editor's table. 



antique'and modern statuary — to which C, catalogue in liand, did all too much justice — 

 yet the eye was still drawn to the windows, to a magnificent lawn, on which grew the finest 

 cedars in England. I had not seen more charming grounds. We went out, and walked 

 over the estate. We crossed a bridge, Iniilt by Inigo Jones, over a stream of which the 

 gardener did not know the name (Q«. Alph ?) ; watched the deer; climbed to the lonely 

 sculptured summer-house, on a hill backed by a wood ; came down into the Italian garden, 

 and into a French pavilion, garnished with French busts ; and so, again, to the house, where 

 we found a table laid for us with bread, meats, peaches, grapes, and wine." 



That little table of meats, fruit, and wine, is as rare as it is capital, and might safely be 

 imitated, sometimes, in America. 



The Contest. — We have passed through a contest for power unequalled for its virulence ; 

 but it has happily passed — the voice of nature may again be heard amid the beauties of the 

 garden and the field ; the wily politician who has won may, if he pleases, accept the cares 

 of otfice, and the disappointed return to his labors ; if of the farm and the greenhouse, he 

 may yet be happy. 



" Ah ! who, when such life's momentary dream, 



Would mix in hireling Senates, strenuous there 



To crush the venal Hydra, whose fell crests 



Rise with recruited venom from the wound ! 



Who, for so vain a conflict, would forego 



Thy sylvan haunts, celestial solitude ! 



Where self-improvement, crowned with self-content, 



Await to bless thy votary?" 



Orchard Hocises. — Experienced fruit growers recommend that plants in orchard houses 

 should not be too frequently repotted ; once in three or four years is said to be sufficient. 

 Another writer says of his grapes, in an orchard house : " I have to-day gathered a bunch 

 of grapes from one of my bush vines in my orchard house, which weighs one and a half 

 pounds, less half an ounce ; there are still two bunches on the vine, each of which weiglis 

 upwards of one pound ; the berries are very large. This vine is three years old, and is in 

 an eleven-inch pot ; its roots have struck through into the border, which is deep and rich. 

 Several other vines in the same house have borne excellent crops and produced large 

 bunches." 



Washing Clothes. — Whatever housekeepers may please to say or believe on the subject, 

 there can be no doiibt that one-half, at least, of the cost of clothing, in America, goes in the 

 washing — the rubbing poor stuff on hard boards. Any good modification of this absurd 

 system we are ready to patronize. It is rather singular that we should first hear of the 

 following improvement from an English Mechanics' Magazine : — 



" TJte American Floating Ball Washing Machine. — This macliine, which attracted a good 

 deal of deserved attention at the Paris Exhibition, where very many of its counterparts 

 were purchased by the English, is now being manufactured to a great extent in this country, 

 and a depot has been opened, Moore's, 133, in High Hoi born, for the purpose of informing 

 the public as to the nature of its operations. We have closely inspected this machine, and 

 seen it at work. A number of wooden balls — more or less, according to the trough in which 

 the clothes are to be washed — are set in motion by a handle worked by a lever, and whicli 

 agitates an apparatus on which the linen is placed. This movement causes the balls to rub 

 against each other, but only with sufficient percussion to pound the material to be cleansed, 

 and by their eccentric action, imitate to a nicety all the routine of a washerwoman's duties. 

 In this way, clothes are washed far cleaner than by the ordinary method, and with singular 

 rapidity. The threefold operations of pounding, rubbing, and squeezing, are done at the 

 same time ; and, as the lloating balls offer only a limited resistance to each other, the finest 

 fabrics are free from that injury which is consequent upon the ordinary course of proceeding. 

 "~ wear is, moreover, much less ; and not even a button has, it is said, been known to be 

 oQ by the thousands of the machines now in use througliout Europe, and America. 



