repr., New York: Garland, 1982), view on Zotero.
  14. Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language: In Which the Words Are Deduced from the Originals and Illustrated in the Different Significations by Examples from the Best Writers, 2 vols. (London: W. Strahan for J. and P. Knapton, 1755), view on Zotero.
  15. Isaac Ware, A Complete Body of Architecture (London: T. Osborne and J. Shipton, 1756), view on Zotero.
  16. Philip Miller, The Gardeners Dictionary: Containing the Methods of Cultivation and Improving the Kitchen, Fruit, and Flower Garden, 7th ed. (London: Philip Miller, 1759), view on Zotero.
  17. Thomas A. Sheridan, A Complete Dictionary of the English Language, Carefully Revised and Corrected by John Andrews . . ., 5th ed. (Philadelphia: William Young, 1789), view on Zotero.
  18. Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language, 2 vols. (New York: S. Converse, 1828), view on Zotero.

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