A'otes on Country S^ats Near Boston.— I doubt whether your correspondent is correct 

 in saying that the houses are too small, or that the barns are too large. That is a very 

 strange fault to find with country seats generally; they are quite too often apt to differ 

 the other way. The chief fault, I apprehend, if fault there be, is, that the relative posi- 

 tion of the barn is not right, as to the house. Never recommend a man to build a large 

 house. The tendency is too much in that direction already, and where one builds too 

 small and compact, twenty build too large and too expensive. A man who sets out to find 

 fault with the country houses about Boston, may, no doubt, find abundant material for 

 his occupation; but I doubt whether there is a place in the world where, taken altogether, 

 so much good taste in the aggregate has been displayed, as in the neighborhood of that 

 city. The land is naturally poor, wretchedly so, compared with good American land. It is 

 rocky almost every where, swampy in places, and not over picturesque at the best; but there 

 are many sweet spots, which the ingenuity of man has moulded out of the most forbidding 

 materials. No, No. The Puritan blood of old Massachusetts has beat the whole Ameri- 

 can world in subduing a sterile soil, and smoothing away the rugged places; and instead 

 of finding fault with what they have done, the wonder is, that under such difficulties they 

 have accomplished half so much as is shown in their charming retreats, their suburban 

 houses, and beautiful grounds. 



What would the Bostonians have done had they possessed the promontories on the Jer- 

 .«:ey side of the Hudson river, the pallisades, the highlands above, the grand belts of wood- 

 ed, and the fine swells of open land, along the river, through Rockland and Putnam, and 

 Orange and Dutchess, and Ulster counties, with their own spirit of improvement, and the 

 wealth of New-York to back up their suburban taste and enterprise.' Or about the more 

 level precincts of Philadelphia, even? A different sort of improvement would have been 

 made longer ago, and in somewhat better taste, I fancy, than exists in many instances. 



The Hydraulic Ram. — An excellent notice of one of the most useful inventions of the 

 age. Every man who has a stream of water which he can make available, should at once 

 adopt it, where the stream lies too low to spout the water into his yards and buildings. 

 The agricultural stores all have them, cheap and good; and they are so simple in their 

 management, that no apology should be admitted for their absence, where needed. 



The Orange Pear. — Tut, tut, gentlemen. This Orange Pear, if it has any merit, will 

 take care of itself. It u.sed to be a pretty good fruit over in Jersey, in old times; and I 

 should be sorry to learn that it had lost either its good manners, or good qualities in Buf- 

 falo. I've been thinking that some of these ipse-dixits of the apple conventions would fall 

 out one of these days. It always was, and I fancy it always will be the case, that posi- 

 tive gentlemen will be mistaken in their opinions once in a while. Let us have the pear 

 baked and preserved, the first " done brown," and the other " transparent;" and if you 

 will suffer me to be the judge, you shall have one honest judgment, to say the least of it. 



Those Grand-Island orchards I should like to see. I hobble out to Niagara once in four 

 or five years, and if the swimming is good — for I dont suppose you have any ferries in that 

 wild country — I may try to get over there and take a look at them. I beg of you, both 

 Col. Hodge and Mr. Allen, not to be afraid of planting, for when our two belligerent 

 parties of the state get the enlarged Erie canal fairly dug out, the eastern markets will be 

 ready for them. 



7 he Snake Plant of South America. — If this story be not a " Munchausen," I don't 

 know what is. It smacks too much of the " penny-a-liner," and Dickens, and "House 

 Words," for me to believe. There are, no doubt, plants in South America tha 

 le snake bites — or, perhaps, by taking them internally — ward off their poison 



