MESSINA— A COUNTRY SEAT ON THE HUDSON. 



flower stalk is straight, and not branched, like the preceding sorts, the flower bells 

 more oblong, and the flowers a pale greenish white. It blooms at mid-summer, and is a 

 very distinct and ornamental species. Messrs. Hogg, of New- York, have, we believe, 

 cultivated it with success in the open border, for many j'ears. 



There are several other species of Yucca which are less known, but which would doubt- 

 less succeed in our gardens. Yucca draconii — the Dragon Yucca, a native of Carolina, 

 growing eight or ten feet high, which is hardy in England, would no doubt be so here; but 

 though it is to be found in many of our green-house collections, we do not hear of any one 

 having made trial of it in the open air. There is a variety of Y. gloriosa with striped 

 leaves, which is very ornamental. Y. stricta, and Y. glaucescens are an interesting spe- 

 cies, natives of the southern states, that would well repay the labor of cultivation. 



We have said enough, however, to call attention to this really noble genus of evergreen 

 plants — whose superb flowers and striking foliage, render them more valuable as orna- 

 ments to lawns, gardens, or rock work, than almost any others that we could name. As 

 the}' are mostly natives of the sea shore, they are also especially valuable to decorate the 

 grounds of the marine cottages and villas that are springing up at Newport, and other 

 sea-side watering places. Most of the sorts we have described may be had at very mode- 

 rate prices, of our leading plant growers, and nothing but ignorance of their real merits, 

 prevents their being much more generally cultivated. 



MESSINA— A COUNTRY SEAT ON THE HUDSON. 



[SEE FRONTISPIECE.] 



Whoever has not seen the country seats on the upper side of the Hudson, knows noth- 

 ing of the finest specimens of rural residences in America. There are in the neighborhood 

 of Boston, many beautiful villas and cottages, designed in admirable taste and kept in the 

 highest order, that are indeed admirable in every respect; but they, like more solitary 

 specimens of the same kind, in the environs of many of our cities, are only suburban resi- 

 dences of a few acres. There are, in various parts of the country, many gentlemen's large 

 seats, well laid out, with lawns, pleasure grounds and gardens, in a simple and unpretend- 

 ing manner, highly creditable to the possessors. But nowhere in America, are there to be 

 found country residences, where nature has done bo much to assist man in his attempts to 

 create a beautiful home, as in what may be called the upper terrace of the Hudson. This 

 includes a hill of land on the eastern shore, extending from Hyde Park to Hudson city, a 

 distance of about 50 miles. 



The peculiar advantages of this part of the river are these: First, the finest mountain 

 and river views in the country — the river being the Hudson, in its loveliest portion — some- 

 times two or three miles wide — indented in outline, and varied by numerous islands; the 

 mountains being the Catskills — their highest summit 3,000 feet high — near enough to give 

 a character of grandeur to the scene, and distant enough to possess that blue haze of at- 

 mospheric distance, which makes a mountain a bit of poetry, instead of a bare reality of 

 rocks and trees in the landscape. Second, they have the advantage of having been held 

 as country seats since the first settlement of the river — with much of the fine natural 

 beauties of wood and water preserved and heightened by the fostering spirit of 

 rather than despoiled by the avaricious spirit of the mere tiller of the soil. 



