82 Notes and Recollections of a Tour. 



down, as having a large organ of marvellousness if we really 

 supposed any of our rail-road corporations would attempt 

 any thing like this ; for, besides the want of taste which will 

 long be likely to exist, the want of means will be oflfered as 

 an objection : the division of profits is before improvement of 

 property. Possibly so. But sooner or later we hope this 

 may be attempted; at any rate we are confident that the 

 proprietors of land, particularly around Boston, are well able 

 to do their part towards rendering the lines of rail-road 

 routes much more ornamental than they now are. Our ob- 

 ject is to draw attention to this subject, and as rail-roads are 

 on the increase, as we hope they will be, till all the principal 

 towns and cities are united, there will be the greater necessity 

 for such improvements. One of the greatest objections to 

 the great number of branches now contemplated, is the man- 

 ner in which they intersect, and cut up gardens and grounds, 

 destroying their beauty; but if the deep cuts were terraced 

 and improved, — the steep banks covered with trees, — and 

 the open spaces judiciously planted, it would lessen the ob- 

 jections which are now so urgently made. But to return 

 from this digression. 



The 17th being Sunday, and as our arrangements were 

 made to leave early the next morning, for Shefiield, we saw 

 nothing in the gardening way in Manchester. There are a 

 few nurseries in the neighborhood, and many fine amateur 

 collections of pinks, carnations, auriculas, ranunculuses, 

 &c. The Manchester Botanical Garden contains a fine col- 

 lection of orchidesB, and our correspondent, Mr. Mackenzie, 

 of Philadelphia, who was there last autumn, states that every 

 thing looked well under the care of Mr. Campbell, the Cura- 

 tor. The soot and smoke from the innumerable chimneys of 

 the manufactories, is any thing but favorable to vegetation, 

 and for some distance around the town, the meager foliage of 

 the trees and their blackened trunks presented a marked con- 

 trast with the turf, which, in the humid atmosphere of this 

 locality, where it rains almost every day in the year, was of 

 the richest verdure. 



Sheffield, August 18. — The traveller who goes from Man- 

 chester to Sheffield and wishes to take the pleasantest route, 

 should be careful and not go all the way by rail-road. After 



