98 Notes of a Visit, ^c. 



thought of for building upon. However, in the hands of a 

 gentleman of taste, it was just the spot from which to carve 

 out a picturesque villa. The grounds front upon a broad 

 and magnificent avenue leading to the city, which, when laid 

 out not long ago, was cut through. a thickly wooded coun- 

 try. The house is a large and commodious one, in the rear 

 of which is the fruit garden, occupying not more than a quar- 

 ter of an acre, and ascending to the high land in the rear : 

 this and the house occupy about half of the ground : the other 

 half has been made a most beautiful grove ; this was done by 

 a judicious cutting away of whole trees in some places, and 

 by pruning and thinning the branches in others, leaving the 

 whole a picturesque mass, which years of time and labor could 

 not have produced. 



The garden contained some fine plum, peach, and pear 

 trees and grape vines, of which the Isabellas, now fully ripe 

 here, were the richest and sweetest we ever tasted ; the soil is 

 a good loam, on a dry subsoil, and, as the grapes were trained 

 to a trellis on a south fence, they were perfectly mature. The 

 plum trees were literally covered with fruit, now fully ripe, 

 and the trees had but to receive a gentle tap to cover the 

 ground with the ripest and most luscious specimens. The 

 peaches were also full of fine fruit. The pears did not show 

 the same health and vigor : the blight had slightly touched 

 some of the trees, and those that had escaped did not look as 

 we wish to see them. They were, however, yet young, and 

 will probably improve. 



A rich treat was our visit to Gen. Leavenworth, not that 

 his city garden afforded a great deal to be seen, but because 

 we had passed a social hour in the company of a gentleman 

 so fully alive to the pleasures and pursuits of a science so 

 eminently diffusive, as he has stated in an admirable address 

 delivered before the Onondaga Horticultural Society last year, 

 of enjoyment and happiness. 



In his grounds near the city, Gen. Leavenworth has up- 

 wards of seventy of the best varieties of pears, about forty of 

 plums, and forty of peaches, besides all the best cherries, ap- 

 ricots, «S6c. He was the first to introduce the Hawley apple 

 to notice, and, through his kindness, the Swan's Orange pear 

 was very extensively disseminated ; some large trees, near 



