We know from Mr. Olmsted’s own words that he had a particular interest in visiting parks both on his first European journey of 1850, and in 1856, when he was abroad attending to his publishing business and travelling also somewhat with his sisters. (p. 94)
“A market-garden, with rows of early cabbages, and lettuce, and peas;--Over a hedge, a nice, new stone villa, with the gardener shoving up the sashes of the conservatory, and the maids tearing clothes from the drying-lines;--A bridge, with children shouting and waving hats;--A field of wheat, in drills as precisely straight, and in earth as clean and finely tilled, as if it were a garden-plant.” (p. 69)
It is open to question whether we care much more than our ancestors did for all manner of beauty of nature; whether we appreciate leaf and flower form and flower color, for instance, more than they. We have a greater variety of flowers; our curiosity about them is more stimulated, our science advanced, we take more interest in them from the point of view of the collector and classifier; they are matters of fashion; we use them more profusely. (p. 18)