Frontispiece. Prize Geranium.— Few per- 

 sons, who have not seen the great horticultural 

 exhibitions of London, can form any just idea of 

 the perfection to which the culture of plants in 

 pots has been brought in modern times. A Gera- 

 nium or Heath, as commonly seen in a pot, bears 

 the same relation to the same plant, carefully 

 grown for exhibition by the first rate plant grower, 

 that the leanest and most starved brindle does to 

 a slick and finely formed Short-Horn. The plant 

 is in the first place perfect in its shape, and sym- 

 metrical in all its proportions; the foliage dense, 

 and of a healthful colour and appearance, and 

 the flowers are borne in such profusion, and are 

 so finely formed, and clear and beautiful in colour, 

 that you stand astonished at the wonderful achieve- 

 ment in the art of culture that stands before you. 



To give some faint idea of the appearance of 

 one of these showy specimens, we refer our readers 

 to our Frontispiece, representing a Geranium or 

 Pelargonium, grown by Mr. John Parker, gar- 

 dener to Mr. Oughton, Elm Grove., and exhibited 

 at the show of the Royal Botanic Society. The 

 specimen was afterwards presented to the Queen. 



The Heart of New-York. — The Erie Rail- 

 road has opened, and is opening, (for it has not 

 yet reached Lake Erie,) a new State of New- 

 York — a most picturesque and interesting coun- 

 try, which, from its former comparative in- 

 accessibility, was an unknown land to the 

 majority of travellers, and, we may add, even 

 to the largest part of the citizens of New-York. 



Wp passed over a portion of this road lately, 

 as far as Cayuga lake, in the ripest beauty of 

 autumn, and were greatly delighted with the 

 .interest of the scenery. The whole line of this 

 road has the novelty of a new country about it. 

 The region watered by the Delaware is wildly 

 picturesque — with its wooded hills, its half- 

 subdued forest thickets, and its dashing, impet- 

 uous streams. The Susquehanna country is 

 now smiling and inviting in character, and is 

 full of suggestions of the finest pastoral life in 

 its valleys of sweet waters and glades and mea- 

 dows of rich pasture land. But the shores of 

 the Cayuga lake have a repose and cultured 

 beauty about them which both particularly 



pleased and surprised us. The memory of the 

 little town of Aurora most especially remains 

 with us. It is not. like some of the great clas- 

 sical cities of Western New-York, a misnomer 

 in its very name, but there is such a worning 

 freshness and youth about it that the goddess 

 whose name it bears has no reason to be ashamed 

 of the christening. The shores of Cayuga lake 

 about this place, rise gently from the water, 

 and are finely fri-iged and dotted with forest 

 trees; among maples and elms which line (New 

 England-like) the principal street of the village, 

 are scattered the simple but neat houses, and as 

 a centre to the grouping, rise a fine academy 

 and village church, half hidden — like a French 

 chateau — in a bosquet of tall daik-green poplars. 

 Pretty gardens filled with fine shrubs and flow- 

 ers, (we noticed perpetual roses and Paulownias 

 in the grounds of Dr. Thompson,) and neat lit- 

 tle villas with lawns running down to the lake, 

 make up a picture of rural beauty such as one 

 rarely sees; and if Aurora does not deserve 

 mention among the half dozen prettiest villages 

 in America, then are our eyes worth nothing as 

 a medium for this kind of impressions. Cayuga 

 lake is about four miles wide here, and stretches 

 away up and down, some 40 or 50 miles in all. 

 The waters are of crystalline purity, and so 

 deep that the lake here never freezes in winter. 

 The consequence of this is a mildness of climate 

 much greater than any part of New England — 

 Tea roses standing the winter with very little 

 protection, and peaches bearing the finest crops 

 of fruit, without disease in the trees, and with 

 little or no care beyond the trouble of planting 

 them. The Doyenne (or Virgalieu) pear thrives 

 wonderfully in the soil here — the fruit more fair 

 and beautiful than we remember to have seen it 

 elsewhere.* When we add to this that the so- 

 ciety is unusually good — the schools excellent — 

 land worth only $30 or $40 per acre, and the 

 neighborhood perfectly healthy, it will be seen 

 that this is a region worth the attention of 

 people who wish to "settle." The Erie rail- 

 road (with a branch of a few miles) leaves you 

 at Ithaca — the head of the lake, and railroad and 



♦Three Irees were slioM'n us the fruil of which had just 

 been sold in .\. Y. market for $(34. 



