Landscape gardeners contend that their art is equal to any, and are a little sensitive that they seldom receive the homage which the artist in general receives from society. There is no doubt that if an artist is to be born and not made by mere culture or education, as it is so often contended he should be and must be, we may expect to see him cradled in a garden oftener than elsewhere. Unfortunately the artist, though garden-born, forgets his nativity; and when there is a good chance to do honor to his birthright he rarely gives landscape gardening a thought. No wonder society underrates the landscape gardener. Just now the country is exercised over a proper monument to General Grant. It is the theme of many a pen, and every large city is discussing it from many a point of view. We notice eminent landscape gardeners like Vaux having their say with the rest. But no one goes beyond stone or brass, though most admit that nearly all memorials of this kind have been sad failures. They are not truly artistic it is contended. The high art desired by the memorialists is seldom brought to life in the monument. Ugliness reigns where beauty sought a throne.

Now if high art is to be claimed by landscape gardening, why not exemplify it by a Grant Memorial Park or public garden, which in real artistic beauty should rival the public gardens of the whole world ? Such an idea would be strictly in keeping with the memory of the great name we would perpetuate. Even those who fought, bled, and suffered for the cause that was lost, never believed that it was best that there should be two powerful nations watching each other side by side on this continent. To them it was but a sad alternative that fate seemed to decide for them. Honestly but sadly they struck the blow which eventually crushed themselves. Still, amidst the sorrows which it is unnatural to suppose can yet have wholly passed away, even they rejoice that one great country has been preserved to us and that the standing armies and intolerable burdens that would have had to be borne by the jealousies of two great and neighboring nations, may now be expended in the arts of peace in which gardening has so great a share. We would not to-day enjoy as we are now doing the pleasures which gardening gives us but for the great military talent which kept this country one.

Peace could render no greater tribute to war which by its successful ending made the reign of peace possible than that which would be embodied in a memorial garden. The hand of a genius in landscape gardening could make everything tell of the greatness that brought it into existence. The Grant drive should out-grandeur all the other drives; the Grant fountain laugh forth its bubbling waters louder than its sisters; and Grant arches. Grant vases, Grant, arbors, and especial Grant gardens in the one great park, all executed with the skill that charms and yet perpetuates, would make the name of Grant a blessing to thousands; while the Semper perpetua sought after in the marble quarry or striven for in the foundry would return to earth again long before the garden's death. An an-archial mob threw down the Vendome column, and a few pounds of dynamite from the hands of some insensate may send the Arc de Triomphe in a few moments to the grave of ruin; but no invader, no enemy from within or without, could destroy a garden like that beyond a fair recovery. But will such a Grant testimonial come ? We fear not.

As we have said, there seems to be no great artist in landscape gardening at present that is capable of preserving the dignity and breadth of his own art; at least such seems to be the case; for, as we have sadly said, among all the advocates of art in the question of a Grant memorial not a landscape gardener comes forward to claim a place. The Le Notres, Reptons, Loudons and Downings are no more.