514 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 



it is becoming. Strip away from the English cottages, that are so 

 much admired, the vines that cover, and the shrubbery that em- 

 bowers them, and they would look as bald and commonplace as the 

 most ordinary rural dwellings in America. The only difference 

 would be, that an English cottage, stripped of drapery, would show 

 plain brick walls, and tile or thatch roof ours, wooden clap-board- 

 ing and shingles. Architecturally, however, the English cottages 

 four-fifths of them are no better than our own ; but they are so 

 affectionately embosomed in foliage, that they touch the heart of 

 the traveller more than the designs of Palladio would, if they bor- 

 dered the lanes and road-sides. 



As no decoration is so cheap as vines, I was one day expressing 

 my regret to an English landscape-gardener, that the ivy was 

 neither a native of America, nor would it thrive in the northern 

 States, without considerable care. ' "You Americans -are an un- 

 grateful people," said he ; " look at that vine, clambering over yon- 



. der building, by the side of the ivy. It is, as you see, more luxuri- 

 ant, more rapid in growth, and a livelier green than our ivy. It is 

 true, it has neither the associations nor the evergreen habit of the 

 ivy ; but we think it quite as beautiful for the purpose of covering 

 walls and draping cottages." The plant he eulogized was the Vir- 

 ginia Creeper (Ampelopsis quinquefolia), an old favorite of mine, 

 and which we are just beginning rightly to estimate at home as it 

 deserves,* 



THE DERBY ARBORETUM. Derby is an interesting old town. 



and I passed a day there with much satisfaction. What I particu- 

 larly wished to see, however, was the public garden or pleasure- 



* Nothing can be more brilliant, as your readers well know, than the 

 Virginia Creeper in the autumn woods at home, where it frequently climbs 

 up the leading stem of some evergreen, and shines, in its autumnal glory, 

 like foliage of fire, through the dark foliage of a cedar or a hemlock. It 

 grows in almost every part of the country, and will cling to walls or wood- 

 work, like the ivy, without any artificial aid. "We believe this vino is less 

 frequently planted than it would be, from many persons confounding it 

 with the poison sumac vine, which a little resembles it. The Virginia 

 Creeper is, however, perfectly harmless, and may be easily known from the 

 poison vine, by the latter bearing only three leaflets to a leaf, while the 

 Virginia Creeper has five leaflets. 



