FOREIGN NOTICES. 



91 



their little vineyards from ten to twenty-five 

 years, and are " contented and happy, if not 

 rich." One of them, who works harder 

 than any of the others, and keeps his fami- 

 ly at work, and devotes most of his time to 

 the vineyard, made from his wine last year 

 $1,400. 



" The day is not distant," says Mr. Long- 

 worth, " when the banks of the Ohio will 

 rival the banks of the Rhine, in the quality 

 and quantity of the wine produced. Our 

 German emigrants are the people who will 

 accomplish it. Our hills, suitable for wine, 

 are of little value for other cultivation. 

 Give a German ten acres of this land, and, 

 if he has a wife and children, he will live 



in great luxury. He will never want for 

 his two greatest of all luxuries, wine and 

 sour-crout. His children, however small, 

 not only aid him in the cultivation, but his 

 wife, during the summer and fall, does the 

 greater part of the labor in the vineyard. 

 The poor vine-dressers in German}', are 

 seldom so rich as to own a horse, and there- 

 fore over-estimate their value. Yet, great- 

 ly as the}' value the acquisition of a broken- 

 down pony in this country, it does not les- 

 sen their estimation of the great value of 

 their wives in the vineyards. A very honest 

 Dutch tenant of mine, who was so unfortu- 

 nate as to lose his wife, observed to me, 'he 

 might just as well have lost his horse !' " 



FOREIGN NOTICES. 



Horticultural Satire. — M. Alphonse Karr. 

 one of the most racy and piquant of the Frcncli 

 writes of the day, lias printed the following jcii d' 

 esprit, aimed at certain classes of devotees in gene, 

 ral science no less than horticiilinre, who, by conli- 

 nuailj' fixing their attention iijion the minuliie of 

 their favorite pursuits, seem to lose the capacity for 

 enjoying or untlerstandinir all else that is interesting 

 in the universe. We translate from the Journal 

 d'Jlgriculture pratique. 



Soci tJ ties Amateurs dcs Concombres. — A new 

 horticultural society is about bcins formed in Eng- 

 land. The members of this society have remarked 

 that the mmd of man is too narrow to embrace a 

 sufficient admiration of the worlcs of t'le Creator ; 

 they have observed that many have already had an 

 instinct of this truth ; that horticulturists, for exam- 

 ple, have no estimation of insects ; that entomolo- 

 gists pride themselves upon being almost ignorant 

 that there are flowers ; that among horticulturists 

 themselves, some love nothing but tidips ; and that 

 anmng amateurs there are some who have no regard 

 for any tulips but those with white grounds, and in- 

 deed among tulips with white grounds only value 

 those varieties which form a part of their own col- 

 lection. In this way, by consecrating their whole 

 life and all their faculties to the study and the ad- 

 miration of a single flower, they are able at last 

 sufficiently to admire and appreciate it ! 



The new society in question aims to upply this 

 division of mental labor to vegetables. It will de- 

 vote itself to Cucumbers, and will take the title of 

 the •' Sorinty of Cucumbers," in the hope of induc- 

 ing other new societies to consecrate themselves to 

 other species of vegetables. Alphonse Karr- 



I Floral Embellishments for Farm-houses. — 

 Talk not to me of the suburban residences, with 

 their windows decorated with geraniums and heaths, 

 with lij'acinths and irises. I would also have the win- 

 dows of our farm houses adorned with flowers, not in 

 rusty tin measures, and old black glazed spoutless 

 tenpots, and glass bottles with their necks broken 

 oil', but in whole and handsome flower pots, or 

 neatly painted wooden boxes, for they really cost 

 little or nothing. I would have the piazzas or 

 porches trellised with vines, even with scarlet run- 

 ners, if nothing else could be had. I would have 

 the door-yard tilled with flowers and shrubbery, and 

 the roadside lined with trees — here a clump, and 

 there a single line, mingling the varieties as nature 

 mingles them, cultivating them for fruit, and culti- 

 vating them also for ornament and beauty ; but this 

 is all. you will tell me, for mere appearance sake. 

 Well, I will reply, is appearance nothing? Do you 

 think nothing of appearance when you choose your 

 wives, and nothing of your own appearance when 

 you wish them to confirm the election ? But why 

 should the pleasure of sight be so lijrhtly esteemed ! 

 Why should they be spoken of in language of dis- 

 dain or indifTerence ? Are they not as rational, as 

 respectable, as valuable as abundant, and as inno- 

 cent as the other senses ? Arc they not, indeed, the 

 very elements of some of the most refined pleasures 

 of the mind and heart ? Has God given us the sense 

 of sight, so wonderful, so capacious, so infinitely 

 varied in its resources and objects, for no purpose ? 

 Is appear nee noth.ntr, even though it be the win- 

 dow of a farm-house ? What is more studied than 

 appearance throughout the work of the Creator? 

 What object is there in nature, from the highest to 



