EDITOR S TABLE. 



erto been so difficult of access, that I suspect your Rochester acquaintances would much 

 more readily have been persuaded to go to Baden-Baden, among our old enemies the 

 Hessians, than to undertake a journey hitherward that involved so much inquiry and 

 stage riding. Now all this is changed ; we arrived here by rail and steamboat, with the 

 exception of thirty-eight miles of staging, with very little fatigue. You at the North are 

 so absorbed with your own sayings and doings, that you scarcely take a thought of the 

 travelling facilities hereaway, except for special purposes. All inquiries proving fruit- 

 less, we determined to go on by easy journeys, and enquire as we proceeded; a very good 

 plan, my dear friend, and one that I trust you will always remember. There was a 

 slight idea in some minds that these enterprising Virginians were making a railroad from 

 Richmond to Knoxville, Tennessee, but it was only when we arrived very near to the 

 capital of the State, that we could ascertain positively that it was so far completed as t j 

 bring us nearly to this, almost the most distant of the rejuvinating waters of Ilygeia. 

 But it does so, andjrom here we can take stages to the other watering places over tolera- 

 bly good roads. 



The route to Baltimore and Washington you have often travelled, and you must have 

 observed that the planting done near the President's house shows already that what was 

 commenced so scientifically by your founder, is to produce an example of value to the 

 nation. The climate of Washington admits of the cultivation of various beauties, which, 

 in none of your residences, have you enjoyed the full value of; for instance, the Magnolia 

 grandiflora flourishes there and at Richmond in most glorious beauty, shining and spark- 

 ling in all its elegance. The Crape Myrtle, Lagertromia, attains the height of fifteen 

 and twenty feet ; it was in all its glory. Various other interesting plants and trees, of 

 which I have memoranda for you hereafter, attract the eye of the Northern planter, but 

 I want to ask the authorities at Washington not to cultivate any more great quantities of 

 Abele trees, and to rub off as soon as may be, the worn out whitewash that has been so 

 regularly dashed over the trunks of the ornamental plantations. Even the trees around 

 the capitol have been disfigured with this unnatural substance. Whether the increasing 

 taste for statuary of Italian marble has brought about this love of white columns or no, I 

 leave for your solution, but it would be well for you to lend all your well established 

 authority to abolish a negro custom, 



Washington, dull as it is when there are no contracts to give out or of&ces to let, has 

 its attractions, and the grand republican custom by which we were all enabled to shake 

 the hand of a most affable President, has its advantages in making each feel a little 

 touch of sovereignty ; but would you believe me if I were to tell you the truth, that I 

 was entrusted with a verbal despatch to the Secretary of War ! now here, to the import 

 that every thing was right in his department, and that he might remain and drink these 

 salubrious waters as long as he pleased! You might take advantage of this circumstance 

 to become a little newspaperish, as one of your friends proposed to me, and write an 

 "ofiicial" article to prove that the war with Spain is not imminent, and that Colonel 

 Kinney's late shipwreck has given the administration a breathing spell ! Try it, and 

 thus ascertain how your gardening friends relish politics in your pages. 



I doubt much, from appearances on the route, whether you are very popularly known 

 between Washington and Richmond. The soil, to be sure, is not propitious, but I think 

 if your face was sometimes turned hitherward, you would be very usefully employed. A 

 steamboat of respectable pretensions will convey you to Aquia Creek, some fifty miles, 

 leaving at six in the morning, and as you are not subject to fatigue, you can easily reach 

 leaving your new home the previous afternoon. They will tell you various periods 

 route as to the hour of reaching Richmond, varying from one to five o'clock, and 



