Highland Garden. (Without date.) 

 My Dear Friend: I have a very special favor to ask of you, and that in some 



-, Esq. He is the best friend I 



haste. 



You remember paying a visit with me to — 

 have in the world ; well proved, and is one of the most perfect gentlemen, and 

 generous high-minded men living, one, indeed, of Nature's noblemen, as I may 

 most safely say. 



He is just about sailing for Europe, with all his family, for a two years' tour, 

 and with Parhomania especially in his mind. There is no man of all my ac- 

 quaintance so thoroughly prepared to see and enjoy the finest English places. 

 Rare trees are his great hobby. 



Now, apropos of all this, I have remembered the interesting accounts of Wind- 

 sor Park that you gave me in detail, and which you saw to so much advantage 

 through your friend, Mr. Jesse, who, if I remember rightly, is the Queen's Ranger. 



If you feel at liberty to give Mr. ■ a letter recommending him to Mr. 



Jesse's kind attentions, I know it would gratify him beyond anything that I could 

 possibly do, and it will, I assure you, lay me under lasting obligation. Mr. 



has a very loyal spirit, and I think Mr. Jesse will have great satisfaction 



in playing the Cicerone to so great an enjoyer of all that he has to show. 



Now, as I know the reluctance of some persons to give letters, I beg you to 

 act frankly about this, and do not hesitate to decline at once, if you do not see 

 fit to give it. But I am inclined to hope, from your familiar intercourse with Mr. 

 Jesse, that the thing may be accomplished. 



You see how frankly I come to you in the hour of need. 



Sincerely yours, 



A. J. DOWNING. 

 To J. Jay Smith, Esq. 



Highland Gaeden, Dec. 29, 1847. 



My Dear Friend : A happy new year to you ! I suppose you are full of plans 

 and projects of country life — for the imagination, I find, is more fertile in winter 

 than in summer, and we fancy a thousand little plans, half of which we are never 

 able to carry out. 



I had a letter from a gentleman at the South lately, in which he desired to 

 know where he could get trees of that very fine species " so graphically described" 

 by J. J. S., of Philadelphia, in the Horticulturist (" arboricultural gossip"), the 

 AHrgilia lutea ? Perhaps some time hence you will give me some more notes and 

 measurements of your remarkable specimens. 



I don't know whether the style of house you are building admits of grained 

 wood-work — like oak or black walnut — but if it does, I can tell you of an inven- 

 tion that pleases me, and that will, by its cheapness and efiect recommend itself to 

 Americans. This is a liquid wood stain, invented by a man in London, whose 

 address I have. You wash over wood-work made of common pine, and th 

 varnish it, and it has the efiect o[ fine old oah; that is to say, all the real gr 



