Tovewn Notices: — Noiih Aiiiericci. 467 



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Petersen can receive is, doubtless, the consciousness of having done so much 

 good : but we trust his royal master will, by some means, be rendered aware 

 of the very extraordinary merits of INI. Petersen ; and how much he, in com- 

 mon with his subjects, is indebted to him for the introduction of what will 

 eventually prove of so much real good to the country. There is no one who does 

 not benefit from the introduction of new and improved culinary vegetables and 

 fruits, from the peasant to the prince; or any garden, whether that of a cottage 

 or a palace, that will not be increased in beauty by new flowers. Besides this, 

 there is a moral influence in gardening improvements, of far greater importance 

 than the mere physical enjoyments "that they afford. A taste for peaceful 

 occupations is created ; reflections on the works of nature are induced ; man 

 begins to enquire and to read; he becomes humanised, and so far cultivated 

 as to look upon his fellow creatures in other countries as his brethren ; and, as 

 a consequence of this, he will soon learn to loathe that scourge of the human 

 race, war. — Cond. 



NORTH AMERICA. 



Carouie, near Quebec, the scat of William Atkinson, Esq., is mentioned in 

 Vol. IX. p. 161., by our valued correspondent Counsellor Hart of Montreal. 

 The proprietor, Mr. Atkinson, is now in England, after having made the tour 

 of France, Italy, and Germany, and collected every where plants, seeds, sculp- 

 tures, pictures, books, and other objects for enriching and ornamenting his 

 beautiful seat. He describes Carouie as situated on a piece of table land on 

 the top of a precipice 200 ft. high, and flanked by a wooded mountain range. 

 From the windows of the balcony of the principal front of the house, the 

 shipping in the harbour of Quebec is distinctly seen. A part of the grounds, 

 called Spencer Wood, was occupied by the troops under General Wolfe when 

 he attacked the town. The trees in the park, from what Mr. Atkinson stated 

 to us, appear to be chiefly the v/hite and red oak, and the hemlock and white 

 spruce. The house is built of hemlock spruce ; and the walls are so constructed 

 as to admit of a free circulation of air from the bottom of the masonry to 

 the eaves. Though built upwards of a century ago, the interior of the walls is 

 as fresh as if they were newly put up. It seems the hemlock spruce begins to rot 

 at the centre of the trunk ; and, to prevent this, the trees were sawn up the 

 middle, so as to expose the centre to the air. After placing one tree on 

 another, to the height of the wall, in the usual manner, both the inside and 

 the outside were battened with pieces of quartering from 1 in. to 6 in. in thick- 

 ness ; and to these the weather-boarding outside, and the laths for plastering 

 inside, or the wainscoting, when that mode is employed, are nailed in the 

 usual manner. A concealed opening is left under the lower weather-board, 

 and at the eaves of the roof; in consequence of which, there is a constant cir- 

 culation of air between the outside weather-boarding and the inside wains- 

 coting, or plastering. Mr. Atkinson, from whom we hope to hear frequently, 

 has an excellent Scotch gardener, Mr. Melville, who, we trust, will be induced 

 by his master to become a regular correspondent. The principal botanist in 

 the, neighbourhood of Quebec, Mr. Atkinson informs us, is Mrs. Shepherd. 

 Mr. Atkinson's kitchen-garden is 4 acres in extent, and contains a range of 

 glass 300 ft. long. The dwelling-house, a beautiful lithographic view of which, 

 and the surrounding scenery, was presented to us by Mr. Atkinson, is connected 

 with a splendid conservatory. 



Shell-hark Hickory Nuts and the Black Walnut. — You did not mention the 

 receipt of the large hickory nuts I sent you in the summer of 1835 ; and, there- 

 fore, I send now a few real shell-bark hickory nuts, which are double the size 

 of any I ever saw before. These grew in New Jersey. The hickory nuts I pur- 

 chased in the Pittsburg market, in September, 1834. The sholl-baiks, large 

 or small, are delicious ; whereas the meat of the black walnut, as you remark 

 in the Arboretum, is " scarcely eatable." The reason is, that the kernel abounds 

 with oil of a strong taste. I think that the i-emarks you have quoted (p. 1 129.) 

 from Michaux, of the black dye from the walnut husks, and of the oil obtained 



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